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Thinking Like a Computer
Anyone who has seen a toddler pick up a smartphone and immediately, seemingly intuitively, know how to use it has witnessed the ways in which computers have changed how we think. As algorithms have become increasingly enmeshed in everyday life, we have adapted our thought processes to better utilize and communicate with them. In their book Computational Thinking, Peter J. Denning and Matti Tedre examine the development of these thought processes and show how they help us understand everything from software development to biology. The authors define computational thinking as "the mental skills and practices for designing computations that get computers to do jobs for us, and for explaining and interpreting the world as a complex of information processes." Many aspects of computational thinking have a long history that predates the invention of electronic computers. Now curricula aimed at preparing students for the modern world are attempting to teach computational thinking. In this excerpt, Denning and Tedre recount the process of integrating computational thinking into the education of students in kindergartetr through grade 12.
Through the 1990s, computational thinking (CT) education was mostly the purview of universities; very little CT education was available elsewhere. Pre-college K-12 schools had a scattering of computer courses; most focused on computer literacy and a handful on programming. A tipping point came after 2000, when many people saw how pervasive computing was in everyday work and home life. Educators and policymakers began to agree that understanding the mechanisms of digitalization is an important 21st-century skill.
The previously obscure notion of the algorithm entered everyday conversation as people dted value they had received from algorithms on their web searches, income tax preparation, online shopping, spreadsheets, neatly formatted documents, display-ready presentations, and computerized courses, and then later on smartphones, social networks, ride hailing, short-term renting, dating, finding friends, and much more. It seemed that understanding how it all worked was central for coping in the modern world. It was finally time to bring computing to the K-12 level of education.
CT...