Introduction to computational thinking

Introduction

Sounds great that ‘One can major [i.e. graduate] in computer science and do anything’, doesn’t it? Then again, isn’t this miles away from the view of computing as a training ground for programmers and system builders? The good news is that one doesn’t necessarily need to exclude the other! The grand vision behind this quote is that learning to program, build large systems, and so on, allows you to develop something which is much more valuable than any of these on their own, namely the ability to think like a computer scientist. Over the past decade or so, Jeannette Wing has been popularising this view under the banner of computational thinking.

Figure 1 Abstraction, a recurring theme in this course, illustrated by four representations of a cow by Theo van Doesburg, 1917, 1918

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The figure comprises four artworks: two drawings at the top and two paintings beneath. Starting at the top left-hand image and moving clockwise the pieces demonstrate increasing abstraction.

The top left-hand artwork is an outline sketch of a cow, and appears unfinished. The second drawing is more abstract and has rectangles superimposed on the cow’s body.

The first painting (at the bottom right-hand side of the figure) depicts a cow on a green background, but the cow is composed of blocks (mostly rectangular) of solid colour.

The final painting is comprised entirely of different-sized blocks of solid colour. Four blocks are green and represent the background. The cow depicted in the earlier pieces is represented by strategically arranged blocks of blue, black, red and yellow.

Abstraction, a recurring theme in this course, illustrated by four representations of a cow by Theo van Doesburg, 1917, 1918

Much of the material in this course is organised around video clips from a presentation that Wing gave in 2009 entitled ‘Computational Thinking and Thinking About Computing’ (Wing, 2009). The presentation builds on Wing’s influential 2006 ‘Computational Thinking’ paper in which she set out to ‘spread the joy, awe, and power of computer science, aiming to make computational thinking commonplace’ (Wing, 2006, p. 35).

In this course you will learn more about what computational thinking is and why it is such a desirable skill – arguably the skill for the twenty-first century.

This OpenLearn course is an adapted extract from the Open University course M269 Algorithms, data structures and computability [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] .