
Computational Thinking for All Students - danso
https://research.googleblog.com/2016/08/computational-thinking-for-all-students.html
======
bmer
This is so cliche, and so utterly passe. I wasn't a K-12 student all that long
ago, and if I saw this, I would view it as another thinly veiled attempt at
the teacher trying to feel good about how good a teacher they are, while being
utterly boring.

That might be because I totally drink this flavour of kool-aid:
[https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/transcriptions/EWD10xx/EWD103...](https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/transcriptions/EWD10xx/EWD1036.html)

~~~
danso
Why is it cliche and passe? (asking as someone who was K-12 a long long time
ago)

~~~
bmer
It's difficult for me to put a finger on it, and that's exactly why I stoop to
using words that signify subjective feelings like "cliche" or worse yet,
"passe".

The long story would be that it doesn't actually teach you _how_ to grok
things (like Barb Oakley's "A Mind for Numbers" [https://www.amazon.com/Mind-
Numbers-Science-Flunked-Algebra/...](https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Numbers-
Science-Flunked-
Algebra/dp/039916524X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1471415187&sr=1-1) and
the related Coursera "Learning how to learn").

If I am taught metacognitive skills, I can pick up new ways of thinking, and
heck, even create them.

On the other hand, if I rabbits are just pulled out of hats in front of my
eyes, with said rabbits being sexually appealing with some buzzwords, then it
all comes off like this: "hey fellow kids[I highly recommend
[https://www.reddit.com/r/FellowKids/top/?sort=top&t=all](https://www.reddit.com/r/FellowKids/top/?sort=top&t=all)],
check out this cutting edge new algorithm called Eratosthenes' Sieve,
presented by Big Data specialist Google; also, did I already say big data?
Maybe I should say deep learning too then! Oh yeah, all the buzzwords! Over
9000 of them!", my eyes glaze over...

I know this is going to be great for those one or two random kids in my class
who seem to get it "right away" (i.e. have seen it before), while I am
probably just going to feel dumb: "Hey mister, how can I too pull out rabbits
from hats?", and their only answer for me will be "Well, it's easy! Let me
pull out another rabbit from a hat, and you'll totally get it!". A few tries
later, they'll just be disappointed with me and then we'll all realize that I
am _not_ the next Tony Stark, and I definitely won't be getting a job at
Google.

EDIT: thinking about it a bit further (especially by considering why I got a
"hey fellow kids!" vibe from it), I now come to realize that I had warning
bells ringing in my head that this is basically a way for Google to raise
brand awareness amongst youth, which is especially off-putting because of how
easy it is to see-through, since no effort is made to hide it:

"Our videos illustrate real-world examples of the application of computational
thinking in Google’s products and services..."

------
ontouchstart
I think in this blog post, "computational thinking" means "procedural
thinking" in the sense of automated data processing, which fits pretty well
with the "big data" agenda of Google (and IBM in the pre-internet days).

There is another kind of "computational" in the sense of simulation, data
modelling and interactive computing. It follows the line of augmenting human
intellect and man-computer symbiosis in the sense of Doug Engelbart and J.C.R.
Licklider.

What kind of future do we want our kids to be in?

