
Computational thinking, 10 years later - alib
https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/msr_er/2016/03/23/computational-thinking-10-years-later/
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aheilbut
Wasn't Papert talking about this stuff in the 1960s and 70s? It seems a little
arrogant to celebrate the 10th anniversary of something published in 2006
without reference to the preceeding 50 years.

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p_l
Papert's approach was, AFAIK, wildly different compared to recent spread of
"just teach people to code".

Papert was going more about actual thinking and exploration using new tools,
rather than "teaching everyone to code".

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abecedarius
I was taught French in elementary school. It didn't take, and as an adult in
Lausanne I had to call on Google Translate a lot.

Kids on an extended trip to France reliably learn French. IIRC Papert asked
why we can't have a Mathland that works that way, and tried to build one in
Logo and the culture around it. This produced at least one awesome, ripping
book ( _Turtle Geometry_ ), some excellent ones like _Computer Science Logo
Style_ , and I imagine some local incarnations of Mathland where enough
acculturated people got together. I'd guess that schools taking it up too
quickly was what smothered it, under school's immense power to turn everything
in school into more school. I haven't yet read Papert's later books, though.

We need both let's-make-school-suck-less and ways to learn outside it. I hope
someone with experience in these matters will comment.

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gumby
Just as there are thing incomprehensible without at understanding of at least
the principles of algebra and calculus, there are things that are
incomprehensible (magic) without an understanding of what computation entails.

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biquillo
What a shameful article. No Seymour Papert, no Arduino, no Processing, not a
single bit of Scratch...

so sad :(

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fndjdh
But why.

Children need to learn CS concepts in order to use a computer about the same
amount they need to learn mechanical engineering in order to ride on the
school bus.

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lake99
You're mixing up matters in your analogy. Riding a school bus is a passive
task. Using a computer is an active task. You need a Mech. Eng. to design and
build a bus. You don't need a Mech. Eng. to maintain a bus. Practically
everyone should maintain their own personal computers.

I won't go into why CS concepts are important in school. My coffee has not yet
reached my bloodstream.

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jakub_h
Perhaps a better analogy would be driving cars vs. designing car engines? At
least I vaguely recall something like this from Amazon reviews of SICP.

