Computational Thinking

Computational thinking will be a fundamental skill used by everyone in the world. To reading, writing, and arithmetic, we should add computational thinking to every child’s analytical ability. Computational thinking involves solving problems, designing systems, and understanding human behavior by drawing on the concepts that are fundamental to computer science. Thinking like a computer scientist means more than being able to program a computer. It requires the ability to abstract and thus to think at multiple levels of abstraction.

In this keynote address from Asia Faculty Summit 2012, Jeannette Wing, head of the Computer Science Department at Carnegie Mellon University, provides examples of computational thinking, argues that it has already influenced other disciplines, and promotes the idea that teaching computational thinking can not only inspire future generations to enter the field of computer science but benefit people in all fields.