Computational Thinking (otherwise known as computer programming)

There are many great resources to help learners learn programming. The list below covers programs that work with learners as young as Kindergarten as well as programs great for elementary and middle school. There are also links to some publications from ISTE that focus on computational thinking, as well as a site from Google that will help you gain a better understanding of just what makes up computational thinking and why it is important for learners.

Are you wondering why you should teach computational thinking? Check out this video from ISTE, Computational Thinking: A Digital Skill for Everyone, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFcUgSYyRPg.

ISTE also has great resources on computational thinking on this page: https://www.iste.org/explore/articleDetail?articleid=152&category=Solutions&article=Computational-thinking-for-all. Quoting from the website “ISTE's Computational Thinking Toolkit is a complete collection of all of our CT resources. From presentations and handouts to surveys and graphic animations, you'll find everything you need to learn more about or to advocate for CT. You can use resources in the Computational Thinking Toolkit for conference presentations, study groups or meetings with educators, parents, community or industry leaders.” You can download the complete toolkit, or you can download individual components.

This two page article, Computational Thinking: A Digital Skill for Everyone, at http://www.csta.acm.org/Curriculum/sub/CurrFiles/LLCTArticle.pdf provides a great overview of computational thinking.

The Computer Science Teacher Association also provides a range of references, http://www.csta.acm.org/Curriculum/sub/CompThinking.html.

If you are looking for a chart that shows how computational thinking can be used across the curriculum this resource should be helpful, http://www.csta.acm.org/Curriculum/sub/CurrFiles/CTExamplesTable.pdf.

One final place to consider checking out is Barefoot Computing (http://barefootcas.org.uk/). This site is out of England and a variety of resources, but you will need to create an account (it is free). This page (http://barefootcas.org.uk/barefoot-primary-computing-resources/concepts/computational-thinking/) provides a link to a short video that discusses Computational Thinking, as well as a great visual (which cannot be attached as far as I can tell).

 

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