Computational Thinking: An Important Skill For Everyone
The term computational thinking was first used by Seymour Papert in 1980. It means thinking or solving problems like computer scientists. Why should we learn computational thinking? We don’t want to be a computer scientist. Hold on, I’m not talking how to be a computer scientist, I’m talking how to think like computer scientists.
We faced a lot of complex problem nowadays, it’s hard to solve that problems if we don’t have this particular skill. It requires computational thinking which consists of decomposition, pattern recognition / data representation, generalization/abstraction, and algorithms. As a computer scientist, it’s mandatory to have computational thinking, since we need to teach the dumbest thing in the world, computer, how to solve the problem.
We can’t dismiss that technology is developing so rapidly. All complex problem can be solved by tech without human intervention. Every repetitive work will be replaced soon by computer, disrupting many traditional industries. Tech has a side effect. It will increasing unemployment but at the same time it will also increasing productivity.
Most of our kids learn something that will be replaced by computer. Making 12 years education worthless. In general we have the four Cs of 21st century important skills to learn, there are communication, critical thinking, collaboration, and creativity. In Indonesia, we have calistung membaca, menulis, menghitung (reading, writing, calculating). But we lack of computational thinking, making us easily replaced by computer.
IMO, most of today's education still teach extensive problem that actually can be solved by computer. Our kids know the concept of how to multiply numbers by adding them multiple time. But they have to do it manually. Making wrong perception the smartest kids is determined by how fast they are, not based on the ability to grasp the concept. Understand the concept is one of the computational skill characteristics, generalization.
Computational thinking will be common skill that most of students need to learn. Soon than you think every school will be teaching you computational thinking.
Everybody in this country should learn how to program a computer… because it teach you how to think.
- Steve Jobs -
