computational thinking
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Computational Thinking
Jon UdellUCEA
April 2009
A set of
principles, practices, and patterns
that govern the
structure, flow, and processing
of information in networks.
What is computational thinking?
Who learns these principles today?
Mathematicians computer scientists
geeks
Who should learn them?
Everybody
WHY?
Our fate as a society depends on our collective ability to
create, organize, navigate,
search, interconnect, and reason
in (and about)networks of
people
andinformation
What are some principles of computational thinking?
Indirection
Abstraction
Namespace management
Publish/subscribe syndication
Query
Composition/decomposition
Generalization/specialization
Structured data
Automation
How would Piaget explain this?
And how would Piaget explain this?
The structured Information must be here, right?
Actually, no, it isn’t anywhere.
Andy Baio’s analysis of Feed the Animals
Track data on Wikipedia
Amazon Mechanical Turk bulk requester
What principles did Andy apply?
Structured data
Decomposition
Composition
Automation Generalization
oreilly.com search: before
oreilly.com search: after
What principle did Allen Noren apply?
Namespace management
Every book has a unique keyword, or tag
Mine was pracintgr for Practical Internet Groupware
The tag is used consistently in URLs for:
Tables of contents
Cover images
Summaries
Indexes
Author bios
What principles did I apply on Allen’s behalf?
Abstraction
Structured data
Automation
Transparency Camp 2009
Principles in use at Transparency Camp
Publish/subscribe syndication
Namespace management
Indirection
Query
Public events: the conventional way
Public events: the computational way
Principle: structured data
How we describe calendar events:
"Communications Committee, Tuesday at 5:30, Cheshire Career Center Conference Room, KHS"
How computers understand calendar events:
DTSTART:20080617T173000 SUMMARY:Communications Committee LOCATION:KHS , Cheshire Career Center Conference Room
Anti-principle: Artificial intelligence
We infer context easily. Software tries hard, often fails.
Principles: indirection, pub/sub
Keene Sentinel: Monday night chess club, 6:30 PM, Best Western Hotel (wrong)
Eventful.com: Monday night chess club, 6:30 PM, E.F. Lane Hotel (right)
When we are authoritative producers of feeds, and when the newspaper consumes them, the Information we provide will be timely and correct.
“We posted weekly.pdf to the website. Isn’t that good enough?”
Principles: abstraction, generalization
Bloggers publish and subscribe to feeds
So do Twitterers
Abstraction: Publish/subscribe is a key pattern.
Generalization: iCalendar files are feeds, can form pub/sub networks.
Calendar curation for Huntington, WV
Metadata for Huntington, WV
One of these thingsIs not like the other.
Project-wide metadata
Project communication / collaboration
The room orchestrates feedsIn the same way that the project Itself does.
Principles at work in the elmcity project
Indirection
Abstraction
Namespace management
Publish/subscribe syndication
Query
Composition/decomposition
Generalization/specialization
Structured data
Automation
How do we learn and apply these principles?
How do we teach them?
Let’s discuss.
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