Information Technology Education

Now that my students have had some hands-on practice with computational thinking (CT), I wanted them to see how it is used in real-life to solve real problems in the computing world.  I showed them this great video about how Google uses CT with Google Earth. We talked about how all the aspects of CT were used to solve the problem with pegman, or in the words of one of my third graders, "Pegman is so dumb that he can only land in fields."  I wanted to see my students apply CT vocabulary to a new situation, not just one that they did themselves hands-on.  In other words, I am looking for transfer of learning to novel situations to be sure that 'they really know what they are talking about.' Here are some student responses: "In Google, they use CT like decomposition which is breaking down big problems and making them smaller.  Another aspect of CT is algorithms which is a step by step strategy.  Another is pattern recognition which is identifying patterns and simil...

This starts a series of blogs on computational thinking (CT) and how I have been integrating it into my third/fourth grade class.  I started with a hands-on, "unplugged" activity from learn.code.org.  The video from learn.code.org provides background on CT as well as lesson ideas on teaching it in the classroom. Through decomposing, looking for patterns, abstraction, and algorithmic thinking (hence the CT in 4 parts), my students learned the terminology as well as the concepts behind CT in a hands-on and engaging manner.  They were able to label what they were doing with the monsters using the CT terminology.  It provided a great introduction in order to delve deeper into CT and all its applications. Here are some student responses: "Computational thinking requires problem-solving.  Look for patterns.  When we were working on the monster thing, each monster had its own parts.  We had to find new parts for each monster.  We had to take apart the m...