Computational Thinking

My vision for the 21st century: Computational thinking will be a fundamental skill used by everyone in the world. To reading, writing, and arithmetic, let's add computational thinking to every child's analytical ability. Computational thinking is an approach to solving problems, building systems, and understanding human behavior that draws on the power and limits of computing. Computational thinking requires thinking abstractly and thinking at multiple levels of abstraction. In this talk I will argue that computational thinking has already begun to influence many disciplines, from the sciences to the humanities, but that the best is yet to come. Looking to the future, we can anticipate even more profound impact of computational thinking on science, technology, and society-on the ways new discoveries will be made, innovation will occur, and cultures will evolve. The NSF Cyber-Enabled Discovery and Innovation initiative in a nutshell is computational thinking for science and engineering. Realizing this vision gives the field of computing both exciting research opportunities and novel educational challenges.