Computational Thinking Jeannette M. Wing President’s Professor of Computer Science Carnegie Mellon University and Assistant Director Computer and Information Science and Engineering Directorate National Science Foundation  2008 Jeannette M. Wing

2EU MURSJeannette M. Wing Six Questions 1.Minor -> Major Dialogues 2.Methods for Science-Society Dialogue 3.Which subjects should give rise to this dialogue? 4.Should Dialogue be European in scope? 5.Who should initiate and organize the Dialogues? 6.What is scientists’ responsibility in the Dialogues?

3EU MURSJeannette M. Wing Six Questions 1.Minor -> Major Dialogues 2.Methods for Science-Society Dialogue 3.Which subjects should give rise to this dialogue? 4.Should Dialogue be European in scope? 5.Who should initiate and organize the Dialogues? 6.What is scientists’ responsibility in the Dialogues? Computational Thinking No

4EU MURSJeannette M. Wing My Grand Vision for Society Computational thinking will be a fundamental skill used by everyone in the world by the middle of the 21 st Century. –Just like reading, writing, and arithmetic. –Imagine every child knowing how to think like a computer scientist! –Incestuous: Computing and computers will enable the spread of computational thinking. –In research: scientists, engineers, …, historians, artists –In education: K-12 students and teachers, undergrads, … J.M. Wing, “Computational Thinking,” CACM Viewpoint, March 2006, pp

5EU MURSJeannette M. Wing Examples of Computational Thinking How difficult is this problem and how best can I solve it? –Theoretical computer science gives precise meaning to these and related questions and their answers. C.T. is thinking recursively. C.T. is reformulating a seemingly difficult problem into one which we know how to solve. –Reduction, embedding, transformation, simulation C.T. is choosing an appropriate representation or modeling the relevant aspects of a problem to make it tractable. C.T. is interpreting code as data and data as code. C.T. is using abstraction and decomposition in tackling a large complex task. C.T. is judging a system’s design for its simplicity and elegance. C.T. is type checking, as a generalization of dimensional analysis. C.T. is prevention, detection, and recovery from worst-case scenarios through redundancy, damage containment, and error correction. C.T. is modularizing something in anticipation of multiple users and prefetching and caching in anticipation of future use. C.T. is calling gridlock deadlock and avoiding race conditions when synchronizing meetings. C.T. is using the difficulty of solving hard AI problems to foil computing agents. C.T. is taking an approach to solving problems, designing systems, and understanding human behavior that draws on concepts fundamental to computer science. Please tell me your favorite examples of computational thinking!

6EU MURSJeannette M. Wing The Two A’s Behind Computational Thinking Computing is the automation of our abstractions –Abstractions are our “mental” tools; machines are our “metal” tools. –They give us the audacity and ability to scale. Computational thinking –choosing the right abstractions, operating at multiple layers of abstraction, defining relationships between layers –choosing the right automaton “computer” for the task

7EU MURSJeannette M. Wing Research Implications

8EU MURSJeannette M. Wing CT in Other Sciences, Math, and Engineering Biology - Shotgun algorithm expedites sequencing of human genome - DNA sequences are strings in a language - Protein structures can be modeled as knots - Protein kinetics can be modeled as computational processes - Cells as a self-regulatory system are like electronic circuits Credit: Wikipedia Brain Science - Modeling the brain as a computer - Vision as a feedback loop - Analyzing fMRI data with machine learning Credit: LiveScience

9EU MURSJeannette M. Wing CT in Other Sciences, Math, and Engineering Geology - Modeling the earth’s surface to the sun, from the inner core to the surface - Abstraction boundaries and hierarchies of complexity model the earth and our atmosphere Credit: NASA Credit: University of Minnesota Chemistry [Madden, Fellow of Royal Society of Edinburgh] - Atomistic calculations are used to explore chemical phenomena - Optimization and searching algorithms identify best chemicals for improving reaction conditions to improve yields

10EU MURSJeannette M. Wing CT in Other Sciences, Math, and Engineering Mathematics - Discovering E8 Lie Group: 18 mathematicians, 4 years and 77 hours of supercomputer time (200 billion numbers). Profound implications for physics (string theory) - Four-color theorem proof Credit: Wikipedia Astronomy - Sloan Digital Sky Server brings a telescope to every child - KD-trees help astronomers analyze very large multi-dimensional datasets Credit: SDSS Engineering (electrical, civil, mechanical, aero & astro,…) - Calculating higher order terms implies more precision, which implies reducing weight, waste, costs in fabrication - Boeing 777 tested via computer simulation alone, not in a wind tunnel Credit: Boeing

11EU MURSJeannette M. Wing CT for Society Economics - Automated mechanism design underlies electronic commerce, e.g., ad placement, on-line auctions, kidney exchange - Internet marketplace requires revisiting Nash equilibria model Social Sciences - Social networks explain phenomena such as MySpace, YouTube - Statistical machine learning is used for recommendation and reputation services, e.g., Netflix, affinity card

12EU MURSJeannette M. Wing CT for Society Law - Stanford CL approaches include AI, temporal logic, state machines, process algebras, petri nets - POIROT Project on fraud investigation is creating a detailed ontology of European law - Sherlock Project on crime scene investigation Medicine - Robotic surgery - Electronic health records require privacy technologies - Scientific visualization enables virtual colonoscopy Credit: University of Utah Humanities - What do you do with a million books? Nat’l Endowment for the Humanities Inst of Museum and Library Services

13EU MURSJeannette M. Wing CT for Society Entertainment - Games - Movies - Dreamworks uses HP data center to renderShrek and Madagascar - Lucas Films uses 2000-node data center to produce Pirates of the Caribbean. Credit: Dreamworks SKG Credit: Carnegie Mellon University Sports - Lance Armstrong’s cycling computer tracks man and machine statistics - Synergy Sports analyzes digital videos NBA games Credit: Wikipedia Arts - Art (e.g., Robotticelli) - Drama - Music - Photography Credit: Christian Moeller

14EU MURSJeannette M. Wing Educational Implications

15EU MURSJeannette M. Wing Pre-K to Grey K-6, 7-9, Undergraduate courses –Freshmen year “Ways to Think Like a Computer Scientist” aka Principles of Computing –Upper-level courses Graduate-level courses –Computational arts and sciences E.g., entertainment technology, computational linguistics, …, computational finance, …, computational biology, computational astrophysics Post-graduate –Executive and continuing education, senior citizens –Teachers, not just students

16EU MURSJeannette M. Wing Question and Challenge to Community What are effective ways of learning (teaching) computational thinking by (to) children? - What concepts can students best learn when? What should we teach when? What is our analogy to numbers in K, algebra in 7, and calculus in 12? - We uniquely also should ask how best to integrate The Computer with learning and teaching the concepts.

17EU MURSJeannette M. Wing Reach Through NSF

18EU MURSJeannette M. Wing CDI: Cyber-Enabled Discovery and Innovation Paradigm shift –Not just our metal tools (transistors and wires) but also our mental tools (abstractions and methods) It’s about partnerships and transformative research. –To innovate in/innovatively use computational thinking; and –To advance more than one science/engineering discipline Letters of Intent, 1300 Preliminary Proposals, 200 Final Proposals, 36 Awards FY08: ~$50M invested by all directorates and offices Computational Thinking for Science and Engineering

19EU MURSJeannette M. Wing Range of Disciplines in CDI Awards Aerospace engineering Atmospheric sciences Biochemistry Biophysics Chemical engineering Communications science and engineering Computer science Geosciences Linguistics Materials engineering Mathematics Mechanical engineering Molecular biology Nanocomputing Neuroscience Robotics Social sciences Statistical physics … advances via Computational Thinking

20EU MURSJeannette M. Wing Range of Societal Issues Addressed Cancer therapy Climate change Environment Visually impaired Water

21EU MURSJeannette M. Wing Reach Through NSF on Education NSF Computing Community Computational Thinking Rebooting APCPATHBPC K-12 National Academies workshops ACM-Ed CRA-E CSTA

22EU MURSJeannette M. Wing Help Spread the Word Make computational thinking commonplace! To fellow faculty, students, researchers, administrators, teachers, parents, principals, guidance counselors, school boards, teachers’ unions, congressmen, policy makers, …

Thank you!

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