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Stephen Wolfram Reveals Ambitious Plan to Teach Computational Thinking (stephenwolfram.com)
Can we teach future generations how to solve their problems with computers? Slashdot reader mirandakatz writes:
Doctors, lawyers, teachers, farmers -- whatever the profession, it'll soon be full of computational thinking. Mathematica and Wolfram Alpha creator Stephen Wolfram argues on Backchannel that it's essential we start teaching kids to talk to computers today to ensure their success in the future -- and he's got a comprehensive lesson plan.
Arguing that Wikipedia popularized "a more direct style of presenting information," Wolfram writes that computer-assisted education continues the trend, "taking things which could only be talked around, and turning them into things that can be shown through computation directly and explicitly." Wolfram's 11,000-word essay adds that "with all the knowledge and automation that we've built into the Wolfram Language we're finally now to the point where we have the technology to be able to directly teach broad computational thinking, even to kids.." (And without having to start off with loops and conditionals...)
Arguing that Wikipedia popularized "a more direct style of presenting information," Wolfram writes that computer-assisted education continues the trend, "taking things which could only be talked around, and turning them into things that can be shown through computation directly and explicitly." Wolfram's 11,000-word essay adds that "with all the knowledge and automation that we've built into the Wolfram Language we're finally now to the point where we have the technology to be able to directly teach broad computational thinking, even to kids.." (And without having to start off with loops and conditionals...)
This were how learning occurrs. Sigh. The tech sector just will never get it. Computational thinking is actually the *problem* we are currently having, it is absolutely the wrong way to teach. I would put the energy and money into tech literacy, instead. It is astonishing to me how people like this miss the mark again, and again, and again. We are already starting to reap what we've sown with a generation that is incapable of critical and abstract thinking. We are not robots, and life is not an algorithm. Disappointing.
Why not teach adults too? I can't figure out this computer thing myself. By the way: theodp is going to hate this. These kids are going to take his job!
Although most of that may be true about Wolfeam, he's not wrong. Quite a bit of useful computationally derived information and decision making created from discipline/domain specific models can help augment traditional methods for the better, if nothing else. This type computational thinking doesn't have to involve "big data" or bs analytics derived from NLP, we just need to use readily available quantitive information on a more regulsr basis. That alone could push most industries forward quite a bit. It's already happening, Wal-Mart is a great example.
Computer, write me a term paper.
Computer, get Jennie to like me.
etc. etc.
My high school math teacher did it right: She let us use a non-programmable scientific calculator but only AFTER we proved we knew how to do do trig and logarithms by hand. Yes, we had to learn some formulas to estimate them and we had to memorize the "easy" ones like sine(30 degrees). We also had to learn to use log tables. No, we didn't have to learn to use a slide-rule, I was a decade or two too late for that.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
To control the way people think, you start by controlling the way they talk.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Why does the link go to an article on apple pay?
Wolfram's Mathematica has been available on the Raspberry Pi educational computer for quite some time.
How's that working out?
With 10 million machines, you would think the Mathematica user community for RPi would be really HOT.
Not so. You'll look far and wide to find it being used - let alone in a classroom environment.
Creating excitement for computational computing has nothing to do with the language.
It is based on understanding what students are interested in learning and making the discovery process "naturally" lead them in the direction you want them to go.
Eugene Presta had it right when he said that the trick to effectively teaching a subject is to learn how the student wants in presented.
Humans learning how to think. Forget the emails, forget the texts, forget instant messaging, forget typing in what your problem is into a search bar and hope something useful comes back, pick the goddam phone up and talk to someone for five minutes to figure out what the problem is and how to get it resolved rather than spending days, if not weeks, doing the other things.
I'm still waiting for that to happen.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dr. Wolfram has done a lot for us. I do think Mathematica is one of the great accomplishments of humanity. By making Mathematica available for free on Raspberry and Raspbian, Dr. Wolfram has made this great tool accessible to all people. And, I do think this is a great tool for teaching. Despite the recent "Whoa! Mathematica at Grade-9 for teaching Algebra ? " I got from a misinformed high-school math teacher, Mathematica is accessible to all who appreciate the importance of knowledge that would be gained by using it.
Just because other people are wrong on how we should be doing computing doesn't mean that Wolfram with his delusions of grandeur is always right. He's most likely not even the first one to suggest these things.
Ezekiel 23:20
"ensure their success" at what exactly
"(And without having to start off with loops and conditionals...)"
Is this a bad place to start? Really?
Roads, street signs, traffic signs, elevators, locks, stairs, and so on and so forth should be standardized all over the world to make them suitable for machines.
As it is now, it is easier to send a robot to Mars that to a local supermarket.
Even plates and glasses, - it would free from hard manual labor millions of people who prepare plates for dishwashers in cafes and resaurants.
How about we teach critical thinking skills first.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Wolfram was supposed to become the new Einstein. He burnt himself out more than two decades ago, accomplishing quite little in academia, becoming instead a predatory businessman who takes credit on the work done mostly by others.
Post it again when the computer thingy writes the essay and we get ride of this whatshisname dude...
If you believe that a computer can think better than you, then you're really dumb that's why...
OK next tech oriented synergized fanboiiiii...
"low-level programs in languages like C++ or Java or JavaScript"
If JavaScript is a low-level language then I'm a monkey's uncle.
"It doesn’t take any skill to use Wolfram|Alpha."
Well you were arguing that we need something called "computational thinking" and now you tell us there is a tool that requires no skill to use. Why is there a gap between this tool, which requires no skill, and tomorrow's tools that we will be using? This seems to be an admission that the whole Wolfram Language thing just doesn't cut it, it isn't expressive enough or it isn't expressive in quite the right way. Or are you simply saying the equivalent of "It doesn't take any skill to use a hammer," which at first glace seems intuitive - hey, use this thing to hit that thing, no skill req'd - but it turns out to rely on a whole foundation of motor coordination skills that we learn as infants - and that people suffering injuries as adults often have to relearn. So let us cut out this "no skill" BS finally.
"And of course in the Wolfram Language there’s nothing like all those irregularities that exist in a natural language like English."
Perhaps that is simply a sign that as a "language" it is young and immature. The English language has absorbed all sorts of strange constructions, allowing it to be both extremely expressive or confoundingly ambiguous. I have yet to see where the Wolfram Language, with its rigid syntax and an utterly arcane library of functions - AnatomyPlot3D[] what? - is an expressive language to any degree. In fact the whole "programming languages are languages" is a fading artifact from the Chomsky era, no one "speaks" or "communicates" in Java, people only "program" or "write" programming languages.
... or only need to learn how to best please their AI overlords, who will do all the "computational thinking" required on their own?
Luring children into a dependency on a proprietary software system is not a good way to shape their future...
So we all should buy Mathematica?
This will work a lot better when the Internet in rural America is actually stabke and has some bandwidth.
There are seven disciplines medicine needs to learn much from: maths, stats, logic, computation, science, engineering, psychology.
Medical doctors can't be experts in all these, but the current climate requires them to be, or else fall prey to being persuaded by clever marketing. How one gets from a clinical trial to the 'one-on-one doctor-patient' scenario is a major case in point: how one adds back the significance of all salient features not selected for in the clinical trial is a matter which most doctors look blankly at when pointed out. (This is simple Bayesian statistics: what is the probability that treatment X works, or is most effective, given only that the patient has diagnostic label D? What if they have label D and are between ages of 20 and 40? What if they have diagnosis D and are between ages of 20 and 40 and are a Buddhist who meditates daily? What if they have label D and are between the ages of 20 and 40, are overweight, don't exercise, and eat junk food? and so on. What matters is how the 'best' decision changes as we limit towards a precise description of the patient in front of the clinician, and if that decision can change, the sensible clinician will realise they need more information to make a reliable decision.)
John_Chalisque
"Language shapes the way we think, and determines what we can think about. -- B.L.Whorf" Preface (to first edition) http://www.stroustrup.com/1st_pref.html
There is a truth in languages shaping the way we think, especially in computer programming. It is the reason that choice of computer language is so important. Of course, computer programming languages are used for many different things.
No, I think each field will develop its own language for dealing with computers. And many of the languages will be different, so it will be better to wait for the person to get into the field, and then teach them the field's specific language. I think this is happening in the legal profession, and maybe also in medicine.
Well, it requires less megaflops to send a robot to Mars, than to a local supermarket. Rockets don't need much intelligence, but do need a lot of brute force.
Now that I think about it, I can see machines for washing plates and glasses. Maybe for a big cafeteria on a college campus. I'm surprised there's no startup working on it.
He's most likely not even the first one to suggest these things.
Most notably, the work by Konrad Zuse predates that of Wolfram:
- Rechnender Raum (PDF), original article in German, Elektronische Datenverarbeitung, 8: 336–344, 1967.
- Calculating Space (PDF), English translation of the book version, MIT Technical Translation, 1970 (2012 version (PDF)).
They won't need it. But wouldn't it be better to help them be on the other side of the equation? ie, being a producer rather than a consumer?
Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
... on crucial adjective the proprietary Wolfram Language.
The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe's got you covered.
that's more like it.
95% all of those promoting "teaching to code" to children are actually into making more money for themselves. They don't care about the children, at all. Duh.
(why else would Mark Shutmyface Book be on it? You know the minute this guy touches something it is doomed)
A lot of his words make sense, but then I look at the implementation and just don't share his world view on how a computer interface and control language should appear.
It's painful, like JAVA, minus the documentation, bred with a Perl-Lisp hybrid to produce the most powerful language that nobody wants to learn ever.
"Another Aspie Wanker"
Christ. I don't know where to begin. that "Aspie Wanker" achieved more before he was 25 than you ever will in your life.
The dangers of excessive individualism are nothing compared to the oppressiveness of excessive collectivism