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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...)
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
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
Tech literacy? That is not a source of critical and abstract thinking skills. We should be putting most our money into literacy, speaking, writing, debate and learning history. All those things a typical tech education leaves behind, and also people who use social media as their main information source leave those things behind.
Tech? those that like it can it, most tech jobs are droid jobs anyway.