computational-thinking.md

Computational Thinking

Computational Thinking is the term used to describe what it means to think like a computer. It's all about using the specific and unique capabilities of computers - including their strengths and weaknesses - to solve problems.

In computer programming, the word problem just means a challenge or issue that isn't solved yet.

Four Fundamental Principles of Computational Thinking

1. Decomposition is the process of breaking a BIG problem or challenge down into smaller and smaller ones, until all the problems are small enough to easily solve.
2. Abstraction goal is to omit specific details and to focus on the general pattern
3. Pattern Recognition is looking at all the smaller problems and see if they have any commonalities or if you can use similar methods to solve them
4. Algorithm Writing is writing a series of instructions that explain how to solve a problem

5 Stages of Communicating with Computers

1. At stage 1 we have you, the human being, thinking big, complex thoughts;
2. At stage 2, we have you, the human, learning how to think like a computer; This is called computational thinking!
3. At stage 3, we have you, the human, learning to translate that thinking into a computer programming language like JavaScript;
4. At stage 4, we have a computer program that translates JavaScript into 0's and 1's;
5. And finally, at stage 5, we have the computer receiving the message as 0's and 1's.