computational thinking and data representations
DESCRIPTION
* Computational Thinking * Data RepresentationsTRANSCRIPT
Computational Thinking and Representations
Adapted from Clayton Lewis
What is “computational thinking”?
● Way of thinking about problems
that has evolved as computational
methods have spread through
activities of all kinds
● Helpful to understand why
computation has become so useful!
A Slogan: “Computational systems are representational systems”
● People use computers to represent all kinds of important stuff…
● … because computational representations have extremely valuable characteristics.
● But, what is a representation?
A Representational System
● Relates a target domain of interest to a representation domain, in which work is easier to do in some way. !
● Let’s look at a couple of examples
Advantages of Computational Representations
● automation replaces costly manual or mental operations with electronic operations
● computational representations can be stored and transmitted easily and cheaply
● computational representations of behavior have flexibility advantages… o many kinds of behavior can be captured
Computational Thinking…
● …is seeing how to create a computational representation of something you are interested in
● key aspects are o identifying the important things in the
situation o identifying their behaviors
Computational Thinking Patterns…
● …are common kinds of behavior that are useful in many different situations
● you’ll learn some of these patterns, how to recognize when they are useful, and how to make them work in the AgentSheets visual programming system.
They are part of a bigger picture:
● features of a situation you are
interested in
!
connect to
!
● computational things o data, programs
Some more examples
● social networking !
● tracking 16th C European diplomats (Thea Lindquist) !
● ant foraging !
● ….
Thank you! Questions? :D