One of the trends that seems apparent at BETT 2015 is the push towards teaching computational thinking. Working on my first post demonstrated the need perfectly.
I wrote the initial draft of my first Virtual BETT session in blogger and then copied it into a text editor to do some edits before finally copying the text back into Blogger.
Somewhere in that process the text styling took on a life of it's own!!
The horrid black text on a white background would not go away even after changing it in the Blogger designer and even re-copying the text back into a different text editor, stripping out any possible codes and posting back.
Time to pop into the html view within Blogger.
5 minutes later, after changing just a few words in the html the blog looks better - still not quite how I want it - but better.
The process was very simple. Break down the problem into small chunks, work out a solution and apply. Computational thinking at it's very basic.
Perhaps the lesson to be applied to teaching computational thinking is that I HAD A REASON to address a problem or idea. Just typing in code from a worksheet is not a real reason - it's little like copying text from a blackboard which is how I was taught biology!!! We need to challenge learners with realistic, exciting and engaging reasons to apply computational thinking. Only then will they take up the challenge to invent their own futures through code.
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