Computational Thinking Jeannette M Wing Assistant Director Computer

Computational Thinking Jeannette M. Wing Assistant Director Computer and Information Science and Engineering Directorate National Science Foundation and President’s Professor of Computer Science Carnegie Mellon University GIScience 2008, Park City, UT 24 September 2008 CT&TC Jeannette M. Wing

My Grand Vision for the Field • Computational thinking will be a fundamental skill used by everyone in the world by the middle of the 21 st Century. – Just like reading, writing, and arithmetic. – Incestuous: Computing and computers wll enable the spread of computational thinking. – In research: scientists, engineers, …, historians, artists – In education: K-12 students and teachers, undergrads, … CT&TC J. M. Wing, “Computational Thinking, ” CACM Viewpoint, March 2006, pp. 33 -35. Paper off CISE AC website; paper and talks off http: //www. cs. cmu. edu/~wing/ 2 Jeannette M. Wing

The First A to Computational Thinking • Abstractions are our “mental” tools • The abstraction process includes – Choosing the right abstractions – Operating simultaneously at multiple layers of abstraction – Defining the relationships the between layers CT&TC 3 Jeannette M. Wing

The Second A to Computational Thinking • The power of our “mental” tools is amplified by our “metal” tools. • Automation is mechanizing our abstractions, abstraction layers, and their relationships – Mechanization is possible due to precise and exacting notations and models – There is some “computer” below (human or machine, virtual or physical) CT&TC 4 Jeannette M. Wing

Two A’s to C. T. Combined • Computing is the automation of our abstractions – They give us the audacity and ability to scale. • Computational thinking – choosing the right abstractions, etc. – choosing the right “computer” for the task CT&TC 5 Jeannette M. Wing

Research Implications CT&TC 6 Jeannette M. Wing

CT in Other Sciences, Math, and Engineering Biology - Shotgun algorithm expedites sequencing of human genome - DNA sequences are strings in a language - Protein structures can be modeled as knots - Protein kinetics can be modeled as computational processes - Cells as a self-regulatory system are like electronic circuits Credit: Wikipedia Brain Science - Modeling the brain as a computer - Vision as a feedback loop - Analyzing f. MRI data with machine learning CT&TC Credit: Live. Science 7 Jeannette M. Wing

CT in Other Sciences, Math, and Engineering Chemistry [Madden, Fellow of Royal Society of Edinburgh] - Atomistic calculations are used to explore chemical phenomena - Optimization and searching algorithms identify best chemicals for improving reaction conditions to improve yields Credit: University of Minnesota Credit: NASA Geology - Modeling the earth’s surface to the sun, from the inner core to the surface - Abstraction boundaries and hierarchies of complexity model the earth and our atmosphere CT&TC 8 Jeannette M. Wing

CT in Other Sciences, Math, and Engineering Astronomy - Sloan Digital Sky Server brings a telescope to every child - KD-trees help astronomers analyze very large multi-dimensional datasets Credit: SDSS Mathematics Credit: Wikipedia - Discovering E 8 Lie Group: 18 mathematicians, 4 years and 77 hours of supercomputer time (200 billion numbers). Profound implications for physics (string theory) - Four-color theorem proof Engineering (electrical, civil, mechanical, aero & astro, …) Credit: Wikipedia - Calculating higher order terms implies more precision, which implies reducing weight, waste, costs in fabrication - Boeing 777 tested via computer simulation alone, not in a wind tunnel CT&TC 9 Jeannette M. Wing Credit: Boeing

CT for Society Economics - Automated mechanism design underlies electronic commerce, e. g. , ad placement, on-line auctions, kidney exchange - Internet marketplace requires revisiting Nash equilibria model Social Sciences - Social networks explain phenomena such as My. Space, You. Tube - Statistical machine learning is used for recommendation and reputation services, e. g. , Netflix, affinity card CT&TC 10 Jeannette M. Wing

CT for Society Medicine - Robotic surgery - Electronic health records require privacy technologies - Scientific visualization enables virtual colonoscopy Humanities Credit: University of Utah - What do you do with a million books? Nat’l Endowment for the Humanities Inst of Museum and Library Services Law - Stanford CL approaches include AI, temporal logic, CT&TC state machines, process algebras, petri nets - POIROT Project on fraud investigation is creating a detailed ontology of European law 11 scene investigation Jeannette M. Wing - Sherlock Project on crime

CT for Society Entertainment - Games - Movies Credit: Dreamworks SKG - Dreamworks uses HP data center to render. Shrek and Madagascar - Lucas Films uses 2000 -node data center to produce Pirates of the Caribbean. Credit: Carnegie Mellon University Arts - Art (e. g. , Robotticelli) - Drama - Music - Photography CT&TC 12 Credit: Christian Moeller Sports Credit: Wikipedia - Lance Armstrong’s cycling computer tracks man and machine statistics - Synergy Sports analyzes digital videos NBA games Jeannette M. Wing

Educational Implications CT&TC 13 Jeannette M. Wing

Pre-K to Grey • K-6, 7 -9, 10 -12 • Undergraduate courses – Freshmen year • “Ways to Think Like a Computer Scientist” aka Principles of Computing – Upper-level courses • Graduate-level courses – Computational arts and sciences • E. g. , entertainment technology, computational linguistics, …, computational finance, …, computational biology, computational astrophysics • Post-graduate – Executive and continuing education, senior citizens – Teachers, not just students CT&TC 14 Jeannette M. Wing

Question and Challenge to Community What are effective ways of learning (teaching) computational thinking by (to) children? - What concepts can students best learn when? What should we teach when? What is our analogy to numbers in K, algebra in 7, and calculus in 12? - We uniquely also should ask how best to integrate The Computer with learning and teaching the concepts. CT&TC 15 Jeannette M. Wing

Example Concepts CT&TC 16 Jeannette M. Wing

Recursion: Towers of Hanoi Goal: Transfer the entire tower to one of the other pegs, moving only one disk at a time and never a larger one onto a smaller. CT&TC 17 Jeannette M. Wing

Data Abstraction and Representation Credit: Wikipedia stack queue tree (upside down) representation invariant array and pointer CT&TC 18 Jeannette M. Wing

Composition and Decomposition Credit: The LEGO Group Credit: Meccano CT&TC 19 Jeannette M. Wing

Sorting and Search CT&TC 20 Jeannette M. Wing

Intractability: Traveling Salesman Problem: A traveling salesperson needs to visit n cities. Is there a route of at most d in length? O(n!) n = 16 242 days n = 25 5 x 10^15 centuries CT&TC 21 Jeannette M. Wing

Undecidability: Tiling Can we tile the entire plane Z 2? Example from David Harel CT&TC 22 Jeannette M. Wing

Data as Code and Code as Data unrecognized email attachment CT&TC 23 Jeannette M. Wing

Correctness: Avoiding Bugs to Save Money and Lives Credit: ESA Ariane 5 failure Credit: BYTE Magazine Intel Pentium FPU error Credit: Intel Now Microsoft uses formal verification. Now Intel uses formal verification. CT&TC 24 Jeannette M. Wing

Caching home CT&TC Credit: Wikipedia locker 25 knapsack Jeannette M. Wing

Pipelining: Doing Laundry 6 hours to do 4 loads 3. 3 hours to do 4 loads CT&TC 26 Jeannette M. Wing

Concurrency: Dining Philosophers Five philosophers sit around a circular table. Each philosopher spends his life alternately thinking and eating. In the centre of the table is a large bowl of spaghetti. A philosopher needs two forks to eat a helping of spaghetti. CT&TC 27 Jeannette M. Wing

Distributed Computing: The Internet • Asynchronous communication • Failures • Speed of light CT&TC 28 Jeannette M. Wing

Distributed Computing: The Internet • Asynchronous communication • Failures • Speed of light CT&TC 29 Jeannette M. Wing

Reach Through NSF CT&TC 30 Jeannette M. Wing

CDI: Cyber-Enabled Discovery and Innovation Computational Thinking for Science and Engineering • Paradigm shift – Not just our metal tools (transistors and wires) but also our mental tools (abstractions and methods) • It’s about partnerships and transformative research. – To innovate in/innovatively use computational thinking; and – To advance more than one science/engineering discipline. • FY 08: 1800 Letters of Intent, 1300 Preliminary Proposals, 200 Final Proposals, 36 Awards • ~$50 M invested by all directorates and offices CT&TC 31 Jeannette M. Wing

Range of Disciplines in CDI Awards • • • • • Aerospace engineering Atmospheric sciences Biochemistry Biophysics Chemical engineering Communications science and engineering Computer science Geosciences Linguistics Materials engineering Mathematics Mechanical engineering Molecular biology Nanocomputing Neuroscience Robotics Social sciences Statistical physics … advances via Computational Thinking CT&TC 32 Jeannette M. Wing

Range of Societal Issues Addressed • • • CT&TC Cancer therapy Climate change Environment Visually impaired Water 33 Jeannette M. Wing

CISE Educational Programs • CPATH – Revisiting undergrad curricula – Enlarge scope to include outreach to K-12 – National Academies workshops on Computational Thinking for Everyone • Broadening Participation in Computing – Women, underrepresented minorities, people with disabilities – Alliances and demo projects – Image of computing – Re-envisioning Computer Science AP exam CT&TC 34 Jeannette M. Wing

Spread the Word! • Help make computational thinking commonplace To fellow faculty, students, researchers, administrators, teachers, parents, principals, guidance counselors, school boards, teachers’ unions, congressmen, policy makers, … CT&TC 35 Jeannette M. Wing

Thank you! CT&TC Jeannette M. Wing

Credits CT&TC • Copyrighted material used under Fair Use. If you are the copyright holder and believe your material has been used unfairly, or if you have any suggestions, feedback, or support, please contact: jsoleil@nsf. gov • Except where otherwise indicated, permission is granted to copy, distribute, and/or modify all images in this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation license, Version 1. 2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled “GNU Free Documentation license” (http: //commons. wikimedia. org/wiki/Commons: GNU_Free_Documentation_License) 37 Jeannette M. Wing