Back to the Future: Are Schools Really Going Back to the Origin of Computational Thinking Education?

Abstract

The vision of artificial intelligence education pioneer Dr Seymour Aubrey Papert in foreseeing the use of machine for children to develop computational thinking (CT) more than five decades ago has gradually come to life in schools. With years of effort, computer scientists and teachers have come a long way to advocate the importance of children learning how to think computationally, through interacting with computational problems and constructing digital artifacts to unleash their cognitive abilities. Indeed, learning of computational process and thinking computationally should go beyond learning how to code, and should not be the privilege of elites. What could and should teachers and other stakeholders do to bring students back to the real future of computational thinking education? How future education should be reinvented to embrace the multitude of students’ learning needs? What can educators do to avoid going toward ‘meritocracy’ in the future computational thinking education?