Fai—Computational Literacy

diSessa's Changing Minds has been my most favorite reading on computational thinking / computational literacy. It helps me see a fuller picture of what I have to consider in terms of designing for learning computational thinking in general and for learning computational thinking in a discipline.

I am not going to repeat what are the similar / different aspects between diSessa's computational literacy and Gover and Pea's computational thinking, because other people have done that already. I think they write for a slightly different audience—diSessa has an eye toward people who design (education) computational infrastructure, and Gover and Pee talk more directly to people who try to integrate computational thinking into the classroom.

I am also getting lost in all these different definitions. I lost track of what work comparing and contrasting these definitions does for us as researchers, designers and teachers. However, I find that diSessa's computational literacy as a framework helps me think about a set of questions that are less apparent in other frameworks.

diSessa's three pillars include material, cognitive and social. The material aspect helps me think about being selective of computational language and environments I select for students to engage in particular tasks or set of practices. Different material infrastructures have different affordances, and it is important that the rationale for selecting a particular environment connects to the rationale for teaching a particular content and engaging students in a particular practice. The cognitive aspect helps me think about what are some generative skills students need in order to interact with the material infrastructure. This is where I find Wing's and Grover and Pea's frameworks useful. Lastly, the social aspect helps me think about the basis for making this a widespread literacy (pragmatically, at a school level). This is not dissimilar from the writing across the curriculum idea. All these are linked, like in the calculus symbolism example. The choice of computational environment will influence the cost of learning it and the range of goals students can use it for.