The following interview appeared (in french) in EPFL Magazine Edition 11.
Computational Thinking means being creative in dealing with problems
Detecting a disease, finding love or creating customized advertisements: many domains that are tackled by Computational Thinking, a methodology used to solve problems and that several universities are considering including in their curriculum. Within the framework of the visualization contest organized by ACCES, an STI-ENAC network for promoting Computational Engineering, W. Craig Carter, Professor at MIT and invited professor at EPFL, will give a presentation on 10th November 2017 on Computational Thinking. This provides the opportunity to learn more about this method.
What is Computational Thinking?
It is the ability to tackle a very complex problem, break it down into several smaller problems and think about solutions that can be solved more efficiently by a computer.
For example?
A cholera epidemic. This disease is characterized in humans by a weight loss. A solution to detect it would be, for example, that someone observes that the local population is losing weight, is concerned by this, reports the anomaly and requests a reaction. UNICEF chose to address the issue from the perspective of Computational Thinking and worked with high school students in Uganda. They have created a system that allows remote laboratories to send an SMS with their identity and weight and stores this information in a database. They then wrote a program so that the computer processes this data, detects a weight change that means “something abnormal, maybe cholera” and decides to launch the alert. This complex problem has been broken down into several steps: How to receive hundreds of SMS at the same time without losing information? How to store the data? How to access the database? Then the computer had to be programmed so that it could detect the critical threshold by processing all this information and acting.
Is this really a new approach?
The reasoning in itself, no. But its use in a conscious and algorithmic way is recent. Many confuse this method with the use of a computer to solve a problem. When you use Microsoft Word to write text, the computer is a tool. When you think about how a document treatment program can simplify tedious tasks, you are thinking in terms of Computational Thinking.
Which other areas systematically use this reasoning?
Google or Amazon, which offer customized advertisements, policy campaigns that target populations, credit cards that detect a fraudulent purchase, companies that want to know when a device is going to break down or the online dating apps that determine the ideal person for you. All these companies analyze your data and program computers to make decisions about this information.
Some areas are less “prestigious” than epidemics …
It is therefore essential that computational thinking be integrated into education. This allows, on the one hand, to understand how a computer deals with problems and to be creative with the solutions, on the other hand, to be realistic about what it is possible to do with the data and the implications. When you want to put a satellite into orbit, you have to be able to think about solutions so that the satellite goes where you want and makes decisions in case of unexpected events – a computer can do this more accurately and quickly. Similarly, one must be aware that advertisements can be targeted to you.
Why develop the use of this reasoning?
To determine effective solutions, as in the case of cholera. So that a human does not waste time with things that the computer does better. Why would architects spend hours drawing 40 kinds of windows to see which one is best? A computer will be much more efficient and the architect will be able to devote himself to more creative tasks. Even if there are some areas, such as online dating apps, where I would advise not to rely entirely on the person who writes the algorithms. Computers offer many solutions, but sometimes there is a chance that the best one is not proposed.
Clara Marc – STI / Mediacom
For more information and to participate in the ACCES Visualization Contest:
- Seminar by W. Craig Carter at EPFL titled “What is—and what isn’t—computational thinking? And, why and how should universities include it in curricula” on 10 November 2017 at 12:15 in Room ME B3 31 (see Memento for details).
- Visualization contest web site
