Edutopia – Laura Lee
“Elements of computational thinking, like pattern recognition, are easily transferred to unexpected areas of study like social studies or English, says Tom Hammond, a former teacher who is now an education professor at Lehigh University. Hammond says that students like the computational thinking approach because it’s engaging: “Ask yourself, would you rather get to play with a data set or would you rather listen to the teacher tell you about the data set?” For example, in history classes students make use of data-rich, often open-source geographic information systems, or GIS, to plot election results from the colonial era to reimagine the way politics unfolded in the 1700s. These kinds of data visualization exercises offer a way for students to actively manipulate real-world information for deeper engagement and understanding.” (more)