Polemics about Computational Thinking: Digital Competence in Digital Zeitgeist – Continued Search for Answers

Lúcia Martins-Pacheco, Christiane von Wangenheim, Nathalia Alves

2020

Abstract

Human society is immersed in digital zeitgeist and information, and communications technology competences became fundamental for each citizen around the world in order to participate in the great benefits that this technological development promotes. In this zeitgeist, several questions appear related to the educational context because the way to deal with information, knowledge, and communications has changed drastically. For that reason, several proposals emerged to develop additional competences in youths. Among these possibilities, computational thinking – CT - arose as an approach to encourage ICT competence. However, the initial proposal appeared in a simple viewpoint article; that was just an opinion without any reference. Surprisingly, such an article reverberated around the world, and several proposals appeared trying to define “what is computational thinking?”. Parallel to this, some critics showed controversial aspects of CT, especially based on computer science (CS) educational, historical trajectory. But, many solid approaches of CT based on robust researches became popular, and several educational practices were successful. Thus, we analyze some criticism and show other points of view, aiming to clarify some questions and to give some answers. We believe that CT approaches are valuable inside of myriads of possibilities to promote ICT competences. Polemics and controversies used to make advances in each field, but fruitful initiatives must be acknowledged. K-12 educational system could not wait until there is a proper and unique consensus between researchers to start to teach ICT competences to our youths.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Martins-Pacheco L., von Wangenheim C. and Alves N. (2020). Polemics about Computational Thinking: Digital Competence in Digital Zeitgeist – Continued Search for Answers.In Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Computer Supported Education - Volume 2: CSEDU, ISBN 978-989-758-417-6, pages 499-506. DOI: 10.5220/0009797104990506

in Bibtex Style

@conference{csedu20,
author={Lúcia Martins-Pacheco and Christiane von Wangenheim and Nathalia Alves},
title={Polemics about Computational Thinking: Digital Competence in Digital Zeitgeist – Continued Search for Answers},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Computer Supported Education - Volume 2: CSEDU,},
year={2020},
pages={499-506},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0009797104990506},
isbn={978-989-758-417-6},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF

JO - Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Computer Supported Education - Volume 2: CSEDU,
TI - Polemics about Computational Thinking: Digital Competence in Digital Zeitgeist – Continued Search for Answers
SN - 978-989-758-417-6
AU - Martins-Pacheco L.
AU - von Wangenheim C.
AU - Alves N.
PY - 2020
SP - 499
EP - 506
DO - 10.5220/0009797104990506