In the News
With the continued discussion on computer science education, MƒA President John Ewing wrote an opinion piece, “Computer Science for All,” for The Huffington Post that explores the complexity of computer science versus common misconceptions and oversimplification. He warns against confusing computer science with coding:
“Computer science encompasses lots of things—the structure of data, algorithms for manipulating them, the architecture of computers, operating systems, artificial intelligence, and many more. One of those things is coding, that is, using a particular programming language to prepare instructions for a computer to follow. Coding is accessible and can be enormous fun. It can be creative. It can be a useful tool to teach concepts. But it is not the same as computer science, and confusing the two is like confusing great literature with the language in which it is written. Both are important, but one is deeper and ultimately more rewarding. […]
A few will insist that, at least in K-12 education, computer science should be nothing more than coding. They sell our students short. While coding can be enticing to young students, the science of computing—a science created by Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage, nurtured by mathematicians such as John von Neumann and Alan Turing, and developed by dozens of computer scientists from Grace Hopper to Schafi Goldwasser—is more enticing still. Besides, we don’t need a nation of coders who produce vast quantities of inexpensive applications; we need a nation of citizens who are scientifically literate, some of whom become scientists themselves.”
Read Dr. Ewing’s entire piece on The Huffington Post.