In a seminal article published in 2006,
Jeanette Wing described computational
thinking (CT) as a way of “solving
problems, designing systems, and
understanding human behavior by
drawing on the concepts fundamental
to computer science.” She noted that
computational thinking involves some
familiar concepts, such as problem
decomposition, data representation,
and modeling, as well as less familiar
ideas, such as binary search, recursion,
and parallelization. She also
argued that “computational thinking
is a fundamental skill for everyone,
not just for computer scientists. To
reading, writing, and arithmetic, we
should add computational thinking to
every child’s analytical ability.”