About - Computational Thinking

Have you ever wondered what it means to think like a computer scientist? How do computing professionals view the real world when they are going about their work? What is the difference between data, information, and knowledge? Can computers really have knowledge? What does it mean to talk about how a computer-based system "behaves"?

This is a non-programming course that answers these and other questions by exploring concepts and ideas that occur in many different contexts in computer science. Drawing on principles and topics from across the computer science curriculum (even 3000 and 4000 level courses), concrete representations are used to discover and work with fundamental ideas about computation.

The course is intended for students interested in or early in their study of computing. Through the course activities participants will discover cool ideas, acquire a sophisticated vocabulary for talking about these ideas, and develop deep intuitions and patterns of thought about computing.