{"id":3503,"date":"2023-10-17T21:14:38","date_gmt":"2023-10-17T19:14:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.robinglauser.ch\/blog\/?p=3503"},"modified":"2023-10-18T09:58:53","modified_gmt":"2023-10-18T07:58:53","slug":"how-do-computers-think-understanding-computational-thinking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.robinglauser.ch\/blog\/2023\/10\/17\/how-do-computers-think-understanding-computational-thinking\/","title":{"rendered":"How do computers think? Understanding Computational Thinking"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>How do computers think?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This is precisely the question that brings us to an interesting branch of computer science known as computational thinking. <strong>Computational thinking is all about understanding how a computer&#8217;s &#8220;thought process&#8221; works<\/strong> and learning to think in a similar manner. In this blog post, <strong>we&#8217;ll dive into computational thinking<\/strong> and use some examples to illustrate its principles.<\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s start with an example: A woman asks her husband to go to the kiosk around the corner and <strong>get some bread. She adds, &#8220;If they have eggs, bring six.&#8221;<\/strong> The husband goes to the kiosk, <strong>comes back with six loaves of bread.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In this scenario, the husband<strong> has understood the instructions a little too literally<\/strong>, <strong>just like a computer would<\/strong>. However, this is not how a human would generally react, because computers and humans work differently.<\/p>\n<p>In computational thinking there are <strong>four major ways<\/strong> how to help solve a problem like a computer would solve it:<\/p>\n<h2>Decomposition<\/h2>\n<p>Here is a example: <strong>How do you make a cake?<\/strong> A simple task for us, but a challenging one for a computer.<\/p>\n<p>Decomposition involves breaking a problem into smaller, more manageable parts. It encourages us to think about the individual aspects of making a cake; for example, cutting ingredients, putting in ingredients, mixing ingredients, baking the cake, etc. <strong>By solving each of these smaller problems, we can eventually solve the entire problem at hand.<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2>Pattern Recognition<\/h2>\n<p>Pattern recognition is all about <strong>identifying patterns<\/strong> and <strong>recurring elements<\/strong> in a problem. For instance, when making a cake, <strong>we notice that every cake requires ingredients in specific amounts,<\/strong> has a <strong>baking time<\/strong> and <strong>temperature<\/strong>, and <strong>ingredients are added in a particular order.<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2>Abstraction<\/h2>\n<p>Abstraction is the process of <strong>taking a specific example and creating a generalized model.<\/strong> <strong>Instead of focusing on a specific cake recipe<\/strong> like Black Forest or strawberry cake, <strong>we create a generic cake model<\/strong> that has ingredients, baking time, temperature, and an order for adding ingredients.<\/p>\n<h2>Algorithm<\/h2>\n<p>Finally, the algorithm is a step-by-step set of instructions<strong> that utilizes our generic cake model to make the cake.<\/strong> It <strong>guides us through the process<\/strong> of assembling ingredients, following the order of addition, preheating the oven, baking for the required time, and so on.<\/p>\n<p>When it comes to tasks that are simple for us, but complex for a computer, computational thinking allows us to break down problems into manageable components and find effective solutions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p class=\"excerpt\">How do computers think? This is precisely the question that brings us to an interesting branch of computer science known as computational thinking. Computational thinking is all about understanding how a computer&#8217;s &#8220;thought process&#8221; works and learning to think in a similar manner. In this blog post, we&#8217;ll dive into computational thinking and use some examples to illustrate its principles. &#8230; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.robinglauser.ch\/blog\/2023\/10\/17\/how-do-computers-think-understanding-computational-thinking\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3572,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[191],"class_list":["post-3503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-development","tag-development"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>How do computers think? Understanding Computational Thinking - Robin Glauser<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.robinglauser.ch\/blog\/2023\/10\/17\/how-do-computers-think-understanding-computational-thinking\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How do computers think? Understanding Computational Thinking - Robin Glauser\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"How do computers think? This is precisely the question that brings us to an interesting branch of computer science known as computational thinking. Computational thinking is all about understanding how a computer&#8217;s &#8220;thought process&#8221; works and learning to think in a similar manner. In this blog post, we&#8217;ll dive into computational thinking and use some examples to illustrate its principles. ... Read More\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.robinglauser.ch\/blog\/2023\/10\/17\/how-do-computers-think-understanding-computational-thinking\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Robin Glauser\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-10-17T19:14:38+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-10-18T07:58:53+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.robinglauser.ch\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/test.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1280\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"837\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Robin Glauser\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@robinglauser\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@robinglauser\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Robin Glauser\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.robinglauser.ch\/blog\/2023\/10\/17\/how-do-computers-think-understanding-computational-thinking\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.robinglauser.ch\/blog\/2023\/10\/17\/how-do-computers-think-understanding-computational-thinking\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Robin Glauser\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.robinglauser.ch\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/e1a94504a6ff5171fa13670932514b19\"},\"headline\":\"How do computers think? 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