TED Talks and Videos Displaying Computational Thinking

[Phil Wagner]

A colleague of mine wanted to understand more about what Computational Thinking is. He is an Artist and felt that Computational Thinking was something he used everyday but still a little unsure. I decided to send him a bunch of videos showing how much we use and rely upon Computational Thinking everyday. Whether you are an artist, scientist, Engineer at Google, or student Computational Thinking is present and makes possible the world we see. I hope these videos are equally useful to you in explaining to others what Computational Thinking is:

How Algorithms Shape Our World - If you thought Algorithms were only used by computer scientists, think again.

The Best Stats You've Ever Seen - Hans Rosling shows how big data and patterns can tell humanity's story. Al Gore did something similar with big data to show humanity's impact upon the planet.

Making a Car for the Blind - You may have heard of Google's Autonomous Car but what about a car that allows the blind to drive?

Synthetic Life - Craig Venter started the human genome project and they used that information to make the ultimate algorithm, a synthetic cell

What We Learned from 5 Million Books - Hilarious as well as inspiring as we see what happens when we start looking for patterns in our books. This is the power behind Google Translate

Nature in Architecture - Many of our most useful innovations have come from emulating nature. 

Teaching Kids Real Math with Computers - In this viral video, Conrad Wolfram says that math > calculation and with Computational Thinking we can teach students far more than we ever thought.

Computing a Theory of Everything - Stephen Wolfram, shows how knowledge is related and can be used to better understand the universe.

The End of Theory - Not a video, but a revealing article about why students need to learn how to work with data and statistical analysis. 

[Gay Krause]

Thanks, Phil, It's a great list.

gay krause

[shiftin...@gmail.com]

Phil -- I saw a TED talk a while back advocating that everyone learn computing and I can't find it anymore (or remember title or speaker...).  The thrust of the argument was that with each revolution in communication technology, most people are left one revolution behind.  For example, after Gutenburg, printing became possible but only accessible for a select few.  Most people continued to use oral records because only the elite had access to printing presses.  When radio became mainstream, lots of people could write but very few had access to making radio.  When TV became mainstream, ditto.  Now that internet-based communication is mainstream, lots of people can upload Youtube videos but only a small minority have the skills to create Youtube (for example).  I wish I could find it again -- I often hear people conflating the ability to consume a medium with the ability to shape it.  If you've seen this video or stumble across it in your search, would you post the link?  Thanks for putting this collection together!

[Phil Wagner]

Hmmm, I can't think of one video alone. It seems like a lot of videos I have seen over the years from Sugata Mitra, Conrad Wolfram, Ken Robinson, Sal Khan, etc. I blogged about it when a student asked me, "Why do we need to learn this (this being programming/CT)". If there is one video that covers all of those points, I will definitely share it with the group, perhaps someone else has seen it and can link to it here. Perhaps someone should make that video to put it all together.