Since 2006,with help from Google and later Microsoft,Carnegie Mellon has held CS4HS summer workshops for high school teachers to take away an understanding that there is more to computer science than computer programming.CS4HS spread in 2007 to UCLA and the University of Washington.By 2010,under the auspices of Google,CS4HS spread to 20 schools in the US and 14 in Europe,the Middle East,and Africa. Since 2007,Microsoft Research has funded the Carnegie Mellon Center for Computational Thinking:http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~CompThink/.The Center supports both research and educational outreach projects. In October 2010,Google launched the Exploring Computational Thinking website (http://www.google.com/edu/computational-thinking/index.html )It has a wealth of links to further web resources,including lesson plans for K-12 teachers in science and mathematics. Computer Science Unplugged,http://csunplugged.org/,created by Tim Bell,Mike Fellows,and Ian Witten,teaches computer science without the use of a computer.It is especially appropriate for elementary and middle school children.Several dozen people working in many countries, including New Zealand,USA,Sweden,Australia,China,Korea,Taiwan and Canada,contribute to this extremely popular website Additionally,panels and discussions on computational thinking have been plentiful at venues such as SIGCSE and the ACM Educational Council.The CRA-E presented a white paper [CRA- E10]at the July 2010 CRA Snowbird conference,which includes recommendations for computational thinking courses for non-majors.CSTA produced and disseminates Computational Thinking Resource Set:A Problem-Solving Tool for Every Classrooom (http://www.csta.acm.org/). Final Remarks Computational thinking is not just or all about computing.The educational benefits of being able to think computationally transfer to any domain by enhancing and reinforcing intellectual skills. Computer scientists see the value of thinking abstractly,thinking at multiple levels of abstraction, abstracting to manage complexity,abstracting to deal with scale,etc.We know the value of these capabilities.Our immediate task ahead is to better explain to non-computer scientists what we mean by computational thinking and the benefits of being able to think computationally.Please join me in helping to spread the word! Bibliography [CRA-E10]Computer Research Association,"Creating Environments for Computational Researcher Education,"August 9,2010. http://www.cra.org/uploads/documents/resources/rissues/CRA-E-Researcher-Education.pdf [CunySnyder Wingl0]Jan Cuny,Larry Snyder,and Jeannette M.Wing,"Demystifying Computational Thinking for Non-Computer Scientists,"work in progress,2010. [NRC10]Report of a Workshop on the Scope and Nature of Computational Thinking,National Research Council,2010 http://www8.nationalacademies.org/cp/projectview.aspx?key=48969 55 Since 2006, with help from Google and later Microsoft, Carnegie Mellon has held CS4HS summer workshops for high school teachers to take away an understanding that there is more to computer science than computer programming. CS4HS spread in 2007 to UCLA and the University of Washington. By 2010, under the auspices of Google, CS4HS spread to 20 schools in the US and 14 in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Since 2007, Microsoft Research has funded the Carnegie Mellon Center for Computational Thinking: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~CompThink/ . The Center supports both research and educational outreach projects. In October 2010, Google launched the Exploring Computational Thinking website (http://www.google.com/edu/computational-thinking/index.html ). It has a wealth of links to further web resources, including lesson plans for K-12 teachers in science and mathematics. Computer Science Unplugged, http://csunplugged.org/, created by Tim Bell, Mike Fellows, and Ian Witten, teaches computer science without the use of a computer. It is especially appropriate for elementary and middle school children. Several dozen people working in many countries, including New Zealand, USA, Sweden, Australia, China, Korea, Taiwan and Canada, contribute to this extremely popular website. Additionally, panels and discussions on computational thinking have been plentiful at venues such as SIGCSE and the ACM Educational Council. The CRA-E presented a white paper [CRA￾E10] at the July 2010 CRA Snowbird conference, which includes recommendations for computational thinking courses for non-majors. CSTA produced and disseminates Computational Thinking Resource Set: A Problem-Solving Tool for Every Classrooom (http://www.csta.acm.org/). Final Remarks Computational thinking is not just or all about computing. The educational benefits of being able to think computationally transfer to any domain by enhancing and reinforcing intellectual skills. Computer scientists see the value of thinking abstractly, thinking at multiple levels of abstraction, abstracting to manage complexity, abstracting to deal with scale, etc. We know the value of these capabilities. Our immediate task ahead is to better explain to non-computer scientists what we mean by computational thinking and the benefits of being able to think computationally. Please join me in helping to spread the word! Bibliography [CRA-E10] Computer Research Association, “Creating Environments for Computational Researcher Education,” August 9, 2010. http://www.cra.org/uploads/documents/resources/rissues/CRA-E-Researcher-Education.pdf [CunySnyderWing10] Jan Cuny, Larry Snyder, and Jeannette M. Wing, “Demystifying Computational Thinking for Non-Computer Scientists,” work in progress, 2010. [NRC10] Report of a Workshop on the Scope and Nature of Computational Thinking, National Research Council, 2010 http://www8.nationalacademies.org/cp/projectview.aspx?key=48969