Title: Computational Thinking in Education: Where does it Fit? A systematic literary review,
Abstract: Computational Thinking (CT) has been described as an essential skill which
everyone should learn and can therefore include in their skill set. Seymour
Papert is credited as concretising Computational Thinking in 1980 but since
Wing popularised the term in 2006 and brought it to the international
community's attention, more and more research has been conducted on CT in
education. The aim of this systematic literary review is to give educators and
education researchers an overview of what work has been carried out in the
domain, as well as potential gaps and opportunities that still exist.
Overall it was found in this review that, although there is a lot of work
currently being done around the world in many different educational contexts,
the work relating to CT is still in its infancy. Along with the need to create
an agreed-upon definition of CT lots of countries are still in the process of,
or have not yet started, introducing CT into curriculums in all levels of
education. It was also found that Computer Science/Computing, which could be
the most obvious place to teach CT, has yet to become a mainstream subject in
some countries, although this is improving. Of encouragement to educators is
the wealth of tools and resources being developed to help teach CT as well as
more and more work relating to curriculum development. For those teachers
looking to incorporate CT into their schools or classes then there are
bountiful options which include programming, hands-on exercises and more. The
need for more detailed lesson plans and curriculum structure however, is
something that could be of benefit to teachers.