Programming and Computational Thinking in Technology Education: Swedish and International Perspectives

The growing importance of computational thinking in an increasingly digitalized world is conveyed through Wing's perspective on why every child should develop analytical abilities.Computational thinking is a fundamental skill for everyone, not just for computer scientists.To reading, writing, and arithmetic, we should add computational thinking to every child's analytical ability.Just as the printing press facilitated the spread of the three Rs, what is appropriately incestuous about this vision is that computing and computers facilitate the spread of computational thinking (Wing, 2006, p. 33).For nearly two decades Wing's perspective has contributed to promoting widespread awareness of the importance of computational thinking in an increasingly digitalized world.Throughout these years the concept of computational thinking has evolved significantly, transitioning from its origins in manual computation to its contemporary application in solving complex problems.Historically, computational thinking was often associated with mathematical calculations, for example determining the values of sine or cosine.Today, however, it is understood as a set of mental skills and practices used to design computations that enable computers to perform tasks and to interpret the world as a network of information processes (Denning & Tedre, 2019).