Direct Instruction is Better than Discovery, but What Should We be Directly Instructing?
We should teach students directly, not expect them to discover for themselves. What should we be teaching directly?
BLOG@CACM
Advertisement
A Tale of Two CTs (and a Revised Timeline for Computational Thinking)
Rethinking the timeline of Computational Thinking to recognize several computer scientists in addition to Jeannette Wing.
The Gap in CS, Mulling Irrational Exuberance
Carl Hewitt suggests computer science needs a reference resource, while Vijay Kumar decries intellectual dishonesty in technology forecasting.
Scalable Intelligent Systems by 2025
People are fundamental to a Scalable Intelligent System; there is no computer-only solution that can implement such a system.
Ten Traits of Exceptional Innovators
I have had the privilege of meeting, and in some cases closely interacting with, pioneer scientists, technologists, and entrepreneurs, including Nobel, Fields, and Turing winners. It is only fair that I should share some of the traits I have observed in them.
What Children Want to Know About Computers
Does a super computer have a really big chip in it? Would we be more or less clever if computers had never been invented? These are the sorts of questions which children want to know about computers, but which don't get answered at school.
In the U.S., a shift in who pays to prepare computer science (CS) teachers.
Mystery Dating of the World-famous ‘Millionaire’ Calculating Machine Solved
Regarding the discovery of new documents about the H.W. Egli AG (Zurich) company in the Museum für Kommunikation, Berne, Switzerland.
What Turing and Church Left Out
Concurrency control for readers and writers in a database is a classic problem that illustrates the power of message passing.
Can We Use AI for Global Good?
Amir Banifatemi observes how the AI for Good Summit "allowed us to start a dialogue, find a common frame of reference, and decide how our steps would be smart and structured."
User support presents serious challenges that are aggravated by indeterminate client responsibility.
A Twitter conversation turned into a narrative on computational thinking
This is a plea to the technical community working in the domain of natural language processing and natural language understanding to appreciate the difference between the two, and to set some standards in the public media that seem now to be seriously inappropriate.
How Did People Write Machine Learning Code in the Past?
Summarizes popular programming languages and libraries that have been used for machine learning throughout the past two decades.
Computer Science Encyclopedia Can Fill a Gap
Our profession has the credibility and resources to create an Encyclopedia that will serve as the professional standard.
Discovering Bugs, or Ensuring Success?
Finding errors is not the same as making certain a software product works correctly.
Did Albert Einstein Calculate on the ‘Millionaire’ in Zurich?
In 1897, ETH Zurich was the first university in the world to have a copy of the legendary four-species calculating machine Millionaire.
Irrational Exuberance and the ‘FATE’ of Technology
Questions of verification, safety, and trust must be central when we embody intelligence in physical systems.
Assessing Responsibility for Program Output
We lack an easy way to indicate that algorithms do not make decisions and are not biased; programmers do, and are.
First-Class Philosophical Failure
Interrogation of "first-class object" as an analog to human life goes nowhere.
Moving Computing Education Past Argument from Authority: Stuart Reges and Women Who Code
Computing educators often make decisions based on arguments from authority. Time to move on.
Discussing Empirical Answers to Questions of Software Engineering
Focusing on what helps software developers.
Algorithms Have Been Around for 4,000 Years
For some years now, the terms "algorithms", "digitization" and "artificial intelligence" have become commonplace. However, these terms are rarely explained. One has the impression these achievements are new, which is by no means true. This also applies, for example, to neural networks, machine learning, and big data. The boom is not least due to the sharp increase in computing power of desktop and portable computers.
Shape the Future of Computing
ACM encourages its members to take a direct hand in shaping the future of the association. There are more ways than ever to get involved.
Get InvolvedCommunications of the ACM (CACM) is now a fully Open Access publication.
By opening CACM to the world, we hope to increase engagement among the broader computer science community and encourage non-members to discover the rich resources ACM has to offer.
Learn More