ABSTRACT
In this chapter, Seymour Papert’s concept of “powerful ideas” is explored,and defined as ideas that are personally useful, interconnected with other disciplines, and have roots in intuitive knowledge that a child has internalized over a long period. Bers explores each of her seven powerful ideas of computational thinking in depth. These powerful ideas are: algorithms, modularity, control structures, representation, hardware/software, design process, and debuggingEach idea is explored for why it is powerful, and how it can be presented to young children in a developmentally appropriate way.
