Communications of the ACM

'There's an App For That,' and You Could Write It

The new Apple ads for the iPhone, with the catchy phrase "There's an app for that," seem ubiquitous on television these days.  They suggest that, for whatever one might want to do with an iPhone, from printing a label to finding an apartment near campus, then there's an application ready-and-waiting to help you do just that.  Ready-and-waiting -- but who made it?

One of the challenges of computing education these days is convincing students that there are new programs to write, programs that they want, and that they are the ones to write them.  Computing is a new literacy.  As Chris Crawford said, "Programming is the new writing."  How do we convince students that they also want to write? It's hard to come up with a compelling argument for students that they need real computing literacy -- which isn't about using applications, and is about what is possible with a computer.

There are arguments that we can give students for numeracy and textual literacy.  They need those things to survive in the world, because numeracy and textual literacy is pervasive in our society.  But even without the pervasiveness, we can make arguments about self expression and solving one's own problems.

We tell kids that they need to learn to write in order to write letters to their grandmothers or to write to-do lists. The fact that there have been letters written in the past is irrelevant -- everyone's letter to their grandma is different. Few teachers tell kids that they should learn to write in order to become a great author (few kids will, or will even find that motivating) or that it will influence the way that they think (I wonder if even all teachers believe that, though there's good cognitive science research suggesting that it's true). 

We do have a harder time arguing that kids should learn mathematics when they have calculators at-hand.  "What happens if you don't have a calculator nearby?" and "You should know how to check if your answer makes sense" are both real reasons for knowing about mathematics without a calculator, but aren't very compelling for elementary school children. The idea that mathematics might influence the way that one thinks and problem-solves is, again, true but not compelling for a child. Yet, the challenge to sell textual literacy or numeracy is nothing compared to the challenge of selling computational literacy.

How much harder is it to come up with a reason for coming to know computation?  "There's an app for that."  What should we be telling students that they can do with computation that's different or better than downloading a ready-made piece of software?  What's the software equivalent to the letter to grandma, that there's a compelling reason why your program should be different from other programs out there?  In part, the problem is a lack of imagination.  As Alan Kay says, "The Computer Revolution hasn't happened yet."  How do you convince kids that there's a greater revolution possible out there, and they can be part of making it happen?

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