Barefoot Algorithms
What are algorithms?
An algorithm is a sequence of instructions or a set of rules to get something done.
You’ll favour a particular route home from school – you can think of it as an algorithm. There are plenty of alternative routes home, and there’ll be an algorithm to describe each one of those too. There are even algorithms for deciding the shortest or fastest route, such as form the basis of satnav systems.
Algorithms are written for a human, rather than for a computer to understand. In this way, algorithms differ from programs.
A set of rules – an algorithm – for multiplying a number by ten.
Why are algorithms important?
Computer scientists strive for algorithms which solve problems in the most-effective and efficient ways – getting the most-accurate results, in the quickest time, with the fewest resources (memory or time).
Search engines such as Bing or Google use algorithms to order a list of search results so that, more often than not, the result we want is at the top of the front page of results. Your Facebook newsfeed is derived from your friends’ status updates and other activity, but it only shows that activity which the EdgeRank algorithm assesses to be of most interest to you. Your recommendations from Amazon, Netflix and eBay are algorithmically generated, based in part on what other people are interested in.
What do algorithms look like in the curriculum?
Helping pupils get an idea of what an algorithm is needn’t be confined to computing lessons. A recipe in cookery, instructional writing in English, the method for a science experiment: each can be considered an algorithm.
For various activities, pupils will already follow a sequence of steps – e.g. getting ready for lunch or going to PE. In maths, one’s approach to mental arithmetic might be an implementation of a simple algorithm.
A sequence of instructions – an algorithm – for how to plant a seed.
Spelling rules for the “or” phoneme.
Barefoot Logic
What is logic?
Logical reasoning helps us explain why something happens.
If you set up two computers in the same way, giving them the same instructions (the program) and the same input, you can pretty much guarantee the same output. This is because computers don’t make things up as they go along or work differently depending on how they feel – they are predictable. Because of this, we can use logical reasoning to work out exactly what a program or computer system will do.
Children quickly pick logic up for themselves. Watching others and experimenting for themselves, even very young children quickly develop a mental model of how technology works. A child learns that clicking a certain button brings up, for example, a list of different games to play, and that tapping a certain part of a screen produces a reliably predictable response.
At its heart, logical reasoning is about being able to explain why something is the way it is.
Why is logic important?
Deep inside a computer’s central processing unit , every action performed is reduced to logical operations based on electrical signals – everything a computer does is controlled by logic.
Software engineers use logical reasoning all the time. In developing new, effective code, they draw on mental models of the workings of computer hardware, operating systems and programming languages. They’ll also rely on logical reasoning when testing the new software, searching for mistakes (“bugs”) and fixing them (debugging).
What does logic look like in curriculum?
There are many ways that children draw on logical reasoning in their computing lessons and across the wider curriculum. In Language, pupils might use it to explain a character’s actions in a story so far, and to predict what the character will do next. In science, pupils should be able to explain how they’ve arrived at certain conclusions from the results of experiments. In history, pupils should understand how our knowledge is constructed from a variety of sources, and they should be able to discuss the logical connections between cause and effect. In design and technology, pupils need to reason what material is best suited to each part of a project. They’ll use logical reasoning to analyse philosophical arguments.
Pupils explain reasons for their choice of materials in design and technology projects.
In sessions on philosophy for children, pupils use logical reasoning to analyse arguments.
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