{"id":3185,"date":"2019-12-13T11:10:56","date_gmt":"2019-12-13T16:10:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/teachersfirst.com\/blog\/?p=3185"},"modified":"2026-03-13T12:37:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T16:37:16","slug":"lets-talk-about-ada-lovelace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/teachersfirst.org\/blog\/2019\/12\/lets-talk-about-ada-lovelace\/","title":{"rendered":"Let\u2019s Talk About: Ada Lovelace"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/span><\/span>This week teachers all over the globe will have students participate in the \u201c<\/span>Hour Of Code<\/span><\/a>\u201d – an introduction to computer science.\u00a0 There are <\/span>many ways to participate<\/span><\/a>, both on and offline.\u00a0 Participating in coding activities helps students to develop<\/span> computational thinking<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0 According to <\/span>Wikipedia<\/span><\/a>, computational thinking is <\/span>\u201ca set of problem-solving methods that involve expressing problems and their solutions in ways that a computer could execute. It involves the mental skills and practices for 1) designing computations that get computers to do jobs for us, and 2) explaining and interpreting the world as a complex of information processes.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the first people to understand computational thinking was Ada Lovelace, the first computer programmer.\u00a0 Ada understood that a computer – once built – would need to follow a series of instructions in order to perform complex calculations.\u00a0 So she wrote a set of instructions. But who was Ada Lovelace really, and how did she stumble on computer programming?<\/span><\/p>\n

Born on December 10, 1815, Augusta Ada King was the Countess of Lovelace.\u00a0 Her father, Lord Byron, was a poet. Her mother, Lady Byron, loved math and science and made sure that Ada had private tutors who would teach those disciplines.\u00a0 In a time when women were not typically seen as intellectuals, Lovelace spent her time with the elite of London society who occupied themselves with academic pursuits.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When a professor at Cambridge who was a friend and mentor designed a calculating machine, Ada studied it.\u00a0 She understood both the plans for the machine as well as a variety of tasks that it would be capable of.\u00a0 In the article that she wrote in 1843 about the \u201cAnalytical Engine,\u201d Lovelace included an algorithm for having the machine complete advanced calculations.\u00a0 Ada understood that if something could be represented by numbers, then it could be changed by a computer that had the correct programming. <\/span>Ada Lovelace was a pioneer very much ahead of her time<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As we take time this week to have students learn about computer science and programming, let\u2019s use the story of Ada Lovelace to inspire girls and other students who typically do not pursue STEM careers.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week teachers all over the globe will have students participate in the \u201cHour Of Code\u201d – an introduction to computer science.\u00a0 There are many ways to participate, both on and offline.\u00a0 Participating in coding activities helps students to develop computational thinking.\u00a0 According to Wikipedia, computational thinking is \u201ca set of problem-solving methods that involve … read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"yes","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[170],"tags":[17,179,22,261],"class_list":["post-3185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lets-talk-about","tag-coding","tag-computational-thinking","tag-stem","tag-women"],"modified_by":"Ruth Okoye","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/teachersfirst.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/teachersfirst.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/teachersfirst.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teachersfirst.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teachersfirst.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3185"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/teachersfirst.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3185\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3191,"href":"https:\/\/teachersfirst.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3185\/revisions\/3191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/teachersfirst.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teachersfirst.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teachersfirst.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}