Abstract
Nationwide, efforts are focusing on taking computer science (CS) to scale in high school classrooms through the Exploring Computer Science (ECS) and AP CS Principles (CSP) courses. Recent inroads are also being made to take structured introductory curricula to middle school classrooms. Often, a starting point for teaching CS in middle and high school is a discussion around the seemingly simple question "What is a computer?" The question is aimed to help learners understand through debate and discussion what makes a computer a computer. This paper reports our analysis of (a) middle school students' discussions around this question, and (b) high school students' responses to an assessment question measuring this understanding. Our analyses of students' comments and responses reveal that a discussion around "what is a computer?" may be problematic for students, as it tends to focus on the tool, the "computer." We suggest that the discussion needs re-framing to focus instead on computing and computation.
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