This is an updated version of an article I published in 2015. The article has been added to, and links that have expired have been sorted out. I thought you might enjoy this, as it suggests stories and articles to read that give food for thought as far as computing is concerned.

How might you use fiction as a vehicle for teaching computational thinking? Here are some ideas.

• Read Asimov's "The Machine That Won the War", summarise it for your students, and then discuss in class.

• Represent a story or poem as a flowchart. The plot diagram of The Machine That Won the War is a nice example.

• Read my article F is for Flash Fiction.

• Read Tom Godwin's "The Cold Equations" summarise it for your students, and ask them to design a program or at least an algorithm to represent what is going on.

• Look at Asimov's Laws of Robotics.

• Visit or revisit The dialogue between the astronaut and Hal, the all-powerful computer, in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Enjoy!

You may find my article Shock Tactics: 7 Ideas for Teaching with Technology useful too.