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In a recent article for the ABC, Elvery has looked at how the use of algorithms by both government and business has begun to impact our daily lives, without us even knowing what they are or how they work.

With this prevalence of algorithms in modern life, it is significant that Victorian secondary school maths students are now required to learn algorithmic thinking.

The approach to teaching algorithms taken by the Essential Mathematics for the Victorian Curriculum series is that if an algorithm is a step-by-step process that is used to solve a problem, algorithmic thinking is about coming up with step-by-step processes to solve mathematical problems. So students are learning to solve problems by thinking in the way a computer operates. 

Read our interview with lead author David Greenwood on the introduction of algorithmic thinking in Victorian schools.