In this pictorial, we critically analyze how students engaged in data representation activities using PlayData, a block-based programming environment tailored for data visualization purposes. Drawing upon data collected over two years with middle and high school students, we describe obstacles that impacted the interpretation of the data under analysis. These obstacles, here called "design failures", arose from either unexpected uses of the tool or shortcomings in the design of activities. We explore how each of these failures was used as an opportunity for refining both the tool's design and the associated activities. We conclude by offering recommendations for educators and researchers to support learners' engagement with visualization construction for effective reasoning with data.

In this paper, we describe a new automated tool to analyze how students create their projects on Scratch 3.0, with the goal of understanding learning trajectories in a way that considers students’ programming processes and practices, moving beyond the analysis of computational thinking concepts as evidence of learning. Drawing on a combination of qualitative video analysis and temporal learning analytics, we also present preliminary data from a pilot study that illustrates some possibilities afforded by this type of analytical tool. We expect that our tool can help researchers to better understand learning in the context of data visualization activities with block-based programming languages by shedding light on processes that are usually invisible and, thus, better support students in their diverse learning pathways.

Designing computer models can be a valuable way for students to refine their understandings of scientific phenomena while creating and testing their hypotheses. Drawing on these ideas, we designed nine domain-specific blocks related to diffusion as a Scratch extension, which we called Diffusion Modeling Scratch Extension. In this paper, we describe the pedagogical principles that guided the design of the blocks and draw on the data from a pilot study with seven students to investigate how our design decisions impacted students' learning experiences.

Physical programming is becoming increasingly popular in schools, and many toolkits have been developed in the last years to introduce novices to the field. In this paper, we describe the development of a low cost physical programming toolkit suited for tinkering explorations and designed to be used with everyday materials. We present an overview of the design principles that guided the development of our kit and show projects created by elementary and middle school students.