The intersection of language and identity refers to the ways in which language use reflects and shapes one's sense of self and group membership. It is important to design voice-based technologies that represent and support diverse types of identities to increase accessibility. Due to constraints in the data and algorithms used to train and improve artificial intelligence (AI) systems like social robots or voice assistants, they are often unable to represent certain dialects of English and other languages. This could result in data bias, identity exclusion, and communication barriers that can impact the user's outcomes when using such dialects. Technology companies are discussing how to close this gap by improving training data; however, some researchers believe that the intersection of identity and technology calls for effective collaborative design methodologies that involve intended users. This work-in-progress paper presents preliminary findings on a participatory design method, comic-boarding, that can accomplish the above goal. Using comic-boarding, our intention is to create a space for critical reflection on language and identity in human-human and human-agent dialogue for children from marginalized communities.

Robot technologies have been introduced to computing education to engage learners. This study introduces the concept of co-creation with a robot agent into culturally-responsive computing (CRC). Co-creation with computer agents has previously focused on creating external artifacts. Our work differs by making the robot agent itself the co-created product. Through participatory design activities, we positioned adolescent girls and an agentic social robot as co-creators of the robot’s identity. Taking a thematic analysis approach, we examined how girls embody the role of creator and co-creator in this space. We identified themes surrounding who has the power to make decisions, what decisions are made, and how to maintain social relationship. Our findings suggest that co-creation with robot technology is a promising implementation vehicle for realizing CRC.

Computing education is important for K-12 learners, but not all learners resonate with common educational practices. Culturally responsive computing initiatives center and empower learners from diverse and historically excluded backgrounds. Recently, a number of educational programs have been developed and curated for an online experience. In this paper, we describe an online synchronous culturally responsive computing (CRC) camp for middle school girls (ages 11-14 years old) and report on challenges and successes from running the camp curriculum four times over the course of a year. We also describe core iterative changes we made between our runs. We then discuss lessons learned related to building rapport and connection among learners, centering learners of different backgrounds in an online synchronous environment, and facilitating reflection on power and identity aimed at positioning learners as techno-social change agents. Lastly, we offer recommendations for running online CRC experiences.

Computer science (CS) education is an important subject for K-12 students in an increasingly computational world. However, common CS education practices may not be inclusive of all learners. Culturally responsive computing (CRC) initiatives aim to center and empower learners from diverse and historically excluded backgrounds. With a sudden shift to online learning, virtual educational experiences have been developed. We describe three main findings from running three iterations of an online synchronous CRC camp for middle school girls, which are: (1) Integration of power, identity, and CS concepts, (2) Participation in CS vs. power and identity activities based on learners' backgrounds, and (3) Adjusting instructor expectations about learner engagement to be more open-ended.

Dialog with a social pedagogical robot or agent is a powerful way for kids to learn [1, 5] but may limit the formation of an agentic relationship with the technology [9]. One main purpose of conversational agents is to allow the user to have a natural interaction that reduces the need to learn artificial conventions [6], but dialog systems fall short with respect to failure recovery, vocabulary diversity, remembering conversational history, and other measures [2, 3]. Further, Hill et. al. [4] found that people adapt their model of communication to match a chatbot’s in the same way they do with a child or non-native speaker. Thus, users conversing with a pedagogical agent are implicitly trained to shape their behavior to suit the technology rather than shaping the technology. For young learners, particularly among populations that have been historically excluded from technology fields, this limits agency and reinforces marginalizing power structures [9].