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.

Culturally responsive STEM and computing initiatives aim to engage and embolden a diverse range of learners, center their identity and experiences in curriculum, and connect learners to each other and their communities. With an abrupt pivot to online learning at the beginning of 2020, more educational experiences have taken place virtually. We ran a virtual synchronous culturally responsive computing camp and saw that establishing the right environment online to support a good sense of connectedness was challenging. To investigate this further, we interviewed eight K-12 instructors of culturally responsive STEM and computing programs. Three themes emerged on defining and cultivating connectedness in learning experiences, the role of equity in supporting community online, and affordances of being online specific to culturally responsive perspectives. We support our thematic findings with vignettes from the camp data. In this study, we address K-12 culturally responsive STEM and computing instructors' beliefs, experiences, and approaches regarding cultivating connectedness online. This work fills a gap in understanding instructor perspectives on building in-program and broader community connections online from a culturally responsive STEM and computing lens.