In response to growing environmental concerns within the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Design communities, recent efforts in both industry and academia have focused on addressing the sustainability and environmental impact of technological interventions. This paper engages with this discourse by investigating the lived experiences of volunteers stewarding solar powered servers within the Solar Protocol experimental network, a distributed collaborative design provocation that merges creative practice, sustainable computing, ecological awareness, and community-based care. Through interview analysis, triangulated with additional data sources (observations, memos, communications, etc.), we examine how stewards of cyber-physical systems interdependent with built and natural environments across varied geographies confront and adapt to infrastructural intermittency. We foreground the sociotechnical dimensions involved in this reinfrastructuring process, as the system's design influences collective maintenance efforts. Our findings highlight how stewarding systems that are intermittently powered fosters stewards' deeper understanding of infrastructural interdependencies and environmental rhythms, positioning intermittence as a generative framework for sustainable infrastructural awareness and adaptation.

Representational forms are central to how we explore, communicate, and learn. Yet, they can be challenging to engage with as designers because they vary across disciplines, cultures, and communities. In this paper, we describe our analysis of a dance and computing learning environment through the lens of distributed cognition to examine how representations and processing of information across people and systems impacted the learning process. We analyzed video and audio data from three workshops of dance and STEM instructors learning about, creating with, and co-designing computing activities with danceON—a creative computing platform that supports coding animations over dance videos. We identified the ways that the instructors used their bodies as a shared point of negotiation while co-creating dance artifacts, the participatory role of danceON within the sensemaking process, the ways that the instructors interpreted and translated representations across physical and digital spaces, and the impact of the instructors’ collaborative interactions to their sensemaking.

Tangible programming languages (TPL) involve physical objects, often interlocking blocks, that represent computer programming elements. Users connect TPL blocks in logical chains to construct code that typically controls the behavior of another device. Designed for young children, they offer a playful and embodied approach to computer science education. While these systems can effectively teach basic programming concepts, TPL code lacks transferability and expressivity, which limits the types of problems that learners can engage with. Our work explores how designing for the multimodality of TPLs can support greater complexity in programming concepts, a smoother transition to advanced programming settings, and enhanced learner expression. We present touchBase, a TPL that leverages concepts in physical computing and principles of Gestalt psychology to support a culturally-sustaining approach to CS learning design.

Creative computing education can support engagement and learning across artistic and computational disciplines, while providing opportunities for meaningful expression. Prior work has shown that constructing with electronic textiles [6, 12] (alongside restorying practices [13]) and physical computing kits [7] empower learners to highlight personal and community values and stories while challenging and reimagining dominant narratives. The rapid expansion of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) in recent years has created an influx of attention on how to teach AI across a variety of learners. Work on AI literacy often aims to equip learners with interdisciplinary skills to use and produce with AI technologies while also being critical about their designs. These have led to the development of frameworks to describe and outline what constitutes AI literacy [1, 8, 14] and the exploration of creative computing as an avenue for AI/ML education. While research has shown some benefits of creative computing for AI education, such as by facilitating sensemaking of AI through embodied exploration and co-creation and the critical reflection on the limits, tensions, and ethics around AI [2, 15, 16], there is limited work on identifying the specific AI competencies that creative computing tools and environments support.

Wearable electronics expand the ways learners can create with computing as they gain proficiency with programming and electronics. Dance is one domain where wearables can support creative, embodied practices in computing education. However, wearable electronics need to be small, durable, and easily integrated into clothing to meet the constraints of dance contexts. These features are challenging to achieve, especially when working with novices. We present DanceBits, a wearable prototyping kit for dance that was co-developed with a justice-oriented, computing and dance education organization. DanceBits’ plug-and-play system uses small PCBs with solderless connectors to support dancers in rapidly designing, building, and performing with electronic costumes. Our user studies exploring the system with dance instructors and youth participants show that DanceBits enabled fast development of wearables, offered users a breadth of expressivity through computational and choreographic choices, and empowered dancers to see wearables as a tool for developing their movement practices.

Artistic computing learning environments have been of central importance in the exploration of how to support equity and inclusion in computing. Explorations within e-textiles, music, and interactive media, for example, have created diverse opportunities for learning how to program while creating culturally relevant artifacts. However, there is a gap in our understanding of the design processes of learners in these constructionist environments, including how the computational artifacts and their components impact the learning processes and the ways they build meaning and agency with computing. We advocate for research to attend more closely to the materiality of the computational materials to understand how they impact the social and cultural dimensions in which students are learning. In this paper, we present an analysis of 6 high school learners’ experiences within a co-designed arts and computing curriculum. Our analyses highlight how the materiality of the components impacted the ways in which learners developed personal and epistemological connections to computing based on how it enabled them to connect to their interests, represent their ideas, engage with their community, and overcome or navigate around challenges to get to their final designs. We demonstrate how centralizing the materiality in the design of computational construction kits can inform how we support agency and engagement with computing.

Memes have become ubiquitous artifacts of contemporary digital culture that integrate visual and textual components in order to communicate about a topic. They can be used as forms of visual argumentation that draw on cultural references while facilitating critical commentary that typically results in humorous and caustic dialogue. In this paper, we investigate the meme creation tool, DataMeme where middle school students explore graphs then construct GIFs using existing Gyphy GIFs and overlay their own text onto them in order to communicate about the meaning behind the data. We explore the ways the students engaged in data reasoning and their argumentation practices as they communicate through their memes. Findings from our analysis of 56 data memes and the corresponding written explanations from the students, show that data memes allow students to evaluate data claims within their broader societal implications, while also expressing personal beliefs and attitudes about data.

Integrating fabrication activities into existing video games provides opportunities for players to construct objects from their gameplay and bring the digital content into the physical world. In our prior work, we outlined a framework and developed a toolkit for integrating fabrication activities within existing digital games. Insights from our prior study highlighted the challenge of aligning fabrication mechanics with the existing game mechanics in order to strengthen the player aesthetics.

Effective data literacy instruction requires that learners move beyond understanding statistics to being able to humanize data through a contextual understanding of argumentation and reasoning in the real-world. In this paper, we explore the implementation of a co-designed data comic unit about adolescent friendships. The 7th grade unit involved students analyzing data graphs about adolescent friendships and crafting comic narratives to convey perspectives on that data. Findings from our analysis of 33 student comics, and interviews with two teachers and four students, show that students engaged in various forms of data reasoning and social-emotional reasoning. These findings contribute an understanding of how students make sense of data about personal, everyday experiences; and how an arts-integrated curriculum can be designed to support their mutual engagement in both data and social-emotional reasoning.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) systems are ubiquitous across many fields ranging from medicine (e.g., tumor detection), to natural language processing (e.g., digital home assistants, auto-translate tools), and personalization (e.g., social media recommendations). The rise of these systems has also seen a rise in the ethical challenges resulting from how some of these systems are designed and implemented. Most problematic is their propagation and amplification of problems such as racism and sexism [4, 6], among others. Further, these challenges exist within a computing discipline that is already burdened by exclusive, marginalizing cultures and practices that lead to low participation by women and Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) [3]. Our project, AI + Dance, attends to these dimensions of inequity within AI/ML education through developing our understanding of how we can equip learners to recognize and rectify issues of AI and ML systems within an inclusive and culturally sustaining experience. We explore this in collaboration with STEM From Dance1 (SFD), a non-profit organization that supports girls of color in creative production with dance, CS, and STEM.

In this hands-on workshop participants will experience the curricula from three NSF funded projects, which engage youth in creating art with and about AI technologies while exploring related ethical concerns.

Performing arts computing environments have received little attention in the educational sphere; yet, they offer opportunities for learners to validate their efforts, ideas, and skills through showcasing their work in a public-facing performance. In this work, we explore an out-of-school dance and computing educational program run by the organization, STEM From Dance. The organizational mission is to create an equitable learning experience for young women of color to engage with computing while exposing them to STEM careers. Through an analysis of eleven interviews with youth participants, instructors, and the executive director, we examine how the social, cultural, and political dimensions of the learning environment facilitate identity work in computing and dance. Our findings point to three primary activities used by the organization to promote equity: (1) providing psychological safety through a supportive community environment, (2) meaningfully engaging with learners’ social and cultural context through creative work with constructionist artifacts, and (3) actively promoting identity work as women of color in computing and STEM through both artifact work and community events. Applying the constructs of identity and psychological safety we explore the tensions and synergies of designing for equity in this performing arts and computing learning environment. We demonstrate how the seemingly contradictory elements of a high-stakes performance within a novice learning environment provides unique opportunities for supporting young women of color in computing, making them non-negotiable in the organization’s efforts to promote equity and inclusion. Our work illustrates how attending closely to the sociocultural dimensions in a constructionist learning environment provides lenses for navigating equity, identity work, and support for inclusive computing.

Fabricating objects from a player’s gameplay, for example, collectibles of valuable game items, or custom game controllers shaped from game objects, expands ways to engage with digital games. Researchers currently create such integrated fabrication games from scratch, which is time-consuming and misses the potential of integrating fabrication with the myriad existing games. Integrating fabrication with the real-time gameplay of existing games, however, is challenging without access to the source files.

Dance provides unique opportunities for embodied interdisciplinary learning experiences that can be personally and culturally relevant. danceON is a system that supports learners to leverage their body movement as they engage in artistic practices across data science, computing, and dance. The technology includes a Domain Specific Language (DSL) with declarative syntax and reactive behavior, a media player with pose detection and classification, and a web-based IDE. danceON provides a low-floor allowing users to bind virtual shapes to body positions in under three lines of code, while also enabling complex, dynamic animations that users can design working with conditionals and past position data. We developed danceON to support distance learning and deployed it in two consecutive cohorts of a remote, two-week summer camp for young women of color. We present our findings from an analysis of the experience and the resulting computational performances. The work identifies implications for how design can support learners’ expression across culturally relevant themes and examines challenges from the lens of usability of the computing language and technology.

In our society, where technologies continue to act as a marginalizing force for various individuals and communities, makerspaces present unique opportunities for community-driven work that engages people with a variety of communal technologies, knowledge, and work practices. However, makerspaces grew out of largely exclusionary discourses, which continue to neglect non-dominant technology practices, knowledge bases, and communities. Despite these origins, research remains largely optimistic about the potential for makerspaces to provide equitable opportunities for those stereotypically excluded to engage, learn, and build with technologies. We mirror this optimism through our work examining how makerspaces might be positioned to address social inequities while supporting community growth and development. This paper traces the development of a social justice makerspace situated within a community of color in the United States. The work contributes a contextual analysis of the design of a makerspace explicitly positioned to forefront community voices and address issues of social inequities. We highlight community perspectives within our situated design process as we draw out the themes and tensions that arose. Applying a social justice framework from Dombrowski et al. (2016) and Lötter's (2011) to our findings we demonstrate how makerspaces can be positioned to address social inequities through: identifying, educating, and communicating about inequities; engaging in the distribution of resources and opportunities; and enabling capacity building at the individual and structural levels. We highlight how an asset-based orientation can position the makerspace to grow in effective ways to address community issues.

Virtual reality (VR) has the potential to foster collaborative science learning, but guidelines for designing in this medium are lacking. This work-in-progress paper explores this gap in the literature through analysis of GeoForge, a multiple-player VR/digital learning experience where users collaboratively explore planetary systems. A mixed-methods study at 3 middle schools used teacher interviews, student survey responses, and student work to examine how GeoForge encouraged information exchange and reflection within small student groups. Our findings indicate students shared ideas and resources, engaged in co-construction, and teachers recognized high student engagement throughout the experience.

Physical computing has grown over the past decade leading to diverse experiences and tools for novices. Despite the variety of tools, Arduinos remain a leading choice in education. However, few studies examine how novices are learning about the programming and electronics concepts, and how tools impact their experience. The research presented reports on the qualitative analysis of a laboratory study in which 31 novices work with the Arduino for the first time. Video and audio recordings captured participants' actions and thoughts as they used the Arduino platform with a blocks-based programming environment, and two electronics prototyping tools-the standard Breadboard and a modular breadboard called BitBlox. The study presents three main contributions to the literature: first, it provides a codebook of the common breakdowns faced by novices; second, it offers insight into the work processes of novices; and third, it demonstrates ways that the tools used by novices can affect their experience.

Teaching physical computing has become more prevalent in the past several decades as the maker movement has popularized microcontroller kits as a way to engage students in learning about and creating with technology. Depending on the design of the kit, students can be exposed to concepts in electronics, computer science and design of computational objects. We argue that the concepts students are exposed to depend on the modularity of the hardware and software tools. We define the level of modularity based on two interdependent characteristics: transparency and affordances for interaction. The transparency affects what is hidden or visible to the learner, while the affordances for interaction regulate how users manipulate and combine elements when constructing a computational artifact. Within this study, we examine the transparency and affordances for interaction of the physical computing hardware tools. Using our findings from this examination, we layout a framework that outlines spectrum of modularity that can be provided to facilitate learning with maker kits.

Building physical computing projects can enable learners to integrate computing into a range of interests and disciplines. However, the electronic portion of these projects can be difficult. Students are learning new concepts as well as how to work with new tools. This influx of information can be difficult for students to retain in their working memory as they construct their circuits. In this paper, we introduce BitBlox, a set of modular, solderless Breadboards for prototyping circuits. BitBlox attempts to decrease the cognitive load on the user by reducing the complexity found in the standard Breadboard by bringing visibility to the underlying connections within its modules. We present a comparative classroom study integrating the Breadboard and BitBlox into two different high school classes. Our qualitative analysis focuses on student errors, strategies, and collaborative practices, highlighting important dynamics for designing hardware tools.

Assessment of students' conceptual knowledge is a difficult task in all fields including electrical engineering. Recently, electrical engineering assessments have tried to isolate various types of knowledge through expert reviewed and validated tests or concept inventories, which attempt to cover the foundational concepts within a particular domain. While these tests have been fundamental in uncovering how students understand important concepts within specialties, they are traditionally administered on a static 2D interface without providing the students with tangible examples to think with or about. We report on a qualitative laboratory study to understand how different tools can change the possibilities and limitations of thinking with circuits. Specifically, we administer two versions of an assessment targeting concepts in direct current (DC) circuits in which students talked through their reasoning. One version represents the circuits as conventional symbolic diagrams, and the other version represents the circuits using physical circuit components connected with wires and solder. The participants conveyed several misconceptions within both forms with an even spread across each assessment. However, students exhibited the misconception of sequential reasoning more prevalently in the physical circuit assessment than the diagram assessment.

My research expands our understanding of CS education in the context of physical computing. Specifically I examine how the tools used when creating physical computing projects affect how students work and learn. Using distributed cognition (DCog) within a classroom environment, I will investigate the effect that information representation has on students' conceptions of CS and electronics. These explorations will be complemented by an application of cognitive load theory (CLT) to understand the difficulty of physical computing tasks and the effect tools have on the load students experience. Completion of this work will uncover mistakes and misconceptions students have in physical computing and highlight ways to effectively design tools for novice learners.

The MoveLab was an educational research intervention centering on a community of African American and Hispanic girls as they began to transform their self-concept in relation to computing and dance while creating technology enhanced dance performances. Students within underrepresented populations in computing often do not perceive the identity of a computer scientist as aligning with their interests or value system, leading to rejection of opportunities to participate within the discipline. To engage diverse populations in computing, we need to better understand how to support students in navigating conflicts between identities with computing and their personal interest and values. Using the construct of self-concept, we observed students in the workshop creating both congruence and dissension between their self-concept and computing. We found that creating multiple roles for participation, fostering a socially supportive community, and integrating student values within the curriculum led to students forming congruence between their self-concept and the disciplines of computing and dance.