Dancing in Virtual Environments: Exploring Grounded Embodied Pedagogy in Support of Computational Thinking

• In Event: Instructional Systems and the Construction of Knowledge

Abstract

In Dancing in Virtual Environments (DIVE), the authors pioneer the design, development, and testing of a virtual environment and associated curriculum for blending dance and programming as a novel and embodied way to engage middle school girls with computational thinking. This newly designed platform enables users to create choreography based on dance clips, using a optical motion capture system that allows the designers to accurately record the subtleties of a dancer's movements. Throughout this five-year project, curricular interventions are developed that can contribute to knowledge of effective teaching and learning of computing, creating innovative, artistic, and digitally-relevant pedagogical strategies for advancing education. Here the development process and initial findings from beta-testing sessions of the iterative design are presented.

Authors

• Shaundra Bryant Daily, Clemson University

• Alison E Leonard, Clemson University

• Sophie Joerg, Clemson University

• Sabarish Babu, Clemson University