Expressing Student Voice Through Musical Electronic Textiles: Lamination as a Framework for Meaningful Design

• In Event: Dis/Connecting With Computing: Designing for Critical Identities and Equitable Inquiry in K–12 Computer Science Education

Abstract

Objective: There is a growing interest in CT practices that integrate rigorous CS learning with personally meaningful and critical engagement (Kafai, Proctor & Lui, 2019). One possible approach builds on the classic idea of learning by creating computational things (Papert, 1980), with the more critical idea of lamination in that process of creation. This poster attends to how an arts-influenced unit in one CS class supported traditionally underrepresented students in CS education to develop their artistic and personal voices while learning CS by creating a musical e-textile mural project, uniting physical and symbolic materials to represent their role and belonging in communities.

Framework: We use lamination (Holland & Leander, 2004) as a metaphor for combining separate elements of lived experiences, physical materials, and code into a lasting mediating device. Using this sociocultural framework, we attend to learning as a process undertaken over time, in a specific context—a classroom—designed to support students in reflecting on their identity and role in their communities.

Methods: We analyzed across pre- and post-interviews, daily observations, and final projects of two focal participants over 16 weeks in a classroom. Using this data, we created case studies (Saldana, 2016) of two students who had contrasting relationships with CS, attending to the ways they integrated seemingly disparate elements (computing, art, personal interests) into the projects they created.

Results: These case studies show students persevering through challenging CS learning and laminating multiple experiences into a single CS project: Paloma (female, Latina), embraced CS and sought deeper alignment with it, and Jae (male, Asian American), did not like CS, yet found it a means of creative expression. Both students grappled with complex CS skills in order to represent communities relevant to them and develop their artistic voice. Students laminated visual, musical, personal, temporal, and computational elements to create meaning through manipulating a tangible artifact. Jae united his personal experiences of visiting Korea, listening to K-pop music, his own photograph, learning to code music, and finally hearing the product of his code into a “durable” (Holland & Leander, 2004) lamination of his community. Coding the music allowed him to “hear it in a different way” (post-interview), reminding him of memories from his past. This process allowed Jae to fuse disparate elements of experiences into a single representational artifact—a musical mural—which led him to see computing as a creative space. Paloma was challenged by translating sheet music to code. She persevered in part to complete her artistic vision: a digital image of a painted self-portrait representing communities of art and CS. Paloma brought together LEDs, coded music, her lived experiences as a young woman in CS and the arts, and her imagined future as a coder into a resonant representation of her role in both CS and the arts.

Significance: Lamination may provide a framework with which to design critical computational experiences for underrepresented youth. Inviting reflection and representation of community through musical and lighting effects (which require challenging computational work) may enable students to create deeper connection in existing and new (computational) communities.

Authors

• Lindsay Elizabeth Lindberg, University of California - Los Angeles

• Deborah A. Fields, Utah State University

• Yasmin B. Kafai, University of Pennsylvania