Technocentric Perceptions of Public Computing

• In Event: Perspectives on Learning in Technology-Rich Contexts

Abstract

Public computation has been proposed as a new form of open-ended, public learning environments where visitors can directly access, modify and create complex and authentic scientific work through interacting with open source computing platforms. However, visitors’ technocentric perceptions and discourse of computing and computing education also shape their interactions in such spaces, sometimes preventing them from engaging in wider social and creative discourses that have been shown to be an affordance of public computing environments. We present an investigation of the relationship between technocentric discourse and participants’ views of and interactions with computing and science in a public computing exhibit in a science museum.

Authors

• Stephanie Hladik, University of Colorado - Boulder

• Marie-Claire Shanahan, University of Calgary

• Pratim Sengupta, University of Calgary