programming, we allowed them to
experience a connection between the
physical world and digital world,
exploring new creative interactions
using programming beyond the
computer screen. What’s more, by
applying wires with clips, they
experienced programming in “real
life.” As in the first workshop, all
teams managed to create their games,
complete the extended curriculum,
and present their games to other
workshop participants.
WHAT DID WE LEARN?
Our interventions, introducing
programming as a social and tangible
activity, changed the dynamic of the
Coding Pirates workshops. We saw
how the social dynamic was distinctly
different in our workshops compared
with previous workshops. Including
social interaction as part of the
workshop design may hold potential for
attracting and retaining more diverse
participation (e.g., diversity in gender
and social background), as it may change
the perception of what programming
entails, thus potentially retaining
participants such as the 13-year-old girl
mentioned earlier.
Our findings go beyond the agenda
of inclusion. One of the challenges
experienced by Coding Pirates
teachers is that participants feel
anxiety and are reluctant to present
and share their ideas and
accomplishments in front of the whole
class. Indeed, it can be demanding to
stand in front of others and present
what you have created. Interestingly,
this was not an issue during our
workshops. Instead, our participants
expressed a desire to share and
present their accomplishments to
fellow participants and referred to
their work as a shared and joined task
instead of an individual performance.
For example, they said, “I wouldn’t
mind presenting in front of everybody
in the class” and “You have someone
to back you up if you forget
something,” which accentuates their
perception of coding as collaborative
and social. The social and tangible
approaches applied to programming
seem to accelerate and stimulate
participants’ eagerness to display
their digital products and help others.
In particular, a quote from the second
workshop stands out. A participant
was frustrated and expressed giving
up, somewhat loudly, when another
participant yelled back in
encouragement, “You just need to
continue! It gets much more fun
soon!” The first participant managed
to overcome his frustrations and
succeed.
Both workshops achieved great
success with regard to collaboration
within teams and within the whole
class. While the hats were originally
designed to explain the roles in pair
programming, they turned out to
have a far stronger impact than first
anticipated. The hats became a
manifestation of the social coherence
across the class. Expressions such as
“Doesn’t your navigator listen to you
either?” being shared in a playful
manner across the room, addressing
participants wearing similar hats,
demonstrated how each participant
was part of a team, a sub-group, and
the class simultaneously. Being able
to monitor how other participants
collaborate, while experiencing
visual similarity, facilitated social
interaction. The experience of
belonging further supported
participants in having confidence in
sharing ideas and helping out others.
In both workshops, the social
interaction was central, not only
because of pair programming, but
also due to the inclusive social
characteristic of the tasks and
exercises. Two participants
exchanged information after the
workshop and agreed to continue
their work. Finding new ways to
create age-appropriate
computational thinking [ 5] is
important. Our interventions
facilitated the experience of
programming as socially embedded,
and Coding Pirates were able to
transform everyday objects into
computational artifacts.
When conceptually approaching
introduction to programming as
social and tangible human-computer
activity, we have the potential to
develop new ways for teaching
programming that foster inclusion.
DOI: 10.1145/3137099 © 2017 ACM 1072-5520/17/11 $15.00
We argue that strategies of moving
beyond the keyboard and screen,
including considerations of the
socially embedded context, are
relevant for programming at various
levels of education and
participation—high school, college,
or university. By creating new
classroom experiences that foster
engagement for computational
thinking in the long term, we can
promote increased participation in
designing digital technologies and
shaping society for all.
Endnotes
1. Resnick, M., Maloney, J., Monroy-Hermandez, A., Rusk, N., Eastmond, E.,
Brennan, K., Millner, A., Rosenbaum,
E., Silver, J., Silverman, B., and Kafai,
Y. Scratch: Programming for all.
Communications of the ACM 52, 11 (2009),
60–67.
2. Beginners’ Mind Collective and Shaw, D.
Makey Makey: Improvising tangible and
nature-based user interfaces. Proc. of the
Sixth International Conference on Tangible,
embedded and Embodies Interaction. ACM,
New York, 2012.
3. Werner, L. and Denning, J. Pair
programming in middle school.
Journal of Research on Technology in
Education 42, 1 (2009), 29–49
4. Bjørn, P. and Hertzum, M. Project-based
collaborative learning: Negotiating
leadership and commitment in virtual
teams. Proc. of the 5th Conference on Human
Computer Interaction in Southern Africa.
ACM, 2006.
5. Wing, J.M. Computational thinking.
Communications of the ACM 49, 3 (2006),
33–35.
Olivia L. Tabel is finishing her bachelor’s
degree in communication and IT at the
University of Copenhagen, currently at UC
Santa Barbara.
→
lindertabel@gmail.com
Jonathan Jensen is finishing his bachelor’s
degree in communication and I T at the
University of Copenhagen.
→
jona2412@gmail.com
Martin Dybdal established the DIKU branch
of Coding Pirates and is a Ph.D. student in the
Department of Computer Science (DIKU) at the
University of Copenhagen.
→
dybber@dybber.dk
Pernille Bjørn is a professor of computer-supported cooperative work in the human-centered computing section in the Department
of Computer Science (DIKU) at the University of
Copenhagen.
→
pernille.bjorn@di.ku.dk