Electronic textiles (e-textiles) weave computational and electronic components into fabric, enabling students to design and build fabric-based projects that interact with their surroundings. This meshing of physical hardware and virtual software can be difficult for students to untangle when debugging. Is an LED failing to light up because of an…

Much attention in constructionism has focused on designing tools and activities that support learners in designing fully finished and functional applications and artefacts to be shared with others. But helping students learn to debug their applications often takes on a surprisingly more instructionist stance by giving them checklists, teaching…

Electronic textiles, which integrate computation with fabrics through a redesigned interface of microcontrollers, sensors, and actuators, have expanded possibilities not only for engineering, fashion, and human-computer interaction but also for computer science education itself. While individual studies involving electronic textiles have shown…

The field of computer science has long been plagued by issues of diversity - in particular, attracting and retaining those historically marginalized in computing contexts. This is a great loss to the field, to the future of innovation, and to society. Perhaps most importantly, it is an incalculable loss to those populations excluded from pursuing…

Background and Context: While assessment of computational thinking concepts, practices, and perspectives is at the forefront of K-12 CS education, supporting student "communication about computation" has received relatively little attention. Objective: To examine the usability of process-based portfolios for capturing students'…

Background and Context: Physical computing involves complex negotiations of multiple, on and off-screen tasks, which calls for research on how to best structure collaborative work to ensure equitable learning. Objective: We focus on how pairs self-organized their multi-domain tasks in physical computing, and how their social interactions supported…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to report changes when a classroom-based makerspace moved from face-to-face to an online setting. Design/methodology/approach: To better understand changes in teaching maker activities, as they move from face-to-face to online contexts, the authors analyzed video and interview data from six weeks of an…

Background and context: Promoting open-ended projects presents new opportunities and challenges for inclusive teaching in CS classrooms. While efforts have been made to develop inclusive curricula, little research has focused on ways teachers apply curricula in their classrooms to promote inclusion. Objective: To understand the challenges faced in…

Portfolios have recently gained traction within computer science education as a way to assess students' computational thinking and practices. Whereas traditional assessments such as exams tend to capture learning within artificial settings at a single point in time, portfolios provide more authentic opportunities to document a trajectory of…

Recent discussions of making have focused on developing out-of-school makerspaces and activities to provide more equitable and enriching learning opportunities for youth. Yet school classrooms present a unique opportunity to help broaden access, diversify representation, and deepen participation in making. In turning to classrooms, we want to…

In this article, we examine the use of electronic textiles (e-textiles) for introducing key computational concepts and practices while broadening perceptions about computing. The starting point of our work was the design and implementation of a curriculum module using the LilyPad Arduino in a pre-AP high school computer science class. To…

This report continues the series in which Education Scotland evaluates the quality of young people's learning and achievements, in this case in the technologies. The report contributes to the overall picture of what it is like to be a learner in a Scottish early learning or childcare setting or school in this second decade of the 21st Century. The…

This article presents the design and development of i*CATch, a construction kit for physical and wearable computing that was designed to be scalable, plug-and-play, and to provide support for iterative and exploratory learning. It consists of a standardized construction interface that can be adapted for a wide range of soft textiles or electronic…