I situate computer programming as a cultural practice. I develop this perspective in two ways: exploring how programming practices can support intercultural learning, and examining how programming tools themselves embed cultural assumptions and values. For the former, I study how relationships across difference are formed over computing activities…

Makerspaces can support educational experiences in prototyping for young learners, while physical computing platforms enable high levels of creativity and expression. However, each of these have high barriers of entry, especially for youth without prior experience. Commercial microcontrollers have become a popular tool to use when designing both…

Software modeling is an integral practice for software engineers especially as the complexity of software solutions increase. There is precedent in industry to model information systems in terms of functions, structures, and behaviors. While constructing these models, abstraction and systems thinking are employed to determine elements essential to…

Embodiment is a concept that has gained widespread usage within the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) community in recent years. In a general sense, embodiment is the notion that cognition arises not just from the mind, but also through our bodies' physical and social interactions with the world around us. HCI has employed this body-centric…

As new introductory block-based coding applications for young students to learn basic computer science concepts, such as, loops and conditionals, continue to increase in popularity, it is necessary to consider the best method of teaching students these skills. Many of these products continue to exhibit programmatic misconceptions of these concepts…

This dissertation examines the politics of design practice in urban India through an ethnography of a Delhi-based design and innovation studio. The dissertation focuses on the ideological continuities between the profession of design and middle class Indian citizenship post-liberalization, twinning arts of governance through the shaping of the…

This study provides insights with regard to the types of cognitive processes that are involved in the formation of mental models and the way those models change over the course of a semester in novice programmers doing a design task. Eight novice programmers participated in this study for three distinct software design sessions, using the same…

Among educational researchers and practitioners, there is a growing interest in employing computer games for pedagogical purposes. The present research integrated a technology education class and a science class where 5th graders learned about environmental issues by designing games that involved environmental concepts. The purposes of this study…