Computational Action & Translanguaging in Computer Science Education
Some scholars/practitioners, including myself, make the case that in order for Computer Science (CS) to be engaging it needs to be situated in real-world contexts. This is especially so for learners from under-resourced or underrepresented groups. Computational action advocates argue that learners need to create with code in ways that are relevant to their everyday lives. One example is the use of heritage algorithms that include artifacts that are amenable to algorithmic design.
Coding using MIDI objects is another example. MIDI or Musical Instrument Digital Interface is a communication protocol for electronic music devices, such as electronic keyboard instruments that work alongside music software on computers. With students, I explored Bare Conductive’s MIDI controller tutorial and looked at examples such as this and this. In order to create their own MIDI devices, students had to learn to program microcontrollers and design their own interfaces.
A multinational study has shown that students who know the basic syntax of coding — rules that define a programming language — are often unable to apply this knowledge to solve real problems. Teaching computer science using these and other culturally relevant or sustaining methods can create a more equitable (diverse, inclusive) environment for student groups that are underrepresented and marginalized in CS.
Sara Vogel’s recently published thesis found that emergent bi/multilingual students’ diverse language practices are assets in CS education, which can enable the forging of new meaningful computational literacies. Vogels concept of translanguaging emphasizes how the fluid languaging and language practices of marginalized groups defy and go beyond traditional conventions, categories, and borders. Vogel writes,
In this dissertation, I count as translanguaging how people orchestrate embodied social actions they become oriented to in assemblages with machines and technologies.
Vogel studies the “expressive nature of students’ computing projects — the messages and stories students hoped to transmit through their projects and the audiences that they hoped to reach.” Students in the study orchestrated computational artifacts along with other “translanguaging practices” to support various aspects of their creative self-expression.
Translanguaging is different from code-switching, which is seen as the process of changing two languages, whereas translanguaging is about “the speakers’ construction that creates the complete language repertoire” (p. 3). My concept of techno-vernacular creativity amplifies making and craft performances in the act/process of computation. These performances are situated in everyday life and cultures that are familiar to students from underrepresented groups. All of these theories could be happening in the same learning activity.
Making is the final step: linking computational literacy to cultural practice. Students make the the connection between coding/computation to action through the creation of art and crafts. In this way, computational action is also culturally relevant and culturally sustaining.