TY - GEN
T1 - Where are the glass-boxes? Examining the spectrum of modularity in physical computing hardware tools
AU - Desportes, Kayla
AU - Disalvo, Betsy
N1 - Funding Information:
We gratefully acknowledge the grant from NSF (1431984) which supported us in completion of this work.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 Copyright is held by the owner/author(s).
PY - 2017/6/27
Y1 - 2017/6/27
N2 - Teaching physical computing has become more prevalent in the past several decades as the maker movement has popularized microcontroller kits as a way to engage students in learning about and creating with technology. Depending on the design of the kit, students can be exposed to concepts in electronics, computer science and design of computational objects. We argue that the concepts students are exposed to depend on the modularity of the hardware and software tools. We define the level of modularity based on two interdependent characteristics: transparency and affordances for interaction. The transparency affects what is hidden or visible to the learner, while the affordances for interaction regulate how users manipulate and combine elements when constructing a computational artifact. Within this study, we examine the transparency and affordances for interaction of the physical computing hardware tools. Using our findings from this examination, we layout a framework that outlines spectrum of modularity that can be provided to facilitate learning with maker kits.
AB - Teaching physical computing has become more prevalent in the past several decades as the maker movement has popularized microcontroller kits as a way to engage students in learning about and creating with technology. Depending on the design of the kit, students can be exposed to concepts in electronics, computer science and design of computational objects. We argue that the concepts students are exposed to depend on the modularity of the hardware and software tools. We define the level of modularity based on two interdependent characteristics: transparency and affordances for interaction. The transparency affects what is hidden or visible to the learner, while the affordances for interaction regulate how users manipulate and combine elements when constructing a computational artifact. Within this study, we examine the transparency and affordances for interaction of the physical computing hardware tools. Using our findings from this examination, we layout a framework that outlines spectrum of modularity that can be provided to facilitate learning with maker kits.
KW - Design for learning
KW - Electronics
KW - Microcontroller
KW - Physical computing education
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U2 - 10.1145/3078072.3079733
DO - 10.1145/3078072.3079733
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85026314611
T3 - IDC 2017 - Proceedings of the 2017 ACM Conference on Interaction Design and Children
SP - 292
EP - 297
BT - IDC 2017 - Proceedings of the 2017 ACM Conference on Interaction Design and Children
PB - Association for Computing Machinery, Inc
T2 - 16th International ACM Conference on Interaction Design and Children, IDC 2017
Y2 - 27 June 2017 through 30 June 2017
ER -