- Title
- The search for computer science concepts in coding animated narratives: tensions and opportunities
- Creator
- Woo, Karen; Falloon, Garry
- Date
- 2023
- Type
- Text; Journal article
- Identifier
- http://researchonline.federation.edu.au/vital/access/HandleResolver/1959.17/198917
- Identifier
- vital:19128
- Identifier
-
https://doi.org/10.1177/07356331231174929
- Identifier
- ISSN:0735-6331 (ISSN)
- Abstract
- Coding is increasingly popular in schools around the world and is often taught by non-specialist teachers as an integrated task with other subject areas. In this article, we explore the relationship between computer science (CS) concepts and students’ multimodal expression in a coding animated narrative (CAN) task in the context of an integrated English-Technology unit of learning. Through this collective case study, we explore how CS concepts underpin semiotic elements of an animated narrative, analyse the factors that influence the extent to which students exercise those concepts, and reveal the tensions and opportunities that a CAN task may present for learning computer science concepts in regular, non-specialist, cross-curricular classrooms. The findings suggest that CAN tasks are unique in presenting opportunities for students to learn challenging CS concepts such as synchronisation and parallelism. At the same time, CAN tasks present tensions for teaching CS concepts in non-specialist classrooms, where student projects are often judged on their visual qualities. In such settings, procedural, rather than conceptual knowledge, may be a more efficient route to creative outcomes. It also means that drawing skills need to be prioritised. Role specialisation often led to better quality projects but at the expense of individual students’ conceptual development in computer science. © The Author(s) 2023.
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications Inc.
- Relation
- Journal of Educational Computing Research Vol. 61, no. 7 (2023), p. 1335-1358; https://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DP190100228
- Rights
- All metadata describing materials held in, or linked to, the repository is freely available under a CC0 licence
- Rights
- https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
- Rights
- Copyright © The Author(s) 2023
- Rights
- Open Access
- Subject
- 3901 Curriculum and pedagogy; 3903 Education systems; 3904 Specialist studies in education; Animated narrative; Assessment; Case study; Coding; Computer science; Cross-curricular; Middle-school
- Full Text
- Reviewed
- Funder
- The research in this article was supported by an Australian Research Council Discovery Projects Grant [DP190100228], funded by the Australian Government. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and are not necessarily those of the Australian Research Council.
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