David Weintrop, Rotem Israel-Fishelson, Christina Gardner-McCune
{"title":"Emerging computational and digital literacies in K-12 education","authors":"David Weintrop, Rotem Israel-Fishelson, Christina Gardner-McCune","doi":"10.1016/j.ijcci.2024.100707","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ijcci.2024.100707","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The rise of new technologies, platforms, and computational tools is having a significant and meaningful impact on the ways youth experience and interact with the world. To prepare youth to thrive in these new computational and technological spaces, new skills, concepts, and practices need to be integrated into learners' K-12 experiences. This special issued asked the IJCCI community: <em>What are the critical emerging computational and digital literacies that youth are, or will be, interacting with in the coming years?</em> And, <em>What is the role of K-12 education in preparing youth to engage with and excel in a world where these literacies are needed?</em> The answers to these questions provided by the community constitute this special issue. In doing so, it provides a snapshot of what we currently view as the critical emerging computational and digital literacies and the roles they can and should play in K-12 education.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":38431,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction","volume":"43 ","pages":"Article 100707"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143509245","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Community partnership design of a maker-related camp for underserved youth: Impacts on youths’ present and future learning trajectories","authors":"Srinjita Bhaduri , Quentin Biddy , Melissa Rummel , Mimi Recker","doi":"10.1016/j.ijcci.2025.100723","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ijcci.2025.100723","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper describes the design of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) maker-related activities offered to middle school youth as part of a free, four-week summer camp. The camp was aimed at academically at-risk youth in a rural, tourism-oriented mountain community with significant income disparities. Guided by an educational model focused on enhancing youths’ present and future interests in and visions of STEM and computing fields, camp activities were collaboratively designed by a community partnership comprised of a local camp provider, the local school district, and researchers. Situating design in a community partnership helped highlight and integrate locally relevant resources, careers, and community opportunities. The paper also reports findings from a study examining how the STEM maker camp activities, which leveraged 3D modeling and printing practices, impacted youths’ perceptions of their disciplinary identity, engagement, and their present and future visions of the relevance of these STEM practices to themselves and their communities. The study also explores design tensions that emerged during the camp design process and identified barriers and opportunities that arose from balancing the needs of each partner, the research team’s focus on youth-centered learning, and the overall program goals.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":38431,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction","volume":"44 ","pages":"Article 100723"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-02-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143549141","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Sarah Matthews , Maria Nicholas , Louise Paatsch , Lisa Kervin , Peta Wyeth
{"title":"Social and curious: Lessons in designing digital manipulatives for young children","authors":"Sarah Matthews , Maria Nicholas , Louise Paatsch , Lisa Kervin , Peta Wyeth","doi":"10.1016/j.ijcci.2025.100725","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ijcci.2025.100725","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Introducing Digital Literacy (DL), including Computational Thinking (CT), to young children develops foundational skills in computer science, problem-solving, and critical thinking. However, current digital toys for demonstrating computational thinking strategies are not always designed for early-year environments or specifically for young (preschool) children. Digital manipulatives incorporating embedded computation can offer developmentally appropriate tools to introduce foundational programming strategies and dynamic system knowledge before children become developmentally ready for more formalised programming activities. This paper presents an empirical study in a preschool environment with children (aged 3–5 years) using novel digital manipulatives, <em>Embeddables</em>, in child-led free and guided play activities in a preschool (Fig. 1). From our analysis of the types of activities the children engaged in, we identified underexplored design features of digital manipulatives that can build early exposure to CT skills through ludic and epistemic play. These are designed-in behaviour, distributed interactivity, conditional and proximal relations between artefacts, and abstracted multisensorial reactions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":38431,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction","volume":"44 ","pages":"Article 100725"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-02-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143519222","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Supporting and understanding autistic children’s non-verbal interactions through OSMoSIS, a motion-based sonic system","authors":"Grazia Ragone , Judith Good , Kate Howland","doi":"10.1016/j.ijcci.2025.100726","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ijcci.2025.100726","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Music therapy for autistic children focuses on supporting motor and social interaction through creative movement and musical activities. Previous research suggests it can further support the development of underlying skills related to non-verbal communication, namely <em>social motor synchrony</em> and <em>imitation</em>. Motion-sensing technology in this context has the potential to both support children’s engagement in therapy and help researchers understand its impact. We describe and evaluate a system, OSMoSIS, which aims to provide support by generating sounds based on children’s movements. An evaluation through two empirical studies shows (1) higher levels of imitation and interactional synchrony when using the system compared with motor-only activities and (2) that children found the interaction enjoyable, showing more instances of positive affect when the system was activated with the <em>sounds on</em>. We discuss how the findings highlight new directions for further research on technology for music therapy and have the potential to support practitioners and families.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":38431,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction","volume":"44 ","pages":"Article 100726"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-02-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143465506","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Laura Malinverni , Marie-Monique Schaper , Elisa Rubegni , Mariana Aki Tamashiro
{"title":"Scaffolding Children's critical reflection on intelligent technologies: Opportunities from speculative fiction","authors":"Laura Malinverni , Marie-Monique Schaper , Elisa Rubegni , Mariana Aki Tamashiro","doi":"10.1016/j.ijcci.2025.100727","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ijcci.2025.100727","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Current technological development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) requires educational practices that address the social and ethical implications derived from these emerging technologies. To this end, an increasing number of educational practices are pursuing the goal of supporting children's critical reflection on these topics. Our research aims at understanding how speculative fiction-based resources can meet and respond to the goals of supporting children's critical reflection on AI technologies and their impact on society. Through revisiting relevant literature on these topics and critically analyzing our own practices in three different settings, we identify a set of opportunities and challenges oriented at guiding the design of resources capable of taking advantage of speculative fiction as a way to support critical reflection.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":38431,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction","volume":"43 ","pages":"Article 100727"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-02-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143394577","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Inside or between devices: The internet in the mind of primary school children","authors":"Luca Botturi , Loredana Addimando","doi":"10.1016/j.ijcci.2025.100724","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ijcci.2025.100724","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Understanding primary school children's mental models of the internet is fundamental to develop sound and effective internet education approaches. In this study we analyze a dataset of 386 drawings of the internet by 4th-graders (8–9 years old) from Southern Switzerland, enriched with socio-demographic data. Analysis identified 4 main clusters of mental models, confirming that the internet, despite being frequently used, is poorly known to children. The internet is represented as something invisible or undefined among or inside mobile devices and is often associated with digital products brands. Some findings differ from previous studies. Mental models of the internet and perceived internet-related risks seem to be independent from socio-demographic characteristics, internet experience and school performance, but seem to be more homogeneous when considering single school classes. Educational implications are discussed.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":38431,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction","volume":"43 ","pages":"Article 100724"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-02-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143350498","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Leigh Levinson , Vicky Charisi , Chris Zotos , Randy Gomez , Selma Šabanović
{"title":"Let us make robots “Think in child!”: How children conceptualize fairness, inclusion, and privacy with social robots","authors":"Leigh Levinson , Vicky Charisi , Chris Zotos , Randy Gomez , Selma Šabanović","doi":"10.1016/j.ijcci.2024.100706","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ijcci.2024.100706","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Under UNICEF’s framework on children’s rights and AI, we explore children’s priorities and concerns regarding the integration of social robots in everyday life. We conducted a series of four workshops in various children’s communities focused on introducing children to their rights with AI, fairness and non-discrimination, inclusion, and privacy within the context of child–robot interactions. Workshops performed in a middle school showed how children prioritize their rights and use their conceptualization of fairness, inclusion, and privacy to inform social robot design. Children revealed their concerns over inaccessibility of robotic sensors and designed more inclusive robots with customized personalities for the home and classroom. They also expressed discretion in which information they share with robots and additional third parties. This work highlights children’s ability to integrate social robots into their life and makes recommendations for researchers on how to design robots with children’s rights and priorities in mind.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":38431,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction","volume":"43 ","pages":"Article 100706"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143139520","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nina Krupljanin, Lenneke R.A. Alink, Anja van der Voort, Maarten R. Struijk Wilbrink, Catharina E. Bergwerff
{"title":"The feasibility of an immersive interactive virtual reality task for children and adolescents.","authors":"Nina Krupljanin, Lenneke R.A. Alink, Anja van der Voort, Maarten R. Struijk Wilbrink, Catharina E. Bergwerff","doi":"10.1016/j.ijcci.2025.100722","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ijcci.2025.100722","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The interest in using immersive Virtual Reality (hereafter referred to as VR) for clinical interventions in (mental) health care settings has been growing for adults, as well as adolescents and children. However, VR systems and evidence-based VR-software have not specifically been built for minors. To develop a potentially effective clinical VR intervention for children and adolescents, it is crucial to assess the motivation for and the feasibility of the VR software and the respective VR system first. This study assessed these aspects with regard to a self-developed interactive VR task that serves as a base for a clinical VR intervention in children and adolescents, using a Meta Quest 2 system. Feasibility was measured by assessing tolerability, usability, satisfaction, presence, and perceived realism. The relations between motivation and the different feasibility aspects were explored, and the associations between age, frequency of digital media use, and sex on the one hand and motivation and the five aspects of feasibility on the other were tested. A pre- and post-test design was implemented, using self-report questionnaires. 85 children aged 8–17 years participated (<em>M</em><sub><em>age</em></sub> = 10.55 years, <em>SD</em><sub><em>age</em></sub> = 2.06 years), of which 31 (36%) were girls and 54 (64%) were boys. The VR task was found to be highly motivating and overall feasible for this age group, whereby the motivation and the feasibility did not vary based on age, frequency of digital media use, or sex. The results of this study indicate that this task could be a feasible base for a VR mental health intervention for children and adolescents aged 8–17 years using a Meta Quest 2 system, regardless of their sex or frequency of digital media use.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":38431,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction","volume":"43 ","pages":"Article 100722"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143139525","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Michaela Arztmann , Jessica Lizeth Domínguez Alfaro , Lisette Hornstra , Jacqueline Wong , Johan Jeuring , Liesbeth Kester
{"title":"Game over? Investigating students’ working memory, situational interest, and behavioral patterns as predictors of dropout in an educational game","authors":"Michaela Arztmann , Jessica Lizeth Domínguez Alfaro , Lisette Hornstra , Jacqueline Wong , Johan Jeuring , Liesbeth Kester","doi":"10.1016/j.ijcci.2025.100721","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ijcci.2025.100721","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Educational games are designed to increase students' motivation and persistence. Nevertheless, student dropout is a very common issue that many game interventions in education face, which can hamper students' learning opportunities. Dropout can be manifested in different ways for different reasons, for instance quitting due to lack of interest or failing due to lack of abilities to succeed in the game. Thus far, little is known about the underlying factors that lead to student dropout. The present paper (<em>N</em> = 272 early secondary school students) investigates different types of dropout and whether students' working memory capacity and situational interest are predictive of the likelihood of dropping out during an educational game using augmented reality (AR). Moreover, log data were used to explore differences in students' in-game behavior (i.e., number, type, and patterns of mistakes) while playing the game. The results indicate that 16.9% of the students dropped out during the game, either because they quit or because they failed to reach the last level. Working memory capacity and situational interest were not predictive of students' dropout. However, process maps of students’ in-game behavior showed that dropout students differed in the number of mistakes they made and also followed a different behavioral pattern than non-dropout students. In all, this study contributes to the knowledge base by revealing different types of dropout students who showed distinct behavioral patterns. More insights into these patterns could help to identify students at-risk of dropping out early on and to develop targeted interventions to prevent dropout.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":38431,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction","volume":"43 ","pages":"Article 100721"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143139524","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Michael Lachney, Madison C. Allen Kuyenga, Christa Robinson
{"title":"Culturing computation: A multi-case study on students as ethnocomputing researchers during a virtual after-school program","authors":"Michael Lachney, Madison C. Allen Kuyenga, Christa Robinson","doi":"10.1016/j.ijcci.2024.100719","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ijcci.2024.100719","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Ethnocomputing is a field about the co-constitutive relationships of culture and computational technology, digital and analog. It assumes that all technologies are value-laden and that cultural activities, practices, designs, and knowledge can be computational. Within education, ethnocomputing has inspired the design of software and hardware to help children study the computing ideas that are embedded in Indigenous and vernacular epistemologies, designs, and practices, such as African American cornrow braiding, Anishinaabeg quilting, Ghanaian Adinkra stamping, and more. Not only does this provide a way to add epistemic diversity to computing curricula but it is also a challenge to Eurocentric histories of computer science. Quantitative research on these educational technologies has been promising in terms of supporting children's attitudes toward and content knowledge of computing. This research also suggests that just being exposed to these technologies may not be enough for students to make the connections between culture and computing that ethnocomputing assumes as its foundation. To address this challenge, we report findings from a multi-case study of four Black high school students who took on roles as ethnocomputing researchers during a five-week virtual after-school program. Instead of focusing on if the program supported their computer science content knowledge, we sought to study the students' meaning-making and knowledge production practices on culture and computing in their ethnocomputing research. Our findings show that while only two of the four children felt confident identifying themselves as ethnocomputing researchers by the time the program ended, all students were able to express nuanced and unique ideas about culture-computing relationships that were relevant to ethnocomputing. We end with some recommendations about framing the image of the “researcher” in future ethnocomputing education.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":38431,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction","volume":"43 ","pages":"Article 100719"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-12-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143139521","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}