2022 CSTA Midwest is Best Unconference

.title[
## LITERACY-BASED CS PEDAGOGY<br>WITH UNFOLD STUDIO:<br> INTERACTIVE STORYTELLING
]

Dr. Chris Proctor<br>
October 15, 2022<br>

.refs[
chrisproctor.net/slides/2022-csta-midwest<br>
Illustrations by Chris Proctor, based on fieldnotes and video
]

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# <span style="color:var(--sketch-line-purple);">Computational Literacies Lab</span>

<div style="text-align: center;">
<img src="https://computationalliteracies.net/people/chris/chris.jpg" style="width:70%;margin: 0 auto;border-radius:100%;">
<h5><a href="https://computationalliteracies.net">https://computationalliteracies.net</a></h5>
</div>

]]]

???
- Discuss LS cluster hire, research group.
- Current research: 
  - Rethinking CS. Theory, practice, design, early-childhood.
  - CS teacher prep program. CS pedagogical content knowledge. Building community agency in 
    understanding and decision-making around CS ed.
  - Interfaces for teaching and learning CS. Minecraft Utopia. Collaborative processing.

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# <span style="color:var(--sketch-line-purple);">Outline</span>

- Introduction
- Literacy-based CS pedagogy
- Interactive storytelling
- Questions and discussion

]]]

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### Three framings of computational thinking

.refs[
Kafai, Proctor, & Lui (2019)
<br>International Computing Education Research **Best Paper Award**
]

???
- Distinguish three framings of CT. It's about situativity and epistemologies. Knowlege is connected
  the the conditions in which it is produced.
- For research: Theory dialogue, a patchwork of theories. Much needed in current SIGCSE mess. 
- Aside: Dr. James Banks, founder of multicultural education and one of the first presidents 
  of AERA of color. Emphasis: the lived experiences of researchers set the agenda. Proud to 
  be an educational researcher in Computing Education. 
- Relevant to practice: Knowledge is situated. How you learn it affects the nature of what is 
  learned. If your teaching is committed to equity and social justice, you must engage with 
  what your students are learning and the conditions under which they learn.

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### Computational literacies

> “Literacy is a socially widespread patterned deployment of skills and capabilities in a context of material support (that is, an exercise of material intelligence) to achieve valued intellectual ends” (diSessa, 2001, p. 19).

Framing computing education in terms of literacies centers three questions: Whom? What? How?

.refs[
Kafai & Proctor (2021),
<br>A Revaluation of Computational Thinking in K–12 Education: Moving Toward Computational Literacies
]
???

What counts as infrastructure? The wires in the introductory slide. And the stuff students already use, as well as tools we might build.

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### Computational literacies

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A static slide in case there's trouble loading Unfold Studio.

Let's see what this looks like in practice. Here is a story, "Egg-Hatching Simulator," by zdev. You can see the code (left) and the running story (right) of “Egg Hatching Simulator,” a story by zdev (a pseudonym chosen by the student). In this game the player hatches new pets from eggs, inspired by Pokémon. While it is not necessary to read the code in detail, the code does illustrate two elements of syntax which will be analyzed later. Divert statements (->) redirect the story’s flow to another part of the story. Lines beginning with a tilde (~) contain code which interacts with the execution environment, rather than emitting story output. Most often, code lines are used to manipulate state: initializing, updating and checking variables to keep track of what has happened in the story.

The code excerpt in Figure 1 generates a random number between 0 and 1 and then cascades through cases to determine which pet the player receives. If the random number is above 0.999, the player sees “Soo, this is the secret pet. You got an Electric Shock. This is not meant to be in the game yet. If you hatch this and have proof EXAMPLE: Take Screenshot. Come find me, i will give you 10 Bear Paws.!” The story then redirects to the ending, which outputs, “If you made it to this, the Ending you are the luckiest person ever. The chances of hatching this were 1 in 1,000 (I think)............. Props to you!!!!!! .” This text would indeed be shown as output one time in a thousand. Therefore, this text is likely intended to be read by peers who choose to read the game’s source code in addition to playing. Important computational concepts are expressed and framed in the context of speaking to an audience of gamer-programmers, as insiders in-the-know. In positioning the player as being extremely lucky (“1 in 1,000”), zdev makes a probabilistic assertion grounded in a fairly complex code structure, and does so in an interactional context which positions him as an authoritative explainer and the reader as an interested colleague. In the rest of this paper we argue that these literacy interactions, in which students are positioned as authors and as audience, were the basis for a kind of computer science meaning-making for and with others.

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???
Here is a story written by a high school senior in a sociology class. Note the three framings of
practice. Note the infrastructural affordances. This goes beyond
personally-meaningful projects, to projects with rhetorical and critical
possibilities. "Critical discourse model" (Proctor & Blikstein, 2019). 
At the same time, builds on familiar infrastructural affordances.
Has been used in 6 US states; almost 10k student stories.

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# <span style="color:var(--sketch-line-green);">Your questions</span>
]
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.title[
## LITERACY-BASED CS PEDAGOGY<br>WITH UNFOLD STUDIO:<br> INTERACTIVE STORYTELLING
]

Dr. Chris Proctor<br>
October 15, 2022<br>

.refs[
chrisproctor.net/slides/2022-csta-midwest<br>
Illustrations by Chris Proctor, based on fieldnotes and video
]