Making Computing Visible & Tangible

MCVT (Making Computing Visible & Tangible) Cards is a paper computing toolkit intended for co-designing inclusive pedagogical materials and learning about computing systems and practices. We describe our design considerations and iterative prototyping process from testing with youth and educators, and studying seven teachers in a week-long workshop. Our findings demonstrate how teachers perceived MCVT Cards for facilitating new computational practices, specifically for learning through exploratory making and connecting to examples of everyday computing. Data gathered using surveys, interviews, video recordings, and teacher-built projects show how teachers critically reviewed and identified the unique technical and expressive affordances of MCVT Cards to support learning of computing concepts and provide room for generating personally-meaningful narratives. Teachers co-created new design prototypes and pedagogical activities while also adapting and extending paper computing materials. The MCVT kit contributes a new alternative to existing physical computing educational materials to design and support inclusive computing education.