Creative Coding: Programming for Personal Expression

In this episode I unpack Peppler and Kafai’s (2009) publication titled “Creative coding: Programming for personal expression,” which is an analysis of a single project created in Scratch that appears to indicate kids can learn how to create media arts expressions despite little experience with coding.

  • Welcome everyone to the CSK8 podcast my

    name is Jared O'Leary and today I'm

    going to be unpacking some scholarship

    the article that I'm going to be

    unpacking is titled creative coding

    programming for personal expression and

    it is written by Kiley pepper and Yasmin

    calf I apologies if I ever mispronounce

    any names alright so if you look at

    these show notes on my website you will

    actually find me citation for this

    particular article where you can click

    on the title and it will take you to a

    PDF of the article and then if you click

    on either of the author last names it

    will take you to the Google Scholar

    profile so you can actually read more of

    their materials alright so you might be

    wondering what is this article about let

    me read for you the abstract media arts

    within primary and secondary education

    is a relatively new avenue of research

    within the context of the arts classroom

    rarely is learning to program emphasize

    despite its importance for creative

    expression in a digital medium we

    present outcomes from an extensive field

    study at a digital studio where the

    youth access programming environments

    emphasizing graphic music and video

    learning the language of creative coding

    is essential to expression in a digital

    medium one with increasing importance

    for youth and society at art here we

    argue that it's not just in the viewing

    or playing of digital media but also in

    the constructive or coding experience

    through which connections to art and be

    established end quote

    now this was written in 2009 so it's

    been a while and since then a lot of

    people who have talked about creative

    coding I've also just kind of broadened

    it into creative computing so whenever I

    mentioned creative coding from this

    article you can think broader towards CS

    by thinking of creative computing if I

    were to kind of distill this entire

    paper down into a one sentence summary I

    would describe it as an analysis of a

    single project created in scratch which

    appears to indicates kids can learn how

    to create media arts expressions despite

    little experience with coding all right

    so let's dive into the article itself so

    pepper and cough I begin by pointing out

    that at the time of their publication

    there has been little recognition for a

    need to program in schools especially in

    the arts where professionals often use

    quote advanced programming

    to manipulate and create digital

    expressions and quote that was in PDF

    page one so what they're kind of talking

    about there is that a lot of media

    artists are using programming to create

    like animations and stuff so you may

    have seen some of the like behind the

    scenes Pixar videos and whatnot or like

    keynotes where they talk about how they

    used a ton of programming to do the

    lighting effects or to randomly generate

    environments and things like that or

    like to get the grass to move

    so in those media arts creations there's

    a lot of program programming involved

    and so that's kind of what the authors

    are talking about here is that those

    kind of advanced programming is combined

    CS concepts with visual art concepts or

    media arts concepts now the authors

    indicate that previous forms of media

    arts engagement tend to focus on visual

    media through static or video images so

    think of like creating something in like

    Photoshop or in a move of movie editing

    software however pepper and calf I

    actually suggest media arts engagement

    can include coding as well now when CS

    is integrated into a traditional

    classroom

    Hepler and cough I actually suggests

    that the focus in 2009 tends to revolve

    around integration with math and science

    however the approach they forward quote

    situates programming within a more media

    rich context focusing less on the

    manipulation and interaction with

    numeric symbols but more on digital

    media end quote

    and that is also on PF page one so what

    they're suggesting in this particular

    article is that rather than learning how

    to program through numeric symbols and

    things like that kids can actually learn

    how to program by using digital media

    now back in 2009 when this was written

    that was kind of a very novel thing for

    the most part just because there wasn't

    a lot of graphical user interfaces that

    are at least not as many as there are

    today so what they're suggesting is that

    kids can learn how to program by

    manipulating sprites and programming

    each one of them individually to do

    something like create a game or a story

    or a dance or an animation or whatever

    rather than just focusing on

    manipulating variables or numbers in the

    intro pepper and cough I point towards

    research that they might describe as

    creative coding within domains such as

    video game design computational craft

    and robotics and within animation and

    computer graphics if you're interested

    in reading more about those they do

    like some interesting sounding studies

    and you can read those citations in the

    paper itself by going to the show notes

    they kind of round out their

    introduction by saying that by using

    scratch kids can actually learn how to

    program through media arts by creating

    video games art objects animated stories

    etc okay so you might be wondering well

    how is the study design what exactly is

    going on here so what they did is they

    kind of took some ethnographic field

    notes and collected over 300 design

    projects over the course of a year now

    the participants that were in the space

    that they were at in Los Angeles at a

    media art studio were ranging from ages

    work as individuals or in small groups

    on a variety of media arts projects us

    one of the project types that the could

    work on is programming media arts

    through scratch now this particular

    paper highlights one participant within

    this space so here's a quote on the

    participant a 13 year old

    african-american artists called Kayleigh

    although she has over four years of

    experience at the studio this is her

    first project using scratch as an

    expressive medium in quote that was on

    page three PDF page three so Kaylee's

    project is a dance project that she

    created it over a three-week period and

    she spent between six and seven hours

    working on it

    now it's important to note that she

    didn't have a lot of experience before

    going into this with programming okay so

    what were their main findings in the

    studies so there were two main

    categories of findings that they had one

    was personal connections and then the

    other was epistemological connections

    and expressions which is a mouthful

    alright so let's talk about the personal

    connections first so Kayleigh made

    personal connections with the projects

    by creating a dance project based around

    a Gwen Stefani song holla back girl she

    also made connections by inserting

    pictures of herself and her brother in

    the project although this might be

    considered a personal connection as it

    is she repeatedly made comments about

    whether her appearance match the style

    of a music video so her goal with this

    project was to create some kind of a

    music video and she wanted to be in that

    but she didn't just want to have a

    picture of herself she wanted to like

    look like she was in the music videos so

    it was really important for her that her

    appearance was appropriate in

    fit within the music video now on the

    epistemological connections and

    expressions here's a quote that they

    have on page 4 look we find that there

    was an iterative cycle starting with a

    design oriented goal ie how the

    character should look and dance and

    achieved by utilizing complex command

    structures in quote

    okay so Cayley tended to group sprite

    behavior together by type and gave each

    group distinct motions to create a music

    video so if there are a bunch of dancer

    sprites the dancers will all move in

    different ways if there were some like

    um lighting effects those would kind of

    all have different code that were

    similar to each other etc now one of the

    important things that they mention in

    this particular section and this is on

    page four is quote without any prior

    programming experience Cayley was using

    looping constructs repurposing scripts

    and moreover coding creatively in quote

    so that has a very important finding so

    some of the educators that I've talked

    to in NCS have mentioned that they're

    afraid of getting into the creative

    computing side of things because they

    feel like they need to like lecture on

    it first but I need to talk about

    sequence and then I'm gonna talk about

    how to loop those sequences and then I'm

    gonna talk about event handling or

    variables or whatever so they assume

    that then you need to have a structured

    environment for what you're gonna do but

    in this particular study and they

    mentioned that Kaylee didn't have a lot

    of experience but she actually uncovered

    a lot of computer science concepts or

    practices by just creating something in

    this case a music video to hollaback

    girl on page 5 in the discussion the

    authors actually mentioned the following

    quote learning to creatively code does

    not necessarily involve an extensive and

    time-consuming introduction in quote

    having had experience with all grades K

    through 8 in coding in makerspace style

    classes and then all grades K through

    graduate and other subject areas I agree

    with this like in my experience it

    didn't take a lot of time or

    front-loading to get kids to create

    especially in a platform like scratch

    which has a lot of tutorials and like

    little mini guides that can kind of like

    just provide a small snippet of

    information to get going and then kids

    are able to kind of run with it because

    of the experience designed into the

    platform itself ie the things are

    grouped in terms of like oh if I want to

    make something move I should probably

    click on them

    Oshin tab etc so it's a relatively

    intuitive albeit fairly complex platform

    that kids can use and not only can they

    use it but they can use it with little

    upfront teaching or direct instruction

    now in their conclusion they end with

    the following two sentences this is also

    on page five

    so quote the potential of getting youth

    interested in technology has not been

    realized in computer science nor in arts

    classes representing a missed

    opportunity for arts education

    especially since many involved in

    changing in the absence of women and

    minorities in information technologies

    have argued for alternative approaches

    in computer classes to broaden

    participation given this need to become

    fluent in both the arts and information

    technologies and makes sense to offer

    interdisciplinary experiences for young

    children similar to those presented by

    scratch include so what's interesting is

    like this issue was being raised in 2009

    but it's still an issue that we're

    talking about in computer science

    education today we're still talking

    about how to get underrepresented groups

    and minorities to participate in classes

    now having experience working out of

    nonprofits I can say that like going for

    district-wide implementation is one way

    to try and get everybody involved with

    coding however just doing that alone is

    not going to be enough because you need

    to also encourage kids to understand

    that they have a potential future that

    with this whether it be in a corporate

    route or even in a leisure route so an

    example of a corporate route would be

    like hey by the end of 12th grade if you

    really work hard at this you'll be able

    to program and you could potentially get

    a job right out of high school without

    even having to get a degree although a

    degree might help now a leisurely

    example is I actually proposed my wife

    by modding the game Minecraft so I went

    into the game's code and I took the wolf

    and made a variation of that for each of

    our dogs so that all four of our dogs

    were in the game because of the code

    that I used for it and some of the

    visual mods that I made etc so like that

    was one way that I used code in my

    leisure but another example of how I did

    it is I HAP's for myself and for my

    friends that we would use to play Magic

    the Gathering because we're nerds

    alright so that's kind of like a general

    summary of some of the

    findings that I found relevant and then

    some side commentary here and there with

    what was going on at the end of each one

    of the podcasts where I unpack

    scholarship I want to kind of talk about

    some of my lingering questions or

    thoughts one of my lingering thoughts

    was that not only could this provide

    opportunities for arts educators to

    explore coding and CS but also for CS

    educators to explore the arts so

    whenever people are engaging in any kind

    of interdisciplinary collaborations or

    explorations I really like for both

    sides to think through how could each

    discipline learn from the other rather

    than kind of positioning one discipline

    in a subservient relationship to the

    other which i think is kind of

    problematic now I'm not saying that the

    author's did that I'm just saying that

    like whenever I read this

    interdisciplinary stuff I really want

    people to think through how both or all

    of discipline via disciplines involved

    can benefit from these kinds of

    explorations now one of the questions

    that I have for this particular study is

    when does or doesn't the creation of a

    product or expression demonstrate

    understanding so what does that mean so

    when they were talking about this

    product the music video that Kaley

    created they were analyzing the code

    itself and they kind of provided some

    examples of like Kaley was really

    excited when this happened or Katy was

    frustrated when Katy not Katie Kaley was

    frustrated when XYZ happened but they

    didn't really talk about what Kaley was

    learning at those moments they only

    talked about epistemology zoar things

    like that at the end with in relation to

    the product itself so a follow-up

    question that I have is how much of a

    creative expression is the result of

    understanding and how much of it is the

    result of experimentation and happy

    accidents

    in other words just because there's a

    bunch of sequences and loops that are

    going on in there it could have just

    come about by kids dragging and dropping

    a bunch of blocks in a sequence and

    going oh that looks cool but not

    actually knowing what's going on in that

    particular sequence and I say that as

    having seen kids do that when

    I would kind of just like be walking

    around monitoring the class and just

    checking in formatively to see how kids

    are doing I'd see like a really

    interesting set of code and then when I

    dive deeper by asking questions like oh

    so what do you think this is gonna do or

    how does this work sometimes they would

    just confess like I don't know I just

    kind of dragged random stuff and this is

    what I got I think it looks cool and

    while I agreed with them I don't think

    that kind of an instance demonstrate an

    understanding as much as it just was a

    happy accident that resulted in a

    project that kids were happy with so

    another question that I have is so what

    are some approaches that can be taken

    along the way to focus on understanding

    throughout a process rather than

    assessment of the product itself so

    whenever you're in the classroom what

    I'd really recommend doing is try and do

    as much formative assessments as you can

    throughout the process where you're just

    constantly asking questions and trying

    to get kids to think deeper or share

    their understandings this could be

    one-on-one or it could be even in the

    form of like goals at the start of the

    week so I saw kids in three three week

    in my classes where I'd see them every

    day of the week except for Wednesdays

    and on Mondays what we do is we'd set a

    goal for the week and they'd fill it out

    on a form that was submitted

    electronically and then throughout the

    week I'd keep when I walked by I'd ask

    them how are you doing on your goal how

    how is what you're working on right now

    relate to the goal that you submit to me

    etc and so while I was doing that I was

    trying to get them to really understand

    the processes that they were doing

    rather than just creating something

    random or just experimenting on their

    own and again there's nothing wrong with

    like experimentation or whatnot I happen

    to love it I've learned a lot from it

    but when experimenting and it creates

    some kind of result I really want kids

    to kind of like try and figure out how

    did this series or a sequence or

    algorithm rate that happy accident than

    I'm going for right so this was just

    kind of so my general thoughts or

    questions after having read this study

    and kind of a summary of the study

    itself again you can finally show notes

    to read the entire paper and see a bunch

    of the other publications by both of the

    authors just by clicking on the names in

    the show know

    on my website speaking of you can check

    out the website for more podcasts and a

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Article

Peppler, K., & Kafai, Y. (2009). Creative coding: Programming for personal expression. Published in the proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL), Rhodes, Greece.


Abstract

“Media Arts within primary and secondary education is a relatively new avenue of research. Within the context of the arts classroom, rarely is learning to program emphasized despite its importance for creative expression in a digital medium. We present outcomes from an extensive field study at a digital studio where youth accessed programming environments emphasizing graphic, music and video. Learning the language of creative coding is essential to expression in a digital medium — one with increasing importance for youth and society at large. Here, we argue that it’s not just in the viewing or playing of digital media but also in the constructive — or coding — experience through which connections to art can be established.”


Author Keywords

Art, design, digital art, education, education design, and media art.


My One Sentence Summary

An analysis of a single project created in Scratch appears to indicate kids can learn how to create media arts expressions despite little experience with coding.


Some of My Lingering Questions/Thoughts

  • Not only might coding providing opportunities for arts educators to explore coding and CS, but CS educators to explore the arts.

  • When does/n't the creation of a product or expression demonstrate understanding?

    • How much of a creative expression is the result of understanding and how much of it is the result of experimentation and happy accidents?

    • What are some approaches that can be taken along the way to focus on understanding throughout a process rather than assessment of the product itself?


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