Type I: Engaging African Americans in Computing through the Collaborative Creation of Musical Remixes

佐治亚理工学院提出了一个项目，利用音乐创作来吸引和留住非裔美国人参与计算实践。与其他种族相比，非裔美国人在计算机领域的参与度相对较低。最近的研究表明，曾经被认为是计算机科学教育的“银弹”的电脑游戏与最终对计算机科学的兴趣之间的关系并不像许多人想象的那么强烈，尤其是对非洲裔美国人来说；因此，需要更多的文化激励方法。目前，直接激励非裔美国人学习计算机科学的方法是解决预计算主题，或用于招募学生进入高中课程；然而，目前还没有解决高中学生的文化动机核心CS主题的方法。这个项目代表了一种这样的方法：开发一个音频合成环境，称为EarSketch，它使学生能够创建计算混音（即由代码片段组成的音乐作品，这些代码片段可以操纵小音乐样本和节拍）。这种专注于嘻哈混音的方法可能会(a)避开电脑游戏在少数群体参与中遇到的文化问题，因此更能成功地吸引这些群体；(b)通过在更容易理解的“循环”和“节拍”层次上操作，而不是在西方古典作曲的更细粒度的音符和事件层次上操作，使没有受过古典训练的人更容易理解计算音乐；(c)允许学生创造对他们有深刻意义的与文化相关的文物。EarSketch课程最初将在高中生的夏季研讨会中部署，最后将在拉尼尔高中的一门高中CS课程中进行试点。学生将学习如何在数字音频工作站（DAW）软件中重新混合音乐，以及如何编写代码以在这种环境中算法生成混音，从与CS：原则国家课程一致的计算概念的角度接近混音（例如创建计算工件，使用抽象和模型，并在团队中有效地工作）。EarSketch旨在激励学生学习和应用计算概念，以实现音乐目标，如创建添加，重复和不同的纹理结构。课程还借鉴了结对编程的理念，并利用社交媒体作为共享和协作的手段，同时增加了学生创造性地重用和重新混合彼此的独特功能。S作品，就像音乐混音一样。EarSketch社交媒体分享网站将使学生能够分享他们的创意作品，并重新混合其他？通过重用、修改和增加代码、示例和节拍来完成工作。

The Georgia Institute of Technology proposes a project to engage and retain African-Americans in computing using music composition for the contextualization of computing practices. African-American participation in computing is relatively low compared to other ethnic groups. Recent research has shown that the relationship between computer games, once thought a "silver bullet" for CS education, and an eventual interest in computer science is not as strong as many have assumed, especially for African Americans; therefore, there is a need for more culturally-motivated approaches. Currently existing approaches for directly motivating African Americans in CS address pre-computational topics or are used for recruiting students into high school programs; however, there are no current approaches in addressing culturally motivated core CS topics for high school students. This project represents one such approach: the development of an audio composition environment, called EarSketch, which enables students to create computational remixes (i.e. musical compositions that are comprised of code snippets that manipulate small musical samples and beats). This approach with its focus on hip hop remixes may (a) sidestep the cultural issues that computer games have had in the engagement of minorities and therefore be more successful in engaging these constituencies; (b) make computational music more accessible to those without classical training by operating on the more accessible hierarchical level of "loops" and "beats" as opposed to the finer-grained note and event level of classical Western composition; and (c) allow students to create culturally relevant artifacts that have a deep meaning to them. The EarSketch curriculum will be initially deployed in summer workshops for high school students with a final piloting in a high school CS course at Lanier High School. Students will learn how to remix music in digital audio workstation (DAW) software and how to write code to algorithmically generate remixes within this environment, approaching remixing from the perspective of computing concepts aligned with the CS: Principles national curriculum (e.g. creating computational artifacts, using abstractions and models, and working effectively in teams). EarSketch is designed to motivate students to learn and apply computational concepts in order to achieve musical goals such as the creation of additive, repetitive, and varying textural constructs. The curriculum also borrows from ideas of pair programming and leverages social media as a means of sharing and collaborating while adding the unique feature of students creatively reusing and remixing each other?s works, as is done with musical remixes. An EarSketch social media sharing site will enable students to share their creative works and remix other?s work, by reusing, altering, and augmenting code, samples, and beats.