Engaging constructions

摘要

In this paper, we describe projects that engage Hispanic middle-school age students with computing, and cast these projects within the ECC ("Engagement, Capacity, Continuity") framework. Our projects were undertaken in the Midwestern United States, where recent heavy immigration from Latin America has caused rapid demographic shifts. We have conducted computing workshops that are cognizant of the cultural milieu of recent immigrants, in that they are family-based, are offered at familiar sites in the community, and give participants a chance to be constructors of technology rather than mere "end-users." We present these efforts as forces that generate a flow that carries immigrant youths up to the point of beginning an undergraduate major in computing.