Drexel University proposes the creation of a scaffolded web development tool called openHTML that exposes learners to an appropriate beginner's model of HTML and CSS architecture and syntax. In cooperation with Peoples Emergency Center in Philadelphia, the Freedom Rings Partnership, and Hartford University, the project staff will design learning experiences to address the needs of beginning web developers in formal classes as well as self-motivated learners in informal contexts like community centers. The planning grant will be used to support the development and pilot studies of beta technologies and educational materials. The project staff will use these activities as a context for design-based research to investigate the impact of formative computational experiences on learners' conceptual models of Web technologies, infrastructure, and computational concepts. The planned project builds on the successes of the PI and Co-PI in prior work on computational literacy, introductory computing experiences, and development of programming expertise; the initial planning stage lays the foundation for an ambitious, long-term design-based research agenda.
Widespread computational competency is a vital component of a competitive workforce and vibrant economy. By lowering the barriers to comfort and competence with computing, this project aims to 1) engage individuals who may not otherwise appear on the computer science education radar in creative computational activities, 2) improve the tools available to web development educators and learners, and 3) extend scientific knowledge about the development of early computational thinking skills.
The main goal of this planning grant was to prepare for a longer-term project supporting the development of computational literacy through web development. Several outcomes support this goal: We developed and tested a prototype learning tool called openHTML for beginner web developers. This tool can currently be found at openhtml.org. We used this tool to conduct a series of laboratory and classroom studies of how people solve problems when they are struggling to learn new web development tasks. The first of these studies involved running a web-building workshop for local children in west Philadelphia in partnership with a local community center that provides residents with computer access and instruction, among other services. The second study focused on adult learners in a laboratory setting. The third and fourth studies involved creating and introducing new assignments and educational materials for undergraduate-level university classes. Findings from these studies include a published taxonomy of novice web development (HTML and CSS) errors, including the most common and most difficult to resolve; published observation of three types of engagement with web building tasks among children; published design principles for creating a web editor for novices. Once the openHTML toolkit was reasonably robust, we outfitted it with data logging functionality so that we could capture learners’ efforts to construct web pages and explore a "learning analytics" approach to analyzing coding activities remotely to identify errors and potential indicators of learning. We established and formalized collaborations with Mozilla Foundation and University of Nebraska Omaha to broaden the potential impact of these innovations as the project moves forward into its next phases.
