9 research outputs found

    Gender, Feedback, and Learners' Decisions to Share Their Creative Computing Projects

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    Although informal online learning communities are made possible by users' decisions to share their creations, participation by females and other marginalized groups remains stubbornly low in technical communities. Using descriptive statistics and a unique dataset of shared and unshared projects from over 1.1 million users of Scratch-a collaborative programming community for young people-we show that while girls share less initially, this trend flips among experienced users. Using Bayesian regression analyses, we show that this relationship can largely be attributed to differences in the way boys and girls participate. We also find that while prior positive feedback is correlated with increased sharing among inexperienced users, this effect also reverses with experience or with the addition of controls. Our findings provide a description of the dynamics behind online learners' decisions to share, open new research questions, and point to several lessons for system designers

    Supporting an Online community of amateur creators

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    Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 2012.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 169-176).This work describes a framework for the design and study of an online community of amateur creators. I focus on remixing as the lens to understand the contexts and processes of creative expression as it is fostered within social media environments. I am motivated by three broad questions: 1) Process: how do people remix and what is the role of remixing in cultural production and social learning? 2) Conditions: what kind of attributes influence people's remixing practices? 3) Attitudes: what are people's attitudes toward remixing? As part of this work, I conceived, developed and studied the Scratch Online Community: a website where young people share and remix their own video games and animations, as well as those of their peers. In five years, the community has grown to more than one million registered members and two million community-contributed projects. In the spirit of the theme of this work, this dissertation remixes several articles and blog posts written by myself or in collaboration with others. Wherever possible, the sources of the material are noted.by Andrés Monroy-Hernández.Ph.D
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