Three Northern Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone–serving districts formed a researcher–practitioner partnership with the Wyoming Department of Education, the American Institutes for Research®, and BootUp Professional Development to advance the computer science (CS) education of their elementary students in ways that strengthen their Indigenous identities and knowledges. In this paper, we share experiences from 2019 to 2022 with our curriculum development, professional development (PD), and classroom implementation. The researcher–practitioner partnership developed student and teacher materials to support elementary CS lessons aligned to Wyoming’s CS standards and “Indian Education for All” social studies standards. Indigenous community members served as experts to codesign culturally relevant resources. Teachers explored the curriculum resources during three 4-hour virtual and in-person PD sessions. The sessions were designed to position the teachers as designers of CS projects they eventually implemented in their classrooms. Projects completed by students included simulated interviews with Indigenous heroes and animations of students introducing themselves in their Native languages. Teachers described several positive effects of the Scratch lessons on students, including high engagement, increased confidence, and successful application of several CS concepts. The teachers also provided enthusiastic positive reviews of the ways the CS lessons allowed students to explore their Indigenous identities while preparing to productively use technology in their futures. The Wind River Elementary CS Collaborative is one model for how a researcher–practitioner partnership can utilize diverse forms of expertise, ways of knowing, and Indigenous language to engage in curriculum design, PD, and classroom implementation that supports culturally sustaining CS pedagogies in Indigenous communities.

Educators in the USA and elsewhere are struggling right now. With relatively low pay for the skills needed to teach computer science, an ever-increasing list of responsibilities and risks placed on educators, and a work week that stretches beyond 40 hours, it’s no wonder that so many computing educators are burned out. In my interviews with more than 50 computer science educators and scholars on the #CSK8 Podcast, I frequently ask guests how they attempt to prevent burnout. This article uses Asian Efficiency’s TEA framework (helloworld.cc/TEA) to discuss how guests are intentional with their time, energy, and attention.

As popular music practices continue to evolve and expand in parallel with technological and social changes, popular music educators can engage in reflective practices that problematize the current curricular offerings and music-making experiences in relation to the ways people engage with music outside of school. My own particular interest when looking at popular music-making practices is to explore music-making and learning that blurs or disrupts disciplinary boundaries and silos. This chapter briefly introduces some of the ways people blur the disciplinary boundaries between popular music and computer science, which raises questions about the places and purposes of such engagement.

Many scholars have produced powerful equity-centered curricular and pedagogical approaches relevant to CS educators. However, well-intentioned educators and curriculum providers who intend to use culturally relevant approaches may mistakenly apply these frameworks and unintentionally enact what we refer to as “culturally specific” approaches to education. Such approaches fail to account for students’ multifaceted experiences of culture and identity in the design of their learning experiences, ignoring their specific needs, goals, and desires for their learning. Rather than delivering content for groups of culturally specific identities, this position paper describes a “cartographical” curricular and pedagogical approach informed by a rhizomatic philosophy of learning that fosters dialogue among students as individuals with unique identities, interests, and needs that teachers and students explore together through computer science education. We position rhizomatic pedagogy as an additional lens to apply alongside other frameworks for fostering equity—one that establishes a set of strategies for engaging students in dialogue around their learning experiences, empowering learners to participate in the co-construction of their educational spaces, and building curricula that express hyper-local, deeply situated, student-centered teaching and learning practices.

The social climate in the past decade has seen a rise in visibility of trans students in music classrooms and ensembles, leading to a need for scholarship on how to serve this growing population. Literature is being published to address this topic; however, the lack of scholarship by trans educators might lead many music educators to conclusions and practices that can be, at the very least, discouraging to some trans students and may disrupt their learning experiences. This article was written by four educators who identify as part of the trans community (a genderfluid and gender-nonconforming individual, a trans man, a trans woman, and a gender-nonbinary person) to fill this gap in the literature by illuminating some of the pitfalls inherent in the lack of discussion on (and by) trans people in music education. In addition, this article provides five actionable suggestions for working with trans students: (1) Learn about the trans community, (2) inspect your language and biases, (3) represent the diversity of trans people in your teaching, (4) promote healthy music-making and identity development, and (5) model allyship.

Interest in coding education has exploded in the past five years, especially in elementary and early secondary education. Teachers who are largely new to coding are expected to guide entire student bodies through the fundamentals of coding and computational thinking. But little is known about which coding and computational thinking (CT) concepts teachers feel most comfortable with and which concepts they struggle with. This study describes 127 elementary coding teachers’ changes in their beliefs about teaching coding and CT as they participated in year-long continuous professional development. Novice elementary coding teachers demonstrated most growth in their self-efficacy for teaching sequences, algorithms and loops. They were less secure in their knowledge of conditionals, variables, and functions. For computational thinking, teachers were most confident in their ability to identify patterns, think algorithmically, understand logic, and evaluate outcomes, showing less growth with decomposition and abstraction.

Although many volumes exist on emergent music technology practices, few handbooks on music and technology consider educational milieu. The editors of Music, Technology, and Education: Critical Perspectives assist with filling this gap in literature. A quick glance at the subtitle of the book, Critical Perspectives, might lead to multiple interpretations of the word ‘critical’. Readers might take ‘critical’ to indicate a critique of music, technology and education. Another interpretation includes important perspectives on music, technology and education. The editors of this volume appropriately use both of these interpretations of the subtitle. Several chapters provide apposite critique of technology in music education practices, while other chapters provide valuable perspectives relevant to music, technology and education. I imagine readers interested in popular music education will consider many of the chapters in this book fit either interpretation of the word ‘critical.’

Affinity spaces are the physical, virtual, or combination of locations where people come together around a shared affinity (interest) (Duncan & Hayes, 2012). Online affinity spaces can act as a participatory hub for music making and learning through social networking and sharing. Although music affinity spaces exist in myriad informal spaces, little scholarship explores potential applications of affinity space characteristics within formalized learning spaces. This chapter introduces characteristics of an affinity space and questions the role of the framework in relation to another framework commonly used in online music learning communities: communities of practice. This chapter concludes with a discussion on practical and theoretical applications of affinity space characteristics within formalized educational contexts.

This short chapter provides an example of how to code a hip version of Hot Cross Buns using Sonic Pi.

Since the introduction of music education within public schools, curricular offerings have not developed in parallel with the myriad of practices popular musicians engage with outside school contexts. In other academic disciplines such as computer science, curricula and practices are iterative in nature and are responsive to the ever-changing practices that people engage with outside educational contexts. Although popular musicians are using computer science practices for music-related purposes, such practices are seldom discussed within music education scholarship. This article begins with an exploration of such intersections by describing hardware practices popular musicians use to modify, design or build electronic devices for music-related purposes. The following section introduces coding practices that people use to create and modify music software, as well as to make music with code. The article concludes by unpacking potential implications and considerations for educators interested in the intersections of popular musicianship and computer science practices.

This short chapter provides an example of how to explore circuit-bending in a middle school general music context by experimenting with the electrical circuitry of children’s toys.

Discussions on assessment in education often describe summative assessments as a product-oriented assessment of learning, formative assessments as a process-oriented assessment for learning, and ipsative assessments as a self-reflective assessment as learning (Manitoba Education, 2006; Scott, 2012). Each of these types of assessment can serve different educational purposes, so which assessment would work best for you and the students with whom you work? This article presents a simple heuristic for creating or selecting an assessment.

Recent initiatives by for-profit corporations and funding measures instituted by governments intend to support the preparation of students for careers in computer science and technology. Although such initiatives and measures can indeed increase opportunities for students’ engagement with computer science and technology in K-12 schools, we question whose needs are being served, for what purposes, and at what cost. In particular, we ask whether music educators might be complicit in advancing technology that subordinates human needs—specifically students’ interests in making music in their own creative ways—to modes of production that benefit certain dominant commercial interests in society. After discussing how current computer technology narrows students’ choices, we counter this determinism by highlighting a music subculture that creates and appropriates music technologies for music-related purposes. Our example of the “chipscene” illustrates how music educators might reconceptualize “music making” through modification of existing music technology and thereby restore students’ freedom to “reclaim making” in the age of neoliberalism.

This study examined discussion forum posts within a website dedicated to a medium and genre of music (chiptunes) with potential for music-centered making, a phrase I use to describe maker culture practices that revolve around music-related purposes. Three research questions guided this study: (1) What chiptune-related practices did members of chipmusic.org discuss between December 30th, 2009 and November 13th, 2017? (2) What do chipmusic.org discussion forum posts reveal about the multidisciplinary aspects of chiptunes? (3) What import might music-centered making evident within chipmusic.org discussion forum posts hold for music education? To address these research questions, I engaged in corpus-assisted discourse analysis tools and techniques to reveal and analyze patterns of discourse within 245,098 discussion forum posts within chipmusic.org. The analysis cycle consisted of (a) using corpus analysis techniques to reveal patterns of discourse across and within data consisting of 10,892,645 words, and (b) using discourse analysis techniques for a close reading of revealed patterns.

Findings revealed seven interconnected themes of chiptune-related practices: (a) composition practices, (b) performance practices, (c) maker practices, (d) coding practices, (e) entrepreneurial practices, (f), visual art practices, and (g) community practices. Members of chipmusic.org primarily discussed composing and performing chiptunes on a variety of instruments, as well as through retro computer and video game hardware. Members also discussed modifying and creating hardware and software for a multitude of electronic devices. Some members engaged in entrepreneurial practices to promote, sell, buy, and trade with other members. Throughout each of the revealed themes, members engaged in visual art practices, as well as community practices such as collective learning, collaborating, constructive criticism, competitive events, and collective efficacy.

Findings suggest the revealed themes incorporated practices from a multitude of academic disciplines or fields of study for music-related purposes. However, I argue that many of the music-related practices people discussed within chipmusic.org are not apparent within music education discourse, curricula, or standards. I call for an expansion of music education discourse and practices to include additional ways of being musical through practices that might borrow from multiple academic disciplines or fields of study for music-related purposes.

Coding environments and curricula with puzzles and challenges often utilize engaging platforms which guide young coders to learn fundamental coding concepts and practices. These environments and curricula often progress from simple through complex algorithmic sequences with clearly defined solutions. This approach not only provides useful resources for young coders new to coding, but for adults new to teaching, facilitating, or evaluating coding classes. Articles continues . . .

This chapter is concerned with the diverse ways that people engage with music or sound within, through, and around video games. It begins with a review of literature on games as a leisure activity and sonic space, followed by highlighting various frameworks of participatory cultures. The bulk of the chapter connects these participatory culture frameworks with examples of engagement in sonic participatory cultures and sonic participation within, through, and around video games. Although these categories of sonic participation are divided into three sections, the chapter concludes with a discussion on the overlapping nature of sonic participation and implications for leisure as sonic participation.

"When considering the potential of technology for musical engagement, teaching, and learning, music educators can acknowledge a range of contexts and ways of being musical to inform their practice. Video games offer a compelling locus for musical experience and engagement. Video games are digital, interactive, and immersive multimedia or intermedia that people play, and often in a social context. Characteristics of play, interactivity, immersion, and social engagement are critical to understanding the popularity of video games in contemporary society and their potential in music education. Video games are not simply media objects, but designed experiences with rules and mechanics which create systems that often invite problem solving, creative and critical thinking, and meaning making (Squire, 2006).

Though video games are a popular and established form of media in contemporary society, scholarship addressing video games in relation to music teaching and learning is at an early stage compared to the corpus of research addressing other aspects of music technology such as music creation or performance (Finney & Burnard, 2007; Webster, 2011). Building upon existing discourse in music education, this chapter draws on scholarship beyond the immediate scope of music teaching and learning to address the following three areas: 1) video games and music education; 2) game-based learning and learning theories; and 3) music and musical engagement within video games. Throughout this chapter we refer to video games in their myriad forms along with the devices on which they are played such as console systems, computers, and mobile devices."