The technical matters: young children debugging (with) tangible coding toys

Purpose: Much remains unknown about how young children orient to computational objects and how we as learning scientists can orient to young children as computational thinkers. While some research exists on how children learn programming, very little has been written about how they learn the technical skills needed to operate technologies or to fix breakdowns that occur in the code or the machine. The purpose of this study is to explore how children perform technical knowledge in tangible programming environments. Design/methodology/approach: The current study examines the organization of young children’s technical knowledge in the context of a design-based study of Kindergarteners learning to code using robot coding toys, where groups of children collaboratively debugged programs. The authors conducted iterative rounds of qualitative coding of video recordings in kindergarten classrooms and interaction analysis of children using coding robots. Findings: The authors found that as children repaired bugs at the level of the program and at the level of the physical apparatus, they were performing essential technical knowledge; the authors focus on how demonstrating technical knowledge was organized pedagogically and collectively achieved. Originality/value: Drawing broadly from studies of the social organization of technical work in professional settings, we argue that technical knowledge is easy to overlook but essential for learning to repair programs. The authors suggest how tangible programming environments represent pedagogically important contexts for dis-embedding young children’s essential technical knowledge from the more abstract knowledge of programming.