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Sonification Blocks: A Block-Based Programming Environment For Embodied Data Sonification

Authors:

Jack Atherton,

Paulo BliksteinAuthors Info & Claims

IDC '17: Proceedings of the 2017 Conference on Interaction Design and Children

Pages 733 - 736

https://doi.org/10.1145/3078072.3091992

Published: 27 June 2017 Publication History

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Abstract

High school students often struggle to find the motivation to learn to program. Music can be a powerful motivator for these students, but existing tools that combine music production with programming often fail to meaningfully engage students with core computer science concepts. Sonification Blocks was created to shift the focus back toward big ideas in programming. Sonification Blocks is a programming language for data sonification, the process of creating audio algorithms and controlling them with streams of data. Its implementation as a block-based language with clear, interactive data visualizers allows high-school-aged learners to develop computational literacy. Furthermore, the act of manipulating sound parameters with data streams that are controlled through body motion may help connect learners with powerful ideas in programming and data science.

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Cited By

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Li HBellona JSmith LBower ARoberts J(2023)“Let the Volcano Erupt!”: Designing Sonification to Make Oceanography Accessible for Blind and Low Vision Students in Museum EnvironmentProceedings of the 25th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility10.1145/3597638.3614482(1-6)Online publication date: 22-Oct-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3597638.3614482
Fernandez CDe Deus Lopes RBlikstein P(2023)Programming Representations: Uncovering the Process of Constructing Data Visualizations in a Block-based Programming EnvironmentProceedings of the 2023 Symposium on Learning, Design and Technology10.1145/3594781.3594783(11-20)Online publication date: 23-Jun-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3594781.3594783
Song YXing WBarron AOh HLi CMinces V(2023)M-flow: a Flow-based Music Creation Platform Improves Underrepresented Children’s Attitudes toward Computer ProgrammingProceedings of the 22nd Annual ACM Interaction Design and Children Conference10.1145/3585088.3589383(233-238)Online publication date: 19-Jun-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3585088.3589383
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Index Terms

Sonification Blocks: A Block-Based Programming Environment For Embodied Data Sonification
1. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Computing education
      1. Computing education programs
        Computer science education
        Information science education

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Published In

IDC '17: Proceedings of the 2017 Conference on Interaction Design and Children

June 2017

808 pages

ISBN:9781450349215

DOI:10.1145/3078072

General Chairs:
Paulo Blikstein
Stanford University, USA
,
Dor Abrahamson
University of California-Berkeley, USA

Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for third-party components of this work must be honored. For all other uses, contact the Owner/Author.

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

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Published: 27 June 2017

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IDC '17: Interaction Design and Children

June 27 - 30, 2017

California, Stanford, USA

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IDC '17 Paper Acceptance Rate 25 of 118 submissions, 21%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 172 of 578 submissions, 30%

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Li HBellona JSmith LBower ARoberts J(2023)“Let the Volcano Erupt!”: Designing Sonification to Make Oceanography Accessible for Blind and Low Vision Students in Museum EnvironmentProceedings of the 25th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility10.1145/3597638.3614482(1-6)Online publication date: 22-Oct-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3597638.3614482
Fernandez CDe Deus Lopes RBlikstein P(2023)Programming Representations: Uncovering the Process of Constructing Data Visualizations in a Block-based Programming EnvironmentProceedings of the 2023 Symposium on Learning, Design and Technology10.1145/3594781.3594783(11-20)Online publication date: 23-Jun-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3594781.3594783
Song YXing WBarron AOh HLi CMinces V(2023)M-flow: a Flow-based Music Creation Platform Improves Underrepresented Children’s Attitudes toward Computer ProgrammingProceedings of the 22nd Annual ACM Interaction Design and Children Conference10.1145/3585088.3589383(233-238)Online publication date: 19-Jun-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3585088.3589383
Lewis MHolloman ALuo FDenham ACrawford C(2023)LITI: Learning with Interactive Time Series Information2023 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (VL/HCC)10.1109/VL-HCC57772.2023.00049(266-268)Online publication date: 3-Oct-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/VL-HCC57772.2023.00049
Potluri VThompson JDevine JLee BMorsi NDe Halleux PHodges SMankoff J(2022)PSST: Enabling Blind or Visually Impaired Developers to Author Sonifications of Streaming Sensor DataProceedings of the 35th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology10.1145/3526113.3545700(1-13)Online publication date: 29-Oct-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3526113.3545700
Verano Merino MBeckmann Tvan der Storm THirschfeld RVinju JVisser EKolovos DSöderberg E(2021)Getting grammars into shape for block-based editorsProceedings of the 14th ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Software Language Engineering10.1145/3486608.3486908(83-98)Online publication date: 17-Oct-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3486608.3486908
Verano Merino Mvan der Storm TLämmel RTratt Lde Lara J(2020)Block-based syntax from context-free grammarsProceedings of the 13th ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Software Language Engineering10.1145/3426425.3426948(283-295)Online publication date: 16-Nov-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3426425.3426948
Barbareschi GCostanza EHolloway C(2020)TIP-Toy: a tactile, open-source computational toolkit to support learning across visual abilitiesProceedings of the 22nd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility10.1145/3373625.3417005(1-14)Online publication date: 26-Oct-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3373625.3417005

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Evaluation of psychoacoustic sound parameters for sonification

Aesthetic strategies in sonification

Interactive feedbacks with visualisation and sonification for technology-enhanced learning for music performance

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