Culturally Situated Design Tools: Ethnocomputing from Field Site to Classroom Export

@article{citeulike:670802, abstract = {Ethnomathematics is the study of mathematical ideas and practices situated in their cultural context. Culturally Situated Design Tools (CSDTs) are web-based software applications that allow students to create simulations of cultural arts\&\#8212;Native American beadwork, African American cornrow hairstyles, urban graffiti, and so forth\&\#8212;using these underlying mathematical principles. This article is a review of the anthropological issues raised in the CSDT project: negotiating the representations of cultural knowledge during the design process with community members, negotiating pedagogical features with math teachers and their students, and reflecting on the software development itself as a cultural construction. The move from ethnomathematics to ethnocomputing results in an expressive computational medium that affords new opportunities to explore the relationships between youth identity and culture, the cultural construction of mathematics and computing, and the formation of cultural and technological hybridity.}, author = {Eglash, Ron and Bennett, Audrey and O'Donnell, Casey and Jennings, Sybillyn and Cintorino, Margaret}, citeulike-article-id = {670802}, citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/aa.2006.108.2.347}, doi = {10.1525/aa.2006.108.2.347}, journal = {American Anthropologist}, keywords = {anthropology, mas}, number = {2}, pages = {347--362}, posted-at = {2007-05-28 18:37:00}, priority = {2}, title = {Culturally Situated Design Tools: Ethnocomputing from Field Site to Classroom}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/aa.2006.108.2.347}, volume = {108}, year = {2006} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:670802 L3 - citeulike-article-id:670802 N2 - Ethnomathematics is the study of mathematical ideas and practices situated in their cultural context. Culturally Situated Design Tools (CSDTs) are web-based software applications that allow students to create simulations of cultural arts—Native American beadwork, African American cornrow hairstyles, urban graffiti, and so forth—using these underlying mathematical principles. This article is a review of the anthropological issues raised in the CSDT project: negotiating the representations of cultural knowledge during the design process with community members, negotiating pedagogical features with math teachers and their students, and reflecting on the software development itself as a cultural construction. The move from ethnomathematics to ethnocomputing results in an expressive computational medium that affords new opportunities to explore the relationships between youth identity and culture, the cultural construction of mathematics and computing, and the formation of cultural and technological hybridity. IS - 2 JF - American Anthropologist EP - 362 TI - Culturally Situated Design Tools: Ethnocomputing from Field Site to Classroom VL - 108 SP - 347 KW - anthropology KW - mas AU - Eglash, Ron AU - Bennett, Audrey AU - O'Donnell, Casey AU - Jennings, Sybillyn AU - Cintorino, Margaret PY - 2006/// UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/aa.2006.108.2.347 ER -