Body and Code: A Distributed Cognition Exploration Into Dance and Computing Learning

Representational forms are central to how we explore, communicate, and learn. Yet they can be challenging to engage with as designers because they vary across disciplines, cultures, and communities. In this paper, we study a dance and computing learning environment through the lens of distributed cognition to examine how representations and processing of information across people and systems impacted the learning process. We analyzed video and audio data from three workshops of dance and STEM instructors learning about, creating with, and co-designing computing activities with danceON—a creative computing platform that supports coding animations over dance videos. We identified the ways that the instructors used their bodies as a shared point of negotiation while co-creating dance artifacts, the participatory role of danceON within the sensemaking process, the ways that the instructors interpreted and translated representations across physical and digital spaces, and the impact of the instructors’ collaborative interactions to their sensemaking.