Designing for Critical Algorithmic Literacies
This addresses the need for children to develop critical thinking skills about algorithmic systems, but it is incremental as it builds on existing work on literacies and design principles.
The paper tackles the problem of children lacking the ability to critically understand and question invisible algorithms that shape their lives, and presents four design principles based on experience with two data programming systems to support the development of critical algorithmic literacies.
As pervasive data collection and powerful algorithms increasingly shape children's experience of the world and each other, their ability to interrogate computational algorithms has become crucially important. A growing body of work has attempted to articulate a set of "literacies" to describe the intellectual tools that children can use to understand, interrogate, and critique the algorithmic systems that shape their lives. Unfortunately, because many algorithms are invisible, only a small number of children develop the literacies required to critique these systems. How might designers support the development of critical algorithmic literacies? Based on our experience designing two data programming systems, we present four design principles that we argue can help children develop literacies that allow them to understand not only how algorithms work, but also to critique and question them.