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Online search and brokering (OSB) is the phenomenon in which youth search for information for their immigrant families on the Internet. Few studies exist on reflecting on the past as youth conduct OSB from childhood to adolescence to young adulthood. We conducted a retrospective study using semi-structured interviews of 27 young adults (ages 19 - 24) to examine their experience and perceptions of OSB over time (primary schooling, secondary schooling, undergraduate). We found that although all the interviewees shared a common experience of being an online searcher and information broker for their immigrant families, their stories exist on various dimensions which are constantly shifting and changing over time, as ecological factors influence searching behaviors. We discuss how the results from our study can serve as future references for researchers doing work in search research and designers who are currently working on improving design tools for searching. 

Influencing adolescent interest in computing is key to engaging diverse teens in computer science learning. Prior work suggests that informal mentorship may be a powerful way to trigger and maintain interest in computing, but we still know little about how mentoring relationships form, how mentors trigger and maintain interest, or what qualities adolescents value in informal mentors. In a 3-week career exploration class with 18 teens from underrepresented groups, we had students write extensively about their informal computing mentors. In analyzing their writing, we found that most teens had informal computing mentors, that mentors were typically teachers, friends, and older siblings (and not parents or school counselors), and that what teens desired most were informal mentors that were patient, helpful, inspiring, and knowledgeable. These findings suggest that computing mentors can come in many forms, that they must be patient, helpful, and inspiring, but that they also require content knowledge about computing to be meaningful. Future work might explore what knowledge of computing is sufficient to empower teachers, parents, peers, and family to be effective computing mentors. 

Research suggests that parental engagement through Joint Media Engagement (JME) is an important factor in children's learning for coding and programming. Unfortunately, parents with limited technology background may have difficulty supporting their children's access to programming. English-language learning (ELL) families from marginalized communities face particular challenges in understanding and supporting programming, as code is primarily authored using English text. We present BlockStudio, a programming tool for empowering ELL families to jointly engage in introductory coding, using an environment embodying two design principles, text-free and visually concrete. We share a case study involving three community centers serving immigrant and refugee populations. Our findings show ELL families can jointly engage in programming without text, via co-creation and flexible roles, and can create a range of artifacts, indicating understanding of aspects of programming within this environment. We conclude with implications for coding together in ELL families and design ideas for text-free programming research.