Headshot of Carlos Aldana Lira

Carlos Aldana Lira

📧︎ Email 📋︎ CV

Hi! I'm Carlos.

I'm curious about learners' beliefs and practices around knowledge in computing education.

I study Computer Science (B.S.) and Interactive Media (minor) at Middle Tennessee State University. Past work includes

Currently, I'm studying the knowledge new programmers bring into introductory Computer Science courses through my honors thesis. I draw from prior work in Computing Education, Science Education, and the Learning Sciences as I design, conduct, and report my work. Dr. Tasha Frick advises me.

Outside of my thesis and undergraduate work, I read and sometimes write about Game Design, Guatemalan history, and Epistemic Cognition. My initial interest was educational video games, and my first experience with research resulted in a historical analysis of the Guatemalan coup d'état — I keep these interests alive when I can.

For future work, I'm hoping to study how computing educators can cultivate students' epistemic cognition and agency in and outside the classroom. I'm applying for Ph.D. programs this 2024–5 cycle, and I am interested in any learning community supportive of my interests in Computing Education and Epistemic Cognition.

Projects

A thumbnail of the research paper.
Wordplay: Accessible, Multilingual, Interactive Typography
Spring 2025
A research paper descibing and evaluating Wordplay, an multilingual, accesislbe, educational programming language. Presented at the ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) 2025.
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A thumbnail of the undergraduate thesis.
Qualifying Novices' Conceptual Resources in Computer Science I
Fall 2024
An undegraduate honors thesis describing the conceptions novice programmers possess and use in introductory computing classrooms.
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A screenshot of the Cookbook appliation running on an Android emulator. The application is displaying a recipe for "Crispy Pineapple Fritters".
Meal Manual
Fall 2023
A cookbook application to view, organize, and write recipes and related ingredients. Written in Java for Android platforms using Android Studio, SQLite, and the Spoonacular web API.
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A cropped screenshot of the dungeon scene rendered on a webpage. The scene shows the corner of the dungeon from a three-point perspective. A pot, chest, table, chalice, sword, pedestal, and floating, polygonal heart can be seen.
CSCI 4250 Project 4
Fall 2023
A 3D dungeon scene with textures, lighting, and animation. Written in JavaScript, GLSL, and HTML for modern web browsers using WebGL.
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A screenshot of the homepage for the website on which the essay's are hosted. The homepage lists the project's title, author, and brief description.
Irish Educational Technology: From Policy to Enterprise
Summer 2023
A series of short essays documenting and analyzing the educational technologies industry in Ireland. Integrated with spaced-repitition assessments to facilitate learning and retention.
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A screenshot of Zig code from the Toy Huffman Encoder codebase. The code imports various files, defines many constants, and defines a "Record" structure containing a "symbol" field and a "frequency" field.
Toy Huffman Encoder
Spring 2023
A commandline file compression application using tries and canonical Huffman codes. Written in the Zig programming language.
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A cropped screenshot of the 32-bit computer's circutry in Logisim. Registers, memory, value probes, and the control unit are shown and interconnected by circutry. An output register is connected to eight hexadecimal digit displays.
Relatively Simple Computer
Fall 2022
A 32-bit computer simulated in Logisim capable of running programs written in a 16-instruction assembly. Includes a program printing the Gray code representations of numbers.
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A screenshot of Lua code from the Camus ECS codebase. The code defines and implements a function to delete game entities and organize game entities into component groups.
Camus ECS
Spring 2022
An entity component system for organizing game logic in the LÖVE2D graphics framework. Written in Lua for the LuaJIT runtime.
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A cropped screenshot of Sokoclone gameplay. The perspective is top-down, and two instances of the player character can be seen, separated by a wall. Many boxes and storage locations are visible, as well as gameplay statistics.
Sokoclone
Fall 2021
A prototype for a sokoban videogame featuring an integrated, in-game level editor. Made in the LÖVE2D graphics framework with a prototype of Camus ECS.
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A cropped screenshot of Litargie gameplay. The perspective is side-scolling, and the player character is airborne, aiming a grappling hook towards an off-screen target.
Litargie
Spring 2021
A 2D, story-based platformer videogame. Made in Godot for the "Games for Change 2021 Student Challenge Competition" game jam.
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A cropped screenshot of Grapple Hike gameplay. The perspective is side-scrolling, and a man is standing by a pink flag atop a snowy hilltop.
Grapple Hike
Fall 2020
A 2D puzzle-platformer videogame. Made in Godot for the "Secret Santa Jam" game jam.
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A cropped screenshot of Air's End gameplay. The perspective is top-down, and a small, green astronaut is positoined in the center of the image, surrounded by walls and bones.
Air's End
Summer 2020
A top-down, turn-based rougelike videogame. Made in Godot for the "Summer Slow James June 20202: Turn-Based Games" game jam.
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A cropped screenshot of Down Down Dunegon gameplay. The perspective is side-scrolling, and the player character is air-borne, rocketing towards a line of coins.
Down Down Dungeon
Summer 2020
A 2D platformer videogame. Made in Godot for the "GMTK Game Jam 2020" game jam.
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See this site's sourcehut repository to view its source code and provide feedback. This site's code is modeled after that of Amy J. Ko's faculty website. Colorscheme is Flexoki by Steph Ango.