Background: Implementing maker education in schools is on the rise, fuelled by its potential to move formal education towards a creative, technology-driven 21st century learning culture. In maker education, collaborative learning takes place through and around various digital and traditional technologies, which provide the means for students'…

Spatial skills are crucial to STEM disciplines and involve a variety of cognitive processes and skills related to visualising, reasoning and communicating about spatial relations. Particularly in the primary school years, attaining 'spatial literacy' gives children a valuable set of skills and knowledge that can aid them in successful…

Foundation Year children are often excited about learning to read. Some 5- to 6-year-olds with well-developed literacy skills begin to read chapter books. Like older children and adults, they cannot read the whole book in one sitting. The learning experience described in the article provides an example of how the properties of materials…

An open-ended assignment to "make something" out of cardboard was a good fit for a half-day camp class of children in kindergarten, first, and second grades where the first goal was to have fun while learning. Given the opportunity to make something of their own design for their own purposes out of cardboard, the children persisted while…

The objectives of the research were to investigate a creative learning promotion activity package for 30 Thai seven-year-old, first-grade school students. Secondly, to design a creative learning promotion activity package, followed by an assessment of the creative learning development process from a series of creative learning promotion…

The present study explored pre-primary students' investigative activity during a longitudinal, integrative technology education project: the Power Creatures project. Investigative activity refers to the way young children act in a learning context that combines inquiry-based activities with creative hands-on activities, such as designing and…

Makerspaces are collaborative workplaces equipped with a variety of high- and low-tech tools and materials that individuals can use to create physical and digital products. In this article the authors take the perspective that integrating a makerspace into a school is a proactive, thoughtful, and time-consuming process. To help meaningfully…

This study investigates agency-structure dynamics in students and teachers' social activity in a novel design and making environment in the context of the Finnish school system, which has recently undergone major curricular reform. Understanding that agency is an important mediator of educational change, we ask the following questions: How are…

The aim of this article is to report the results of an empirical study on adolescents' interest, self-efficacy, and vocational interest in technology and design. Following the expectancy-value model, we wanted to know how context-specific interest in technology and perceived self-efficacy in solving technical tasks are developed at lower…

Drawing on the construct of "ways of knowing" from the feminist tradition the Bots for Tots project explores the affordances of activity framings and structures that tap into alternate mental dispositions to broaden participation and interest in maker activities. In this paper I present data from a workshop with 9-10 year olds explicitly…

Art in Botswana primary schools is taught under the umbrella term Creative and Performing Arts (CAPA), a subject that encompasses various arts disciplines. The arts disciplines are Physical Education, Music, Design and Technology, Home Economics, and Drama and Dance. The subject introduces learners to various disciplinary knowledge, media, and…

In the last 15 years there has been an increased emphasis in both educational research and curriculum development upon investigating children's perspectives of their experience of learning. Children naturally have very particular and important insights to offer in helping us to develop our understanding of teaching and learning. However, research…

In this article, we explore challenges encountered by K-12 educators in establishing classroom cultures that support creative learning activities with the Scratch programming language. Providing opportunities for students to understand and to build capacities for creative work was described by many of the teachers that we interviewed as a central…

Educators are continuously looking at innovative ways to teaching and working with students of all ages. The tools used range from the simplest technologies, such as chalk and pencils, to the high-tech tools involving computers and information systems. The best tools and strategies often invoke the use of the old and new or the old in a new way.…

This paper looks at the collaborative construction of web pages in History by a Year-4 group of children in a primary school in the UK. The aim of this paper is to find out: (a) How did children interpret their involvement in this literacy practice? (b) How the construction of web pages was interactionally accomplished? and (c) How can creativity…