ABSTRACT

Enhancing Digital Literacy and Creativity is an exploration of how young children gain digital literacies in ‘makerspaces.’ The international authors investigate how hands-on experimentation with a variety of materials - from traditional arts and crafts to contemporary digital tools like 3D printers and laser cutters - can aid children in their development of play, creativity and storytelling. From museums to libraries, nursery schools to community centres, this research shows how ‘making’ supports the development of creative skills and introduces concepts to be explored in a variety of environments and contexts.

Drawing on examples from around the globe, described by a range of international academics, Enhancing Digital Literacy and Creativity includes chapters on:

  • Virtual reality
  • Museum and library makerspaces
  • Intergenerational making in families
  • Making in schools and nursery settings
  • Assessing learning in makerspaces
  • Links to previous theories
  • Social imagination

This book will be a valuable resource for students and researchers in the fields of education and digital literacies; early childhood teacher educators and practitioners; librarians; museum educators; and makerspace staff.

chapter 1|10 pages

The MakEY project

An introduction

chapter 2|13 pages

Researching young children’s engagement and learning in makerspaces

Insights from post-Vygotskian and post-human perspectives

chapter 3|14 pages

Makeative makerspaces

When the pedagogy is makeative

chapter 7|24 pages

Makerspaces in the making

Reconfiguring cultures of facilitation across the kindergarten and the science museum

chapter 10|17 pages

Connecting learning

Parents and young children inmuseum makerspaces 1

chapter 11|17 pages

Teaching for social imagination

Creativity in an early-learning makerspace

chapter |3 pages

Afterword

Reflecting on process