The importance of familiarizing children with the Maker Movement, Makerspaces and Maker mindset has been acknowledged. In this literature review, we examine the complex social action of children, aged from 7 to 17 (K-12), engaging in technology Making activities as it is seen in the extant literature. The included papers contain empirical data from actual digital Making workshops and diverse research projects with children, conducted in both formal and non-formal/informal settings, such as schools or museums, libraries, Fab Labs and other makerspaces. We utilized the theoretical lens of nexus analysis and its concepts of interaction order and historical body, and as a result of our analysis, we report best practices and helping and hindering factors. Two gaps in the current knowledge were identified: (1) the current research focuses on success stories instead of challenges in the working, and, (2) histories of the participants and interaction between them are very rarely in the focus of the existing studies or reported in detail, even though they significantly affect what happens and what is possible to happen in Making sessions.
Inspired by the Maker Movement and attempts of integrating Making into formal education of children, we have examined how practice-oriented the research on Making and education is in Child-Computer Interaction field. Our results show that despite the growing interest practice-orientation is still weak. Making efforts rarely aim for longitudinal durable patterns and practices even though practice-driven research has started to gain prominence in the whole Human-Computer Interaction field. General ideas of what Making integrated with education can be and should be seem to be well shared among practitioners, however. We demonstrate what aspects should be considered when doing practiceoriented Making research and point out gaps in our current understanding of the practice. We also provide guidelines for how to study Making in order to develop sustainable practices.
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