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Technological innovations, such as social networking systems, games for learning, and digital fabrication, are extending learning and interaction opportunities of people in educational and professional contexts. These technological transformations have the ability to deepen, enrich, and adaptively guide learning and interaction, but they also hold potential risks for neglecting people's affective learning processes-that is, learners' emotional experiences and expressions in learning. We argue that technologies and their usage in particular should be designed with the goal of enhancing learning and interaction that acknowledges both fundamental aspects of learning: cognitive and affective. In our empirical research, we have explored the possibility of using various types of emerging digital tools as individual and group support for cognitively effortful and affectively meaningful learning. We present four case studies of experiments dealing with social networking systems, programming with computer games, and "makers culture" and digital fabrication as examples of digital education. All these experiments investigate novel ways of technological integration in learning by focusing on their affective potential. In the first study, a social networking system was used in a higher education context for providing a forum for online learning. The second study demonstrates a Minecraft experiment as game-based learning in primary school education. Finally, the third and the fourth case study showcases examples of "maker" contexts and digital fabrication in early education and in secondary school. It is concluded that digital systems and tools can provide multiple opportunities for affective learning in different contexts within different age groups. As a pedagogical implication, scaffolding in both cognitive and affective learning processes is necessary in order to make the learning experience with emerging digital tools meaningful and engaging.

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Interests in Maker Education have been increasing among K-12 educators. In this study, we focused on one of the contexts of Maker Education, digital fabrication activities, at a makerspace in Finland. We aimed to explore: (1) the potentials and the factors to develop twenty-first century skills and computational thinking practices through digital fabrication activities, and (2) challenges of utilizing digital fabrication in K-12 Maker Education. We examined perspectives of teachers and facilitators who have roles to support pupils in Maker Education. We presented three cases of school visits (3-5 days), where the pupils (7-9th grades) created tangible artifacts with digital fabrication facilities at the makerspace. We collected data through participants' observation, informal interviews and focus group interviews with teachers and facilitators. For data analysis, we employed theory-driven and data-driven approaches. The results showed that digital fabrication activities can provide learning opportunities for twenty-first century skills and computational thinking practices. The teachers and the facilitators discussed the six factors of digital fabrication activities which influenced pupils' learning. However, the result also indicated the possibility that the teachers and the facilitators might not be familiar with the concepts of computational thinking. Also, different perspectives between the teachers and the facilitators toward the structure of the current activities surfaced. By identifying potentials and challenges of the current practices, the study has implications to advance Maker Education to be better integrated into K-12 school contexts.