Although play naturally embeds computational thinking (CT) and mathematical learning in early childhood education, designing developmentally appropriate learning activities that purposefully nurture and extend these competencies remains a challenge. This study investigates how young children engage with foundational mathematical and computational concepts through analog (DUPLO®) and digital (Blue-Bot) tools in a play-responsive early childhood education workshop setting. The study adopts a qualitative workshop format aimed at promoting playful exploration and active experimentation, involving eleven 4–5-year-old children and their two teachers. Based on a sociocultural perspective, the findings highlight that mathematics is a human activity embedded in everyday playful practices. In particular, unplugged analog activities, embedded within an open-ended narrative framework, guided and structured the process. Based on these findings, we suggest “computational play” as a framework for developmentally appropriate integration of computational thinking (CT) and mathematics. This framework offers implications for educators seeking to support early CT and mathematical learning in playful, exploratory early childhood education (ECE) environments.

Computational play is a novel concept and scarcely researched indicating that there is a need for moving beyond deficient models of Computational Thinking (CT) to more robust knowledge by integrating overlooked needs and interests of children and thus engaging them more substantially in computational play on their own premises. However, outcomes from the authors’ previous studies on digital and computational play in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) in a Nordic context demonstrate that digital technology has the potential to reconfigure play activities supporting children’s computational play. Based on a participatory design approach using workshops as a method, the study seeks answers to how play can be used as a pedagogical tool to promote children’s computational explorations, and also the other way around, how computational exploration can inspire and enrich children’s play in ECEC. The aim of the workshop activity is to build a dialogue between researchers, ECEC children and their teachers to integrate computational play into mathematics in ECEC practices. The study will contribute to how an open-ended play-responsive approach to computational play can promote children’s conceptual understanding and how it can be facilitated. The expected outcomes will extend the knowledge of computational play in ECEC practices by incorporating identified good practices and guidelines.

Computational play is a novel concept and scarcely researched indicating that there is a need for moving beyond deficient models of Computational Thinking (CT) to more robust knowledge by integrating overlooked needs and interests of children and thus engaging them more substantially in computational play on their own premises. However, outcomes from the authors' previous studies on digital and computational play in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) in a Nordic context demonstrate that digital technology has the potential to reconfigure play activities supporting children's computational play. Based on a participatory design approach using workshops as a method, the study seeks answers to how play can be used as a pedagogical tool to promote children's computational explorations, and also the other way around, how computational exploration can inspire and enrich children's play in ECEC. The aim of the workshop activity is to build a dialogue between researchers, ECEC children and their teachers to integrate computational play into mathematics in ECEC practices. The study will contribute to how an open-ended play-responsive approach to computational play can promote children's conceptual understanding and how it can be facilitated. The expected outcomes will extend the knowledge of computational play in ECEC practices by incorporating identified good practices and guidelines.

Design thinking (DT) used by established design teams has been a topic for research since the 1960s. However, the use of design thinking in organizational settings carried out in novice design teams, that is, users with no experience of design and design methods can still be regarded as a newcomer in research. There is a strong discourse in the field of DT acknowledging the benefits of visualization and experimentation to facilitate and enhance the design process. However, research shows that there is a lack of understanding of the role visualization and experimentation plays in specific phases of design thinking. Thiswork-in-progress paper investigates how a design thinking process can provide a novice design team with resources to release the team's problem-solving capacity based on the participants' practical experiences and needs. The study is based on a co-creation methodology including a DT process divided into four phases. Methods used were focus groups with a novice design team including five participants from three different companies within the field of welfare technology. In addition, participant observations were used to capture the participants' interactions within the different design phases. Expected outcomes will incorporate identified good practices and design guidelines. The study will contribute to unfolding knowledge about how participants from local practices can ensure effective collaboration to cope with emerging dilemmas.

This chapter focuses on children’s play and making activities when involved in creative processes, in particular focusing on how different resources and materials foster their agency. The chapter will include empirical data where children (3–9 years of age) are engaged with both digital and analogue resources, (LEGO, Minecraft, and Virtual Reality). The analysis was based on data in the form of ethnographic observations, and informal conversations. The analysis focused on how children engaged with the different resources and how they unified or separated them in the design activity. We narrowed this focus into four main categories: problem scoping, idea generation, design monitoring, and design experience. The chapter contributes to further specifying dimensions of digital creation opening new avenues of play and creation with a unifying combination of analogue and digital resources. This has implications on educational and societal instances by renewing our understanding of children’s contemporary play.

Digital tools and solutions are increasingly used in society, creating a need for more digital skills in the workplace and everyday life. As society becomes increasingly digital, computational thinking becomes a fundamental skill for the 21st century. This paper examines play’s role in young children’s CT development in early childhood education. This paper presents a narrative review and uses forward snowballing to extend the search result. Twenty-two articles met the criteria and were manually collected. The publications were categorized into five categories: programming tools, robotics, unplugged activities, making and exploring, and guided vs. free play. For CT activities to be social and communicative, concepts such as mutuality and scaffolding must be incorporated into operational pedagogical CT frameworks. As such, CT can be designed as a play-oriented activity in that children coordinate and develop themselves, with or without educators’ guidance. As a co-creator, an educator can mediate CT and support the children in guiding activities forward.

This short chapter reflects upon two studies involving patients diagnosed with fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) and the differing profiles of the instructors leading the intervention sessions. The two studies were based upon wider explorations undertaken to research the potentials of contemporary affordable game platforms and specifically motion-based active gameplay with the community of persons with dysfunction (acquired or born-with). This wider research is reported in the authors’ related literatures. This chapter also reflects upon an ongoing work in progress, which is the theoretical analysis method using algorithms from the authors’ prior work (two studies exemplify) to realise a colour-coded method for low-level analysis of motion dynamics in fibromyalgia research.

In this paper, we outline a perspective on participatory designs for computational play as a social and material activity, beyond an understanding of computational activities as an individual "thinking" endeavor. The overall aim of this study is to explore how a participatory design approach including traditional and digital resources trigger children's computational play. By this, our intention is to contribute to the contemporary debate on the increased use of computational thinking related activities in early childhood education and their potentials for play and learning. Framed by a perspective considering traditional and digital resources as access points to play and learning, the empirical study involves 50 children from 2nd grade, aged 8-9 years from two different primary schools in northern Denmark. The outcomes demonstrates that computational play has the potential to reconfigure learning activities by providing new, previously unthinkable, activities that can support children in early childhood education and their development of computational literacy. At the same time, the analyses show that computational play requires new ways to be scaffolded to not counteract children's independent experimentation, testing, and creativity.

In this paper, we outline a perspective on participatory designs for computational play as a social and material activity, beyond an understanding of computational activities as an individual “thinking” endeavor. The overall aim of this study is to explore how a participatory design approach including traditional and digital resources trigger children’s computational play. By this, our intention is to contribute to the contemporary debate on the increased use of computational thinking related activities in early childhood education and their potentials for play and learning. Framed by a perspective considering traditional and digital resources as access points to play and learning, the empirical study involves 50 children from 2nd grade, aged 8–9 years from two different primary schools in northern Denmark. The outcomes demonstrates that computational play has the potential to reconfigure learning activities by providing new, previously unthinkable, activities that can support children in early childhood education and their development of computational literacy. At the same time, the analyses show that computational play requires new ways to be scaffolded to not counteract children’s independent experimentation, testing, and creativity.

A multi-phase investigation was conducted to question potentials within music therapy of a new electrorganic frame drum musical instrument from Japan titled the ‘aFrame’. Two professional music therapists collaborated in this third phase of testing under the work in progress. One of the two music therapists tested the aFrame within numerous sessions with two profoundly disabled clients across generations i.e., an adolescent male and an adult woman. Observations including video recordings as baseline analysis. A goal of the study was to identify strengths and weaknesses of the new instrument in the field of (re)habilitation, especially across spectrums of those with profound dysfunction, special needs situations, and across ages. A goal of the overall work of some four decades, titled SoundScapes, is to achieve an ultimate compendium of tools for human performance to create specific interactive environments to support therapists, caregivers, and for own self-training through engaged and motivated creativity, self-expression, and play. Such environments as created by the first author have been used in his stage performances and installations (e.g., at Museums of Modern Art). The tools are thus considered transdisciplinarity forming a new holistic approach aligned to his six patents. Results from the investigation question the contextual potential of the aFrame due to a typical lack of motoric control aligned to the fragility and expense of the instrument – challenges were evident for those with diminished or lack of physical limb control. To optimize use, add-on footswitches and pedals are recommended with the aFrame instrument. These give added options including remote switching and an audio streaming interface mixer for optimal Online streaming of instrument (and voice) that would have been especially useful during the Coronavirus pandemic so that the music therapists could have continued their interactions with clients remotely (i.e., beyond video conferencing quality). Alternatives to the aFrame are posit and selected from the new generation of instruments and pedals controlling digital media as presented at the end of the text.

Current society is characterized by rapid development and change, with technology being at the forefront in shaping the future. To accommodate this, it is crucial to equip the next generation with the critical skills and knowledge necessary to navigate in such a world. One way to achieve this is through the introduction and implementation of scaffolded coding activities supported by robots in primary education. In this paper we investigate how coding activities that include educational robots can be used in an educational setting with a class of Danish primary school children, aged 7–8 years old. The study draws from a socio-cultural approach to children's learning and development, elaborating on the concepts of playfulness as a mediated action, the zone of proximal development, and scaffolding. The research questions posed in the study are: (1) How do primary school children adopt didactical instructions in a coding workshop supported by robots? (2) What kind of interactions unfold while children are engaged in coding activities supported by robots? The unit of analysis is children's coding activities during an experimental coding-workshop supported by different robots carried out in a laboratory setting at a Danish university. The robots used in the workshop were Beebot/Bluebot, Dash and Ozobot. The results imply that scaffolding strategies such as task instructions and the design of the learning environment need to be closely connected and carefully considered to engage children in meaningful ways.

The use of robotics technology in school is renowned for providing children with opportunities to interact and collaborate in various school subjects, which raise questions of how to design learning activities that include robot technology in education. In this paper we explore how a designerly approach can foster children’s perspective-taking while creatively collaborating in mixed analogue and digital learning environments including robots, creative material and classical fairytales. Based on a social semiotics analytical framework, the study draws from workshops carried out with third grade classes of Danish school children, aged 9–10 years old. Using video recordings and a thematic analysis, the unit of analysis focuses on the activities with a special interest on children’s interactions with robots, creative materials, classical fairytales and with each other. The results of this study imply that by using a designerly approach with robotics in programming activities, conditions were created for children to engage in interactions and reasoning with each other, where the mixed learning environment reinforced children’s abilities of perspective-taking.

The goal of this paper was to explore the nature of university students’ and company representatives’ knowledge creation when they collaborated in co-design activities. Studies focusing on companies’ collaboration with universities and students primarily centres around how companies contribute to students’ learning of entrepreneurial skills and to the development of higher education curricula and its inclusion of entrepreneurial assets. Thus, there is a lack of understanding what kind of knowledge that students and companies jointly develop in collaborative design practices. The study applied Dewey’s theory on experience highlighting matters of social conditions of experiences as well as reflective thinking. The research was generated by means of qualitative group interviews. The analytical approach was thematic and identified three themes: (1) Genuine collaborative engagement; (2) Challenges in trying new things; and (3) Knowledge creation premises. These themes revealed different kinds of knowledge creation that took place in the co-design activities. For example, how te challenges inherent in the co-design activities encouraged the students to take risks, to work in completely new ways and to try out new ways of arguing for certain choices, which helped them to actively engage in the collaboration as an equal partner. In this way, the study contributes to questions of the kinds of knowledge that students and companies collaboratively create when engaged in co-design activities. It should however be noted that this study is based on a small sample of participants and accordingly more research is needed to validate these conclusions.

The integration of digital technology in teaching activities has shown to be challenging for teachers. To approach this, the article investigated the foundation of teachers' stance about developing their use of digital technology in teaching. The study draws on an action research approach, involving 35 teachers (K-2) in workshops and interaction-based facilitation. Based on content analysis, we identified how the teachers reasoned about their agency or lack of it, and children's knowledge and experiences, as well as guardians' viewpoints. The result is presented in four themes: Exchanging experiences across different school settings, Acknowledging accessibility to digital tools, Teachers' considerations about children's influence, and Teachers' considerations about guardians' influence. The study supports the theoretical framework of funds of knowledge; however, the teachers need to move from 'talking the talk' to 'walking the walk'. They wish to give space for children's experiences, but do not reveal any tools to do so. Hence, the children's home domain is lacking in teachers' discussions and their stance in including children's interests is shadowed by their own needs. The analysis shows that the local context is a foundational support and constitutes a framework for the teachers to step by step becoming digitally competent and, hence, being able to a greater extent give space for children's funds of knowledge – i.e. moving from talk to implementation. The study contributes to a local perspective to the debate on how to integrate digital technology in classrooms and how teachers can be empowered to gradually build digital agency.

The presence of digital technologies in classroom settings is relentlessly getting stronger and has shown to have powerful playful qualities. In recent years, digital game-based learning (DGBL) has been introduced in schools. In this paper we explore game-based design activities to unfold playful and creative actions and interactions among children. The study is based on two cases, where game design activities were applied in both analogue and digital form. The unit of analysis is game design activities. The research questions posed in this study are: (1) What activities develop when school children design games in two similarly framed workshop cases, where one included analogue material and the other a combination of analogue and digital material?, and (2) How do children interact in a learning environment framed by purely analogue-based material as opposed to a learning environment framed by a combination of analogue and digital material? A thematic analysis identified three themes: exploratory activities; combinational activities; and transformative activities. These themes suggest that the game design workshop sessions including only analogue material facilitated playfulness promoting creative actions in children’s production of different ideational considerations. In a mixed activity combining analogue and digital material, creativity in the form of fluency was represented by the way the children produced their ideas, which opened up for playfulness, e.g. in the form of humour. The analysis showed that a procedural activity design including pre-designed theme framing children’s constructions facilitated an open-ended activity.

The use of digital technology in school settings is increasing every year, where one aspect of digital technology is robotics in education. In relation to that and of uttermost importance is the issue of how to design teaching and learning activities that includes robot technology in education. In this paper we investigate how open-ended designs can allow children to playfully explore robotics in educational settings, drawing from workshops carried out with three third grade classes of Danish school children, aged 9–10 years old, that interact with robotics in a cross-case study. By the use of video recordings, the unit of analysis focuses on the activities with a special interest on children's interactions with the robots and with each other. The research questions posed in the study are: (1) What happens when school children use robotics designed for open-ended interactions? And (2) In what ways do children's playful experiences unfold while engaged with robotics? The study applies a qualitative approach and the theoretical framework used describes open-ended designs as resources to develop playful experiences. In doing so, Vygotsky's theory on mediation, Hutt's studies into children's play with novel objects, and Bird and Edwards' digital play framework are used as an analytical framework. The results of this study imply that by using an open-ended design in the teaching activity with the robot, which included an exploratory and problem-solving approach, conditions were created for playful and collaborative learning.

Computational thinking (CT) has become central to introducing digital artefacts for educational use. However, little is known about implementing CT in the mathematical school curriculum, and many educational staff members have not been introduced to CT in their initial training. Introducing CT in an educational setting calls for interventions that allow educational staff to adopt new concepts and to explore ways of implementing CT and digital artefacts to support students’ computational and mathematical understanding. This article focuses on formative interventions applied in the form of Change Laboratory to implement digital artefacts with a particular interest with regard to educational staff’s expansive learning processes. To foster such expansive learning processes, double stimulation methods were introduced to enable educational staff to analyse and reflect on their work practices collectively. The research was conducted as an ethnographic intervention study in a primary school in Denmark. It began in 2019 and was completed in 2021. Participants were primary school students followed from 2nd grade to 3rd, alongside their math teacher and social educator. The data consisted of five Change Laboratory sessions fully transcribed from video recordings, including classroom activities between sessions. Through a Cultural Historical Activity Theory lens, the article concludes that by mapping educational staff’s expansive learning actions, it is possible to identify how the participants collectively change their activities or not. Thus, analysing which phase of double stimulation that triggers a specific learning action provides knowledge about integrating CT and digital artefacts to support mathematical understanding.

Aligned with the digital development in society, the use of digital game-based learning (DGBL) as a pedagogical enhancement has increased markedly in schools recently. However, due to various reasons, teachers are not always as enthusiastic to adopt the new technology in their classroom. In this paper we apply Engeströms activity system as an analytical approach to understand teachers’ considerations of opportunities, resistance or barriers and pedagogical functions of digital game-based learning as a teaching method. As related research has shown, there is a lack of research answering the question of how DGBL could be designed to structure and facilitate learning as well as of considering the classroom settings and barriers of implementing DGBL. We attempt to contribute to these problems by applying the activity system framework in the context of digital game-based learning (DGBL), in particular the interplay between resistance as an obstruction or opportunity and design of teaching activities by means of digital games. The research questions posed in the study are: 1) How do teachers evaluate the designs of digital games in relation to how they support or hinder learning? and 2) What kind of constraints do teachers identify while translating educational games? The study applies a qualitative approach and includes cases of two separate workshops with a total of twelve participating teachers and one toy- and game designer. The workshops were designed to provide a framework for preschool- and primary school teachers to evaluate challenges and potentials of DGBL. Findings show, among other things, that when a game does not offer exploration or encourage curiosity, a game’s design becomes simplistic and children lose their interest, revealing a gap between game mechanics and a game’s pedagogical relevance and usefulness. Furthermore, by starting to question the relevance of games, the teachers were able to appropriate digital educational games while assessing the game’s value in relation to a subject-specific area.

Med udgangspunkt i det stigende behov for IT-kompetencer er de humanistiske uni­versitetsuddannelser begyndt at indføre kurser, der skal styrke de studerendes forståelse for informatik. Denne artikel undersøger, hvordan studerende på en masteruddannelse i IT på et humanistisk fakultet udvikler kompetencer i programmering og computationel tankegang. De studerende havde alle et obligatorisk kursus i Programmering og Proto­typing, og nogle af dem havde valgfag i Computational Thinking. Data består af obser­vationer fra kurserne, vurdering af de studerendes opgaver og fire fokusgruppe­interviews. (De studerende var delt i to grupper – en med Computational Thinking og den anden med kun Programmering og Prototyping.) Vi afholdt interviews før og efter kurserne for begge grupper for at afdække, hvordan elevernes synspunkter havde ændret sig. Begge grupper af studerende ser sig selv i koordinerende roller, hvor de samarbejder med programmører og andre softwareudviklere. De studerende der valgte valgfaget i Computational Thinking, viste et rigere ordforråd, når de beskrev computationel tanke­gangs begreber, praksisser og perspektiver. Evnen til at reflektere over de praktiske opgaver, herunder begreber, praksisser og perspektiver, synes essentiel for de studerendes fremtidige karriere, som humanister, der arbejder med teknologi. Resul­taterne viser, hvordan studerende kan udvikle deres forståelse af computationel tanke­gang med stilladsering mod computational empowerment. I processen så vi, hvordan studerende opnår en forståelse af computationel tankegang gennem arbejde med kon­cepter og praksisser, og hvor der opstod perspektiver ved at kombinere computationel tankegang med information og praksis fra andre discipliner.