Makerspaces as tertiary artifacts? The meaning of material artifacts in students’ social interaction during technology-rich creative learning

This chapter contributes to research knowledge on the meaning of material artifacts in students’ social interactions in technology-rich, creative educational spaces. In specific, drawing on sociocultural theorizing (Grossen, 2010; Vygotsky, 1986, 1997) and Wartofsky’s (1979) schema of mediating artifacts, we investigated the meaning of material artifacts in students’ social interactions during their engagement in hands-on creative science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM) design and making activities in a school’s makerspace. The chapter illuminates students artifactmediating interactions in the makerspace and considers how these create opportunities and tensions for students’ creative and transformative learning actions. In doing so, it describes the transitional, progressive, and also tension-laden embodiments of material artifacts in students’ social interactions that account for routine, procedural, and/or imaginative future-oriented practices.