The aim of this article is to address how online tools and digital technologies can influence data collection opportunities. We are still at the early stages of piecing together a more holistic picture of the role of digital media in young people's everyday lives, especially regarding digital gaming among younger children. Digital technologies have enabled both new ways of gaming together and the possibility of capturing children's everyday knowledge-making dialogues in a non-institutionalized digital environment. In this case study, the online tool FRAPS^®, which enables players to record their play sessions while gaming was used to address data collection opportunities. By using this tool, the lifeworlds of children could be displayed through their knowledge-making dialogues, which also captured the resources the children use when they collaboratively played Minecraft. The analysis draws on peer learning and on Vygotsky's notions of object-regulation, other-regulation and self-regulation. The results show that language was a resource when the children collaboratively played, Minecraft^® online, as enabling other-regulation. Other resources of importance connected to language use were digital tools and artefacts, such as computers, headsets, Skype and smartphones, object-regulation. The children's previous knowledge and experiences from their ordinary lifeworld used in the game also became resources. The resources can also be built into the game and regarded as affordances. The children already know how many of these affordances are used, self-regulation, and external assistance did not seem necessary.

The aim of this study is to gain knowledge about children's participation in digital communities and to develop a model that can be used as a tool for practitioners. The research question guiding the study is: What kind of participation emerges from children's shared experiences when engaging in digital communities? Lave and Wenger's theory about communities of practice, and their notion of legitimate peripheral participation, are used. The data consist of nine individual interviews with children. Through nexus analysis, four different kinds of participation are identified: friendship-driven, interest-driven, knowledge-driven and performance-driven. The study generates an empirical model that can be used for interpreting and understanding children's participation. The main findings are significant aspects of participation, linked to friendship, the connection between digital cultures, learning, literacy, identity and performativity, democratic implications and practices in constant change.

The present study aimed to explore ‘what’s happening’ and ‘what’s possible’, when young pupils jointly create multimodal texts in small groups. This was achieved by studying the process when pupils in a grade 2 classroom (i) created handwritten fairy tales, (ii) drew images, and then, (iii) transformed them into animated multimodal texts using a digital application during three small-group activities. Data comprises video recordings, pupils’ multimodal texts (writing and drawings), teaching materials, and lesson plans. This qualitative case study focuses on one group of three pupils aged 8–9. The study is theoretically grounded in the designs for learning perspective, with the Learning Design Sequence Model utilized as an analytical tool. The teacher’s design for learning—including her planned activities and the resources made available to the pupils—appeared to have a major impact on what happens and what becomes possible for the pupils in their design for learning. The teacher’s design also influenced what competencies the pupils could (and chose) to draw upon in the different activities. An important result was that the pupils positioned themselves and each other in quite different ways during the small-group activities, which partly could be explained by the different affordances of the resources provided, as well as the teacher’s design. The detailed descriptions of how the pupils’ positioning changed in relation to the teacher’s design for learning and the available resources add valuable knowledge to the field of educational research.

Previous research shows that pupils’ participation in educational activities increases when they are allowed to use several forms of expression. Furthermore, digital media have become increasingly prominent as “carriers” of meaning in chemistry education. Based on that, this paper aims to explore ‘what is happening’ and ‘what is possible’ when six-year-old pupils participate in multimodally designed learning activities and create digital animations of water molecules and phase changes of water. This study is qualitative and draws on the frameworks of social semiotics and Designs for Learning, DfL, where teaching and learning are seen as a multimodal design. The Learning Design Sequence model, developed within DfL is used as a basis for the lesson design and as an analytical tool. The analyzed data were generated by filming when pupils participated in multimodal learning activities, created digital animations, and participated in meta-reflective discussions regarding their digital animations. The main findings are that multimodally designed lessons can increase pupils’ meaning making in chemistry, that the creation of digital animations may both increase pupils’ participation and support their meaning making, and that meta-reflection of pupils’ representations is an important part of the lesson design.

The present study aimed to investigate and problematize an attractive school-age educare (SAEC) from the children’s perspectives. Which different aspects of quality appear in the children’s narratives about the SAEC activities? This was achieved by listening to children’s narratives and their voices. Forty-three children aged 6 to 10 participated in group conversations with the staff in their SAEC center. The study is theoretically based on a childhood sociological lens where children are recognized as active participants and agents for change and therefore important to listen to. The results show that an attractive School-Age Educare requires committed staff who inspire new discoveries, its own identity-specific premises with appropriate materials, the provision of planned and guided activities, the offering of unexpected and non-routine activities, and space for children’s agency to influence and to choose and to direct one’s own time. It is shown that free choices can both expand and limit children’s agency. In addition, the study illustrates how conversations with children can form a basic method for both developing quality and making the contextual factors for children’s agency visible.