This paper investigates dialogic learning as a pedagogical lens for designing tools that support critical data literacy (CDL) in K-12 education. We present a research-through-design (RtD) project conducted with three teachers to operationalize dialogic learning in design. The resulting prototype, Datafy, enables students to produce and analyze personally meaningful music data and co-create playlists, fostering critical reflection and dialogue around data practices. Through a classroom observation with 40 sixth-grade students, we show how the tool shaped learners’ collaborative exploration and construction of knowledge about data. We contribute a theoretical framework and an empirical case study of embedding dialogic learning in the design of CDL technologies that promote dialogue and critical engagement with data. We recommend: (1) anchoring co-design with teachers in learning activities and learning goals, (2) designing diverse opportunities for dialogue about critical data literacy, and (3) treating dialogue linked to learning goals as design evidence for tool evaluation.

This paper presents a framework of ethical encounters in design practice, grounded in 98 accounts of practitioners’ experiences with ethics in their work. While HCI and design scholarship have produced a growing body of empirical work on design ethics, less attention has been given to concept-building informed by practice. Building on practice-oriented design ethics research in HCI, we define ethical encounters as practitioner-identified situations that expose tensions and value-laden decisions, emerging from the situated realities of day-to-day design work. Our analysis reveals three key dimensions of these encounters: the perceived issues, the actions taken to navigate them, and the new capacities emerging through them. Our analysis also considers how these dimensions play out differently across project phases. The framework offers a shared language and practical guidance for understanding and engaging with ethical challenges, and it contributes by framing ethical encounters as generative for relationships, ideas, and directions in HCI and design practice.

As emerging technologies continue to shape society, a growing body of work is engaging with design ethics as it unfolds in practice to better capture the complexities of ethical considerations embedded in day-to-day work. Positioned within the broader “turn to practice” in HCI, this paper brings together this body of work as an emerging research area, characterizing its motivations, conceptual positionings, methodologies, and contributions through a review conducted across a range of design disciplines and academic databases. The findings reveal a shift away from static and abstract ethical frameworks toward an understanding of ethics as an evolving, situated, and inherent aspect of design activities, one that can be cultivated and fostered collaboratively. We propose six future directions to establish common research priorities and stimulate the area’s growth. While the paper promotes cross-disciplinary dialogue, we argue that HCI research, given its cumulative experience with practice-oriented research, is well-equipped to guide this emerging research area on design ethics.

Emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and mixed reality (MR) increasingly pervade the world of children, from their schoolwork to leisure activities and social relationships. This has led to Child Computer Interaction (CCI) research supporting children's critical understanding of digital technologies and their ability to influence the design of future digital technologies. Despite these efforts, there are several limitations and challenges in terms of Computational Empowerment (CE) of children. This workshop unites such research 1) to create a shared manifesto for CE of children and 2) to jointly develop a research ‘roadmap’ to push the boundaries of CE of children.

We explore Transformative Agency (TA) as a theoretical approach for advancing the Protagonist Perspective in Child-Computer Interaction (CCI) research.The Protagonist Perspective is one among several recent contributions that engage with the issue of children's empowerment and agency in relation to digital technology.Yet, the Protagonist Perspective has mostly focused on the overarching agenda, practical initiatives, and examples, with less attention paid to the underlying theoretical grounding.Based on a scoping review, we unfold how TA theoretical insights can support and expand the Protagonist Perspective.Specifically, our findings point to the concept of 'double stimulation', bridging the Protagonist Perspective to learning and building robust outcome measures as potential theoretical contributions of TA.This paper contributes to CCI in two ways: it theoretically advances the role of children as protagonists, and more broadly, it answers the call for theoretical development in CCI.

Advances in artificial intelligence present a need for fostering AI literacy in workplaces. While there is a lack of research on how this can be achieved, there are documented successful approaches in child-computer interaction (CCI), albeit aimed at K-12 education. We present an in-vivo explorative case study of how CCI approaches can be adopted for adult professionals via a full-day workshop developed in collaboration with a trade union to upskill workers. Analyzing data from pre- and post-surveys, a follow-up survey, and materials produced by participants (n=53), we demonstrate how this increased participants’ knowledge of AI while their self-efficacy and empowerment did not improve. This is similar to findings from K-12 education, pointing to self-efficacy and empowerment as major challenges for AI literacy across sectors. We discuss the role of ambassadorships and professional organizations in addressing these issues, and indicate research directions for the CHI community.

Based on a systematic review we explore how empowerment has been articulated in 188 papers in Child-Computer Interaction (CCI) literature since 2003. Using an existing framework outlining functional, educational, democratic, mainstream, and critical empowerment, our analysis shows that while empowerment is rarely defined in CCI papers, a wide range of different articulations coexists. We explore the prevalence of different articulations in the literature and how this has shifted over time. We show that although empowerment has been part of the CCI discourse since the early days, a shift can be noticed in terms of how empowerment is articulated from an emphasis on empowerment in its functional meaning towards a more even distribution and the advent of critical articulations of empowerment. We conclude the paper by looking ahead into a new decade of CCI research and posing three questions to assist CCI researchers in more clearly articulating the nature and understanding of empowerment.

Recent years have seen growing interest in 'ethics' within the Child-Computer Interaction (CCI) community. In this paper, we take stock of 18 years of CCI research by conducting a systematic literature study exploring how and to what extent ethics has been dealt with in the community's leading venues: the Interaction Design and Children (IDC) conference and the International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction (CCI). Searching all papers in the IDC conference proceedings and IJCCI, 157 papers were found that use the word stem 'ethic*'. Based on our analysis of these papers, our study demonstrates that while ethics is frequently mentioned, the literature remains underdeveloped in a number of areas including definition and theoretical basis, the reporting of formal ethical approval procedures, and the extent to which design and participation ethics is dealt with. Based on our study we provide five avenues of future research in the interests of developing a more explicit discourse on ethics in CCI.

We suggest that a commitment to political participatory design defines a new role for children in participatory practices--the role of protagonist. The objective here transcends the goal of giving children a voice in design, and addresses more broadly how children can be empowered to shape technological development and critically reflect on the role of technology in their practices. This re-accentuation of political participatory design to formulate the protagonist role is important, because it deepens our understanding of how children may be empowered through design. It is also timely in view of current societal challenges pertaining to training children in twenty-first century skills. Based on a case study, we illustrate how the protagonist role, based on political participatory design, can change the objective, process, and outcome measures of the design process.

Today, most design projects are infrastructuring projects, because they build on technologies, competencies and practices that already exist. While infrastructuring was originally seen as being full of conflicts and contradictions with what is already present, we find that many contemporary reports seem to mainly address participatory infrastructuring as horizontal co-design and local, mutual learning processes in which people attempt to make the most out of available technology. In this paper we expand our view of design activities in three dimensions: First, how participatory processes play out vertically in different political and practical arenas; second, on the back stage of design, the messy activities that occur before, between and after the participatory workshops. And third, on their reach; how they tie into existing networks across organizations, and how agency and initiatives become dispersed within these networks. To illustrate and discuss the process of participatory infrastructuring we use a case study from an educational context. This particular project contains a diverse set of design activities at many organizational levels revolving around technology, decision-making, competence-building, commitment and policy-making. The project highlights these complexities, and our discussions lead to a vocabulary for participatory infrastructuring that focuses on knotworking, rather than structure, and on both horizontal and vertical reach and sustainability. This vocabulary is grounded in the meeting of the literature on infrastructuring, participatory design, and activity theory, and leads to a revised understanding of, for example, learning and conflicts in participatory infrastructuring.

We present the notion of "bridging concepts" as a particular form of intermediary knowledge in HCI research, residing between theory and practice. We argue that bridging concepts address the challenge of facilitating exchange between theory and practice in HCI, and we compare it to other intermediary forms of knowledge such as strong concepts and conceptual constructs. We propose that bridging concepts have three defining constituents: a theoretical foundation, a set of design articulations and a range of exemplars that demonstrate the scope and potential of their application. These constituents specify how bridging concepts, as a form of knowledge, are accountable to both theory and practice. We present an analysis of the concept of "peepholes" as an example of a bridging concept aimed at spurring user curiosity and engagement.

In this paper a particular design method is propagated as a supplement to existing descriptive approaches to current practice studies especially suitable for gathering requirements for the design of children's technology. The Mission from Mars method was applied during the design of an electronic school bag (eBag). The three-hour collaborative session provides a first-hand insight into children's practice in a fun and intriguing way. The method is proposed as a supplement to existing descriptive design methods for interaction design and children.

This paper describes the eBag infrastructure, which is a generic infrastructure inspired from work with school children who could benefit from a electronic schoolbag for collaborative handling of their digital material. The eBag infrastructure is utilizing the Context-aware HyCon framework and collaborative web services based on WebDAV. A ubiquitous login and logout mechanism has been built based on BlueTooth sensor networks. The eBag infrastructure has been tried out in field tests with school kids. In this paper we discuss experiences and design issues for ubiquitous Web integration in interactive school environments with multiple interactive whiteboards and workstations. This includes proposals for specialized and adaptive XLink structures for organizing school materials as well as issues in login/logout based on proximity of different display surfaces.