People deal with problems every day, ranging from the banal to the piquant. On many occasions solutions to such problems occur in a moment of sudden comprehension called insight. Insight is a phenomenon that is often associated with high levels of intelligence and creativity and plays an important role in successful problem-solving. Due to its unpredictable occurrence, it has proven challenging to investigate insight systematically. This research explores a novel way to facilitate insight in creative problem-solving by activating processes that have been shown to be related to insight. Building on current research in Cognitive Neuroscience, the goal is to develop a creativity priming tool that would enable routine episodic boosts in creativity. For the on-going study, a computer interface is used to present a series of bespoke tasks created to modulate insight. The study is designed to help us understand better the dynamics of insight-based creative problem solving.

Although much has been written about the benefits of situated learning, its technology implementations have remained bounded in space and time in the form of scheduled sessions or designated spaces. Relatively little research has investigated how learning can be situated in the messy world outside of formal learning contexts. We propose that wearables like smartwatches, because of their intrinsic attributes such as persistence and ease-of-access, present an apt opportunity to explore how such 'messy' situated learning can happen. This paper investigates the notion of context in a 3-week study whereby 18 elementary school students used a custom smartwatch app called ScienceStories to record reflections related to specific science topics throughout the course of their everyday lives.

With increasing focus on integrating 3D printing in educational settings, more emphasis needs to be placed on how to introduce young students to the complexities of the 3D printing process. Inspired by the patrons of 3D printer services, we engage children in a simplified 3D printing process. We conducted a study with two 3rd grade public school science classes over 4 days, where students were tasked to print 3D designs they find online for use in a class presentation. Initial findings identify challenges within this process, and show indications of emerging interest towards 3D printing.

Relatively little research exists on the use of smartwatches to support learning. This paper presents an approach for commodity smartwatches as a tool for situated reflection in elementary school science. The approach was embodied in a smartwatch app called ScienceStories that allows students to voice record reflections about science concepts anytime, anywhere. We conducted a study with 18 fifth-grade children to investigate first, the effects of ScienceStories on students' science self-efficacy, and second the effects of different motivational structures (gamification, narrative-based, hybrid) designed into the smartwatch app on students' quality and quantity of use. Quantitative results showed ScienceStories increased science self-efficacy especially with a motivational structure. The gamified version had the highest quantity of use, while narrative performance performed worst. Qualitative findings described how students' recordings related to science topics and were contextualized. We discuss how our findings contribute to understanding of how to design smartwatch apps for educational purposes.

This paper extends the concept of digital literacy and applies it to Making. Through case descriptions, we contribute an understanding of how children can become or fail to become individuals literate in Making within a formal learning context. Our analysis draws from video recordings and other data sources of two 4th grade classrooms in which the students, who had already participated in 1.5 years of more structured 'makified activities', engaged in an open-ended, exploration-based, and playful task that was more in line with the spirit of Making. Student teams were classified as 'high in Making literacy' and 'low in Making literacy', revealing how Making literacy was expressed at the level of skills, mental models, and practices in various ways for different students. Our qualitative analysis demonstrates what burgeoning Making literacy may mean in a public elementary school classroom, paving the way for a vision of a time when Making becomes generalized practice.