Crystalising Maker Moments: Postdigital Storying Across Contexts

Abstract

This paper presents a theoretical conceptualisation of ‘postdigital storying’ as an emergent pedagogical process of engaging in meaning-making and literacies in educational contexts. In order to highlight the nuanced learning and communication involved in this approach, we examine and discuss three empirical examples of children and teachers working together in classroom makerspaces, drawn from data we gathered during a year-long research project undertaken by the Maker{Futures} team based at the University of Sheffield. Through discussion of these ‘moments of making’, we develop the metaphor of a crystal to highlight how the multifaceted nature of postdigital storying refracts, reflects or absorbs the light of the digital in myriad ways according to the configurations and qualities of the spatial, temporal, material and social factors. We argue that it is important to ‘crystalise’ moments of making in this way, by applying postdigital logic, in order that researchers, policy makers and educators may better understand the ways that learning is shaped and facilitated in makerspaces across contexts.