Integrating Digital Technologies in Teaching and Learning Through Participation: Case Studies from the Xlab – Design, Learning, Innovation Laboratory

Technology-rich creative and collaborative learning environments are believed to offer powerful settings for children to become acquainted with computational concepts through playful ways of learning. This chapter draws on a body of empirical research grounded in a Living Lab environment at Aalborg University in Denmark (Xlab – Design, Learning, Innovation), which functions as an educational mediator of playful workshops offering hands-on experience of technologies and creative approaches to experiment- and explorative-oriented activities, where children and teachers can play to learn. The chapter offers insights into understanding the tensions and potentials of such technology-rich environments for participatory-driven creative learning, providing information on practice-related possibilities for and constraints to implementing technology-rich educational designs in early years education.