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This study examined the impact of using a multiliteracies pedagogy and the social networking site (SNS), Ning, to help 6th grade English language learners (ELLs) develop their writer identities, with the purpose of increasing the students’ confidence, sense of self, and language and literacy skills. To this end, we were interested in whether and how the development of a writer identity and an increase in social presence on the Ning would translate into face-to-face connections in the physical classroom and an induction into the academic learning community – a space in which the students may have previously felt intimidated. In doing this, we employed a qualitative case study analysis to investigate the experiences of two ELLs at an elementary school in Toronto, Canada. Our study found that incorporating multimodal tools and an SNS allowed the students to more freely express themselves; to share their work and their personalities with peers, which made the writing assignments more meaningful and engaging; and provided a platform for students to negotiate their values and beliefs. Ultimately, the increased interactions with peers online and the development of this new English-language literate identity translated into the development of students’ individual voices, a sense of ownership of English, and an increased social presence in the classroom.

Despite the growing popularity of makerspaces in education, we currently have little understanding of the conditions and processes that promote students' design thinking and knowledge creation in these digitally-enriched learning environments. To address these research gaps in current research knowledge, we draw on two ethnographic case studies on students' maker activities situated in Canada and Finland. In the Canadian study, the focus is directed to analysing students' design actions carried out in a five day long "microcycle" of learning by individual students in a Maker Lab. In the Finnish study, attention is directed to investigating forms of students' collective knowledge creation during an elective course in a makerspace, The Fuse Studio. This paper shows that design thinking is a potentially fruitful way to build students' global competencies and to approach knowledge creation in a makerspace environment as students engage in interest-driven making, requiring various levels of instructor/peer support, from independent making to guided inquiry.

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