The Academy of Finland Make-A-Difference project (PI Netta Iivari) aimed to understand and facilitate the emergence of critical designer and maker identities among children. The project started from a collaboration with the city of Oulu, whose representatives suggested exploring ways to use critical design and making to help children address school bullying. Bullying prevention is a key priority for Oulu, with the city actively developing anti-bullying and anti-harassment strategies for local schools, along with initiatives focused on building children’s safety skills. Accepting this challenge, the project group embarked on projects with three local schools, working with six classes of students aged 7 to 15. Altogether the research reached over 100 children in the area.

During the project, my duties included e.g. tasks related to preparing the workshop materials, planning and executing data collection, analysing data, and writing scientific publications. An example workshop series where based on structure discussed with the working group I took the lead in designing the activities, is as follows:

• In the sensitising phase, the youth filled out starting surveys exploring their backgrounds and assumptions concerning digital technology and digital fabrication. They sensitized with the topic of bullying for example through anonymous online padlets, I asked them to post thoughts for everyone to see concerning issues like how bullying manifests itself in school, why someone bullies or is bullied, how bullying should be addressed, and who should address it.
• The students began the design and prototyping phase by envisioning alternative futures, drawing inspiration from existing anti-bullying apps, and were encouraged to critically assess these designs. Working independently, I asked them to sketch their own anti-bullying app ideas on paper, focusing on how these could contribute to a bullying-free society, and then in groups, to discuss and refine their concepts. To foster creative thinking, students were asked to imagine possibilities as far-reaching as 100 years into the future, emphasizing that everyone’s voice should be heard. During the design and prototyping phases, the groups created paper prototypes with details on the app’s purpose, target users, and key features, with each member illustrating a specific function. They also learned basic coding with the Tynker app, using tablet computers to add interactive features like responsive buttons to their prototypes.
• In the advocacy phase I introduced the youth to the municipality’s public FabLab, where they engaged with digital fabrication tools and learned about various forms of activism. They were tasked to ideate an activism campaign to either promote their anti-bullying app concepts or raise broader awareness on the issue at their school. Each group filled out a campaign planning form, defining a key message they wanted peers and teachers to hear, selected an impactful media for their message (like posters, signs, videos, or art pieces), and justified their choices. They finalized these artifacts using digital fabrication, combining creativity with practical activism in a timely response to the issue of bullying.

In addition to carrying out research and workshops in the project, in this project I have been involved in guiding student groups from University of Oulu, who have prototyped an anti-bullying app based on the children’s ideas, and then carried out user research with them to gather feedback, and refine the concept further.

Invited talks

• Hartikainen, H.. 2.8.2023. University of Florida. Invited talk: “Methods and experiences of Design activism projects with Children and youth”. Guest lecture at the Department of Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE).
• Hartikainen, H. 21.6.2023. Texas AM. Invited talk: “Design activism with Children and youth: Methods and Experiences”. Guest lecture at the Institute of Technology Infused Learning.
• Hartikainen, H. 2.3.2023. University College London. Invited talk: “Digital fabrication and making as a tool for activism and empowerment”. Intellectual life -Seminar at the UCL Knowledge lab.

Related publications

1. Iivari, N., Ventä-Olkkonen, L., Lehto, E., Holappa, J. and Hartikainen, H. 2024. How to combine criticality with reflection? Scaffolding children’s critical reflection in the case of anti-bullying interventions. In Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (NordiCHI 2024). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 21, 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1145/3679318.3685354
2. Sharma, S., Howell, N., Ventä-Olkkonen, L., Iivari, N., Eden, G., Hartikainen, H., Kinnula, M., Durall, E., Nitsche, M., Okkonen,J., Pait, S., Rubegni, E., Sluis-Thiescheffer, W., van der Velden, L., and Varanasi, U. S. 2024. Promoting Criticality with Design Futuring with Young Children. In Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (NordiCHI 2024). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 2, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1145/3679318.3685335
3. Iivari, N., Ventä-Olkkonen, L., Hartikainen, H., and Sharma, S. 2024. Participatory design that matters – with activism education of children. In Proceedings of the Participatory Design Conference 2024: Full Papers – Volume 1 (PDC ’24), Vol. 1. Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 221–233. https://doi.org/10.1145/3666094.3666108
4. Ventä-Olkkonen, L., Iivari, N., Hartikainen, H., Sharma, S., Lehto, E., Holappa, J., Molin-Juustila, T. 2024. “I could become a white hat hacker” or “At least I am creative”: Children’s technology protagonist identities and their evolution during a critical design and making project. International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction, Volume 41, 2024. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijcci.2024.100667.
5. Iivari, N., Ventä-Olkkonen, L., Sharma, S., Hartikainen, H., Holappa, J., Lehto, E. 2024. Fostering children’s critical literacy in computing education. In Proceedings of the 2024 Symposium on Learning, Design and Technology (LDT ’24). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 57–65. https://doi.org/10.1145/3663433.3663462
6. Iivari, N., Iversen, O.S., Smith, R.S., Schaper, M.-M., Ventä-Olkkonen, L., Hartikainen, H., Sharma, S., Kinnula, M., Lehto, E., Holappa, J., Molin-Juustila, T. 2024. Transformative agency – the next step towards children’s computational empowerment. In Proceedings of the 23rd Annual ACM Interaction Design and Children Conference (IDC ’24). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 322–337. https://doi.org/10.1145/3628516.3655806
7. Gazulla, E. D., Hirvonen, N., Sharma, S., Hartikainen, H., Jylhä, V., Iivari, N., Kinnula, M. & Baizhanova, A. (2024). Youth perspectives on technology ethics: analysis of teens’ ethical reflections on AI in learning activities. Behaviour & Information Technology, 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1080/0144929X.2024.2350666
8. Iivari, N., Hartikainen, H., Ventä-Olkkonen, L., Sharma, S., Lehto, E., and Holappa, J. 2024. Exploring digital futures with children – Implications for a future-oriented IS research. ECIS 2024 Proceedings. 5. https://aisel.aisnet.org/ecis2024/track25_futures/track25_futures/5
9. Iivari, N., Sharma, S., Durall Gazulla, E., Kinnula, M., Hartikainen, H., Ventä-Olkkonen, L., Lehto, E. (2024). HCI design for Children. In Stephanides, C., & Salvendy, G. (Ed.), Designing for Usability, Inclusion and sustainability in Human-Computer Interaction (Chapter 11). Boca Raton: CRC Press. https://doi.org/10.1201/9781003495147
10. Iivari, N., Ventä-Olkkonen, L., Hartikainen, H., Sharma, S., Lehto, E., Holappa, J. (2023). Empowering Children for Social Justice–Design Research in the Context of Children’s Computing Education. In: Jones, M.R., Mukherjee, A.S., Thapa, D., Zheng, Y. (eds) After Latour: Globalisation, Inequity and Climate Change. IFIPJWC 2023. IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology, vol 696. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-50154-8_15
11. Iivari, N., Ventä-Olkkonen, L., Hartikainen, H., Sharma, S., Lehto, E., Holappa, J., &Molin-Juustila, T. 2023. Computational empowerment of children: Design research on empowering and impactful designs by children. International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction, Volume 37, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijcci.2023.100600
12. Hartikainen, H., Ventä-Olkkonen, L., Iivari, N., Sharma, S., Lehto, E., Molin-Juustila, T., Holappa, J. 2023. We learned we can do something to reduce bullying: Children designing anti-bullying mobile apps to empower their peers. Front. Educ. 8, (March 2023), 1112835. DOI:https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2023.1112835
13. Sharma, S., Iivari, N., Ventä-Olkkonen, L., Hartikainen, H., and Kinnula, M. 2023. Inclusive Child-centered AI: Employing design futuring for Inclusive design of inclusive AI by and with children in Finland and India. In CHI 2023 Workshop on Child-centred AI Design: Definition, Operation and Considerations, April 23, 2023, Hamburg, Germany. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 5pages. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2304.08041
14. Hartikainen, H. Ventä-Olkkonen, L., Cortés, M., Sanchez Milara, I., Sharma, S., Norouzi, B., Kinnula, M. (2022). A Series of Fortunate Accidents: Lessons learned When Things Go Sideways In Making Projects with Children. In 6th Fablearn Europe / MakeEd Conference 2022 (FabLearn Europe / MakeEd 2022), May 30-31, 2022. Copenhagen, Denmark. ACM, New York, NY. 6 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3535227.3535247
15. Ventä-Olkkonen, L., Iivari, N., Sharma, S., Juustila-Cevirel, N., Molin-Juustila, T., Kinnunen, E., Holappa, J., Hartikainen, H. 2022. All the World is our Stage: Empowering Children to Tackle Bullying through Theatre of the Oppressed in Critical Design and Making. In Nordic Human-Computer Interaction Conference (NordiCHI ’22). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 25, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1145/3546155.3546705
16. Sharma, S., Kinnula, M., Iivari, N. Ventä-Olkkonen, L., Hartikainen, H., Durall, E., Molin-Juustila, T., Okkonen, J., Kotilainen, S., Sawhney, N., Eden, G. & Monga, C. (2022). Age Against the Machine: A Call for Designing Ethical AI for and with Children. In Adjunct Proceedings of the 2022 Nordic Human-Computer Interaction Conference (NordiCHI Adjunct ’22), October 8–12, 2022, Aarhus, Denmark. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 9 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3547522.354770
17. Sharma, S., Ventä-Olkkonen, L., Iivari, N., Molin-Juustila, T., Hartikainen, H., Holappa, J., Kinnunen, E. (2022). Madness to the methods: Speculating approaches to study and nurture children’s designer and Maker identities. In 6th FabLearn Europe / MakeEd Conference 2022 (FabLearn Europe / MakeEd 2022), May 30-31, 2022, Copenhagen, Denmark. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 13 Pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3535227.3535233
18. Sharma, S., Hartikainen, H., Ventä-Olkkonen, L., Iivari, N., Eden,G., Kinnunen, E., Holappa, J., Kinnula, M., Molin-Juustila, T., Okkonen, J., Kotilainen, S., Iversen, O.S, Fatás, R.A. (2022). In Pursuit of Inclusive and Diverse Digital Futures: Exploring the Potential of Design Fiction in Education of Children. Interaction Design and Architecure(s), N. 51, Winter 2021-22. pp. 219 – 248. https://doi.org/10.55612/s-5002-051-010