Technology as Social-Material Mediator: From Primary to Secondary Creativity and Beyond

How might technology mediate the transition from primary creative expression to secondary creative contributions? In this paper, we address this question by expanding upon recent conceptualizations of primary and secondary creativity (Runco & Beghetto, 2019) and offer a new way to understand how technology can support creative learning and creative expression. We open by providing a conceptual overview of how technology can serve as a mediator between primary and secondary creativity. We then provide a concrete example of how material artifacts of students’ creative expression (primary creativity) were digitized into artifacts, and in turn, transformed again into material creative contributions in the form of narrative volumes (secondary creativity). We also discuss how technology can be used to mediate continuous creative contributions beyond primary and secondary creativity and how creativity researchers can (re)conceptualize the role technology can play in supporting indefinite cycles of creative learning and expression from material to digital and back again.