#1089: Words that Welcome Tools: Partnering with Purpose in Learning

Learning unfolds through partnerships between people, tools, and the words that connect them. This paper explores how language shapes access to tools in classrooms where science, technology, and inquiry meet. Drawing on Critical Language Awareness, Ecolinguistics, and Posthumanist perspectives, we view language as an active partner that opens or closes participation. Words like precision or control may exclude, while terms like observe, trace, or unfold invite curiosity and belonging. Through classroom vignettes using the Foldscope, we show how linguistic framing transforms a tool from an object of mastery into a companion in discovery. Language and materiality are entangled: the Foldscope's toy-like physicality enables invitational language, whilst that language reinterprets materiality as a pedagogical affordance. We propose an ecological praxis of language that treats communication as inclusion, sustaining engagement, agency, and care. In keeping with ISLS 2026’s theme, Partnering with Purpose, we focus on words that welcome tools into shared inquiry.