What kind of revolution? Thinking and rethinking educational technologies in the time of COVID-19

Abstract

ABSTRACT Background The transition to technology-mediated remote schooling during the COVID-19 pandemic represented a drastic shift in educational technologies’ function in K-12 settings. This theoretical paper sought to: (1) identify key developments in technology-use during the pandemic; (2) situate current events within the Learning Sciences’ evolving conceptualizations of educational technologies; and (3) outline how these developments should reframe our thinking about educational technologies. Methods The paper is structured along three sets of relations, intended to support analyses that go beyond determinist or instrumental depictions of educational technologies: education-technology, human-technology, and human-education. Findings I outline three key characteristics of educational technologies’ function during the pandemic: they were central to the grammar of schooling, their use was widespread across social contexts, and was need-driven rather than innovation-driven. Contribution Accordingly, the paper suggests reorienting existing conceptualizations of educational technologies: (i) rethinking learning—avoiding the portrayal of technologies as solutions to educational problems and examining how they reshape learning; (ii) rethinking context—attending more to how socio-cultural, political, and historical features inform technological affordances; (iii) rethinking teaching—emphasizing adults’ role in mediating the normative commitments underlying technology-use, particularly in light of the dominance of commercial platforms and tools.