This new research initiative investigates the pedagogic dimension of digital platforms. It draws on older theoretical traditions that use pedagogy as a way of describing and explaining the relationships between individual and society, agency and structure.
We want to explore what it means to conceive:
- of the relationship between people and their platforms as a pedagogic relationship,
- and how such conceptualisations might advance study of platforms in general.
And, additionally, using the term pedagogy in its more specifically educational sense:
- to explore the relationship between learning, schooling and education systems as they are now moving into and across emerging platforms,
- thus, advancing scholarship about the uses of platforms in Education.
At the moment the initiative asks 4 kinds of questions.
- What kind of conceptual framing is most useful to make sense of “a platform”?
- Do platforms have a pedagogy? or What is the pedagogic relationship between people (often constructed as users or clients or citizens) and specific platforms?
- Do the new platforms now present in schools change the practices of education and the relationship between social actors in the school system
- What is the pedagogy of educational platforms
The initiative brings together a range of scholars from Australia and the US and as a dedicated PhD scholarship. The website for the project can be found here.