Methods and Theories for Innovative Critical Research on Educational Technology

For years we have been thinking that the methodological tools and fundamental theoretical approaches of educational technology have fallen short of what we need. Educational technology, as a field of knowledge, as a workspace and as a market, has changed and we need to approach it differently.

For this reason, more than a year ago, at the invitation of the team of the NAER (New Approaches in Educational Research) Journal, together with Professor Ben Williamson from the University of Edinburgh, we undertook the work of trying to bring together some articles that would substantially address not only what changes are needed, but also shed light on how to carry out these changes.

The idea was to get people who have been working with ” Methods and Theories for Innovative Critical Research on Educational Technology” for a long time to come up with fundamental questions on the subject. Here you have the editorial “Assembling New Toolboxes of Methods and Theories for Innovative Critical Research on Educational Technology” signed by Ben and me (and here translated into Spanish), in which we explain some of the thoughts that encouraged us to start this work.

The result is a special section in NAER’s Vol. 10, issue 1  which has just been published. The section consists of 5 articles, some of which make committed and activating approaches from a theoretical point of view and others that break down methodological aspects and approaches that can be used by us, researchers in Educational Technology, to try to do things in other ways… I sincerely invite you to read them all:

• Digital Rights, Digital Citizenship and Digital Literacy: What’s the Difference? Signed by  Luci Pangrazio y por Julian Sefton-Green https://doi.org/10.7821/naer.2021.1.616
• Performativity of Materials in Learning: The Learning-Whole in Action Signed by  Lucila Carvalho  y Pippa Yeoman https://doi.org/10.7821/naer.2021.1.627
• Underdetermination, Assemblage Studies and Educational Technology: Rethinking Causality and Re-Energising Politics Signed by Carlo Perrota https://doi.org/10.7821/naer.2021.1.638
• There Is No ‘Virtual Learning’: The Materiality of Digital Education Signed by  Lesley Gourlay https://doi.org/10.7821/naer.2021.1.649 
• The Topologies of Data Practices: A Methodological Introduction Signed by Mathias Decuypere https://doi.org/10.7821/naer.2021.1.650

I would like to sincerely thank NAER’s Editorial team for their trust and for keeping the magazine open, without cost to the authors and with very high quality in these complicated times. In addition, I would like to thank the authors for their extraordinary work and Prof. Ben Williamson – whose work I deeply admire – for lending himself to this adventure so generously. I have learned a lot in this endeavour and I can only be grateful for that.

I wish these papers could suggest as many things to you as they do to me… I would be delighted to have a good conversation on these subjects… hope to have the occasion soon.

Remain safe and sane…