Technology‐enhanced learning: Rethinking the term, the concept and its theoretical background

Abstract

and the director of studies for the doctoral programme in e-research and technology-enhanced learning. His research investigates how digital technologies support learning and teaching. Recent studies have explored innovative and inclusive practices, in and outside classrooms, in home and community settings. His findings have informed policy and practice, for government departments and agencies, regional and local authorities, companies and corporations. He is the vice-chair of the International Federation for Information Processing Technical The wider context This paper is fundamentally concerned with ways that digital technologies have influenced, are influencing and could be influencing conceptions of academic scholarly practice, particularly related to the field of technology-enhanced learning (TEL). Academic practice (scholarship) is not conceived similarly by all academics. Differences in academic conceptions of scholarly practices were highlighted in the seminal report of Boyer (1990), who was concerned not only with differences exhibited across a wide population, but also in ways that social changes were affecting or driving these differences, leading to consequent shifts in balances and links between them. From his analysis of this shifting situation, he identified four key areas of scholarship-discovery (concerned with research), integration (concerned with interdisciplinary connections), application (concerned with using knowledge to apply to particular concerns, problems or situations) AbstractThis theoretical paper is concerned with problematising the rethinking of theoretical backgrounds associated with one of the commonly used educational technology terms (fields)-technology-enhanced learning-in the wider context of scholarship. Examples will show that the term itself is now used beyond its apparent, stated scope, that it is used in a number of varied ways, and that this is in itself problematic. The ways in which the term is used will be identified, and from these a strategic categorisation to rethink the use of the single term in areas of scholarship (particularly research and teaching) will be proposed, offering terms specifically encompassing the realms in which technologies are being used. From this categorisation, it will be shown that each specific category is based on different conceptions related to or arising from practice. Consequently, ways that theoretical backgrounds should be considered will be explored in each case. While existing theoretical backgrounds enable conceptual underpinnings in some of those cases, in other cases it will be shown that there are currently no fully developed theories or limited theoretical frameworks available. The paper will conclude by identifying key research areas needed if we are to develop and take pertinent aspects of scholarship further forward.

A System Strategy for Higher Education

“…This situation is now changing and has been driven further by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Technology-enhanced learning (TEL) is now being actively adopted and researched to provide a more engaging and interactive learning experience (Passey, 2019).…”

Engineering academics and technology enhanced learning; A phenomenographic approach to establish conceptions of scholarly interactions with theory

“…Crook & Sutherland, 2017;Gunn & Steel, 2012;Jones & Czerniewicz, 2011). Passey (2019) has proposed that the very term TEL has become so encompassing as to have lost much of its theoretical meaning to scholars, calling for the representation of distinguishable technology-enhanced fields: managing learning (TEML); education (TEE); managing education (TEME); teaching (TET); and managing teaching (TEMT). In this current paper, I conceive of TEL as a social activity related to the qualitative development of learning processes, activity whose production is mediated by technology yet with the precedence of pedagogical concerns above technological concerns (Kirkwood & Price, 2014).…”

“…including: means by which teachers and learners interact (Beetham & Sharpe, 2013); tools and processes for pedagogical design (Laurillard, 2012); and conditions to develop scholarship (Passey, 2019). Shared recognitions of stubborn ontological and epistemological challenges of TEL research are also reflected in the study's pools of meaning.…”

Theories, theoretical and conceptual frameworks, models and constructs: Limiting research outcomes through misconceptions and misunderstandings

“…These different forms of underpinnings can all arise from previous published research, but they can arise from and have quite different contextual bases. In general, the contexts of the four different forms arising from previous studies that are described in the research literature can be outlined (Passey, 2019), and will be defined in the remainder of this paper, as:…”