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There is no 'virtual learning': The materiality of digital education

Gourlay, L; (2021) There is no 'virtual learning': The materiality of digital education. Journal of New Approaches in Educational Research , 10 (1) pp. 57-66. 10.7821/naer.2021.1.649. Green open access

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Abstract

The distinction between face-to-face and distant digitally-mediated educational engagement is a complex one, and the two modes are often combined in practice, via ‘blended learning’ or the use of a VLE to support campus-based teaching. The current Covid-19 pandemic has thrown this distinction into relief, in a context where educationalists have been forced to move to fully distant engagement in a very short timeframe. This paper explores how this predicament has brought to the fore the nature of our engagement with digital knowledge practices and screen-based communication, arguing that the notion of ‘virtual learning’ is a flawed one. Instead, adopting a sociomaterial perspective, it argues that all aspects of digital engagement are in fact grounded in material and embodied entanglements with devices and other artefacts.

Type: Article
Title: There is no 'virtual learning': The materiality of digital education
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.7821/naer.2021.1.649
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.7821/naer.2021.1.649
Language: English
Additional information: This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, and provide a link to the Creative Commons license. You do not have permission under this license to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/es/deed.en
Keywords: COVID-19, SOCIOMATERIAL, DIGITAL ENGAGEMENT, EMBODIMENT, ONLINE LEARNING
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education > IOE - Culture, Communication and Media
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10119298
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