Are you preparing a presentation related to educational technology (EdTech) for the HELTASA (Un)Conference or at your university, and want your participants to engage more critically with your work? If you are participating in a session on educational technology, what questions could you ask? This digital dialogue invites reflection on what it means to adopt a critical orientation to researching educational technology practices and what it means to engage with educational technology research in critical ways. 

Educational technologies seem to hold out the shiny promise of solving the educational world’s problems, resulting in cycles of hype and disillusionment. But educational technologies are not neutral tools, nor are the practices associated with their use. Edtech is deeply intertwined with social, economic, and political issues. A critical approach to the field moves beyond a focus on individual tools (eg. GenAI, Kahoot, learning analytics) and examines the broader implications of their use in educational settings.

This dialogue will discuss aspects and questions to move beyond a simple discussion of tools and applications and into a deeper consideration of the social, political, and economic contexts of educational technology in higher education in a South African context. Some of these pertain to the intersection between context, unintended consequences and potential harms, methodological approaches and positionalities. Drawing on Gachago et al’s (2023) paper, “What is critical in EdTech research?” and our previous contributions to the global Critical Studies in Educational Technology (CSET) report, we propose a series of questions that can support both researchers and practitioners in engaging with EdTech research in more critical ways. 

We invite you to engage with the following article before the session:

Gachago, D., Pallitt, N., Agherdien, N., Czerniewicz, L., Asino, T., & Prinsloo, P. (2023). What is critical in EdTech research?. Critical Studies in Teaching and Learning, 11(1), 119-126. https://epubs.ac.za/index.php/cristal/article/view/1784/1268