Reimagining EdTech beyond Traditional Learning Spaces

Even though EdTech is booming and appears to be a rising trend, the question of whether it can live up to its many potentials and promises still exists. In this paper, we argue that the potential and promise of EdTech are constrained by its confinement to traditional educational settings and the profit-driven development of the field. A significant portion of the current discourse on education technology develops within conventional educational contexts like schools and classrooms, which limits the implementation and success of EdTech. The pandemic has taught us that learning does not occur only inside the brick walls of a traditional classroom or school. As a result, EdTech must be used to extend learning outside of these traditional settings. A scoping review of the available research reveals two major themes which dominate these conventional context-related discourses: 1) Edtech's potential to improve both educational quality and institutional efficiency and 2) the evaluation of the success of a technology. In terms of its potential, a large majority of the conversation about EdTech is dominated by notions of potential for enhanced education quality (e.g., improving learning outcomes), more efficiency for teachers and administrators, and increasingly detailed learner data to inform quick decision-making. In terms of measuring effectiveness, much of EdTech's success is measured based on how it improves student learning outcomes and experiences in EdTech-supported classrooms and entirely online-based education settings, where basic access (e.g., to a reliable network connection and to laptop computers or smartphones) is implicitly assumed. Sadly, the notions of context, inclusion, and access are noticeably underrepresented in the EdTech conversation, according to a review of both existing research and EdTech practices. Millions of students are left out due to this stark underrepresentation because they either are not found within traditional learning spaces or do not have access to the tools and infrastructure that facilitate access. More so, most positive EdTech findings originate from small studies with small sample sizes, which overemphasize achievement scores and are conducted by the tech designers themselves, with minimal comparisons between settings to set forth principles for evaluation and implementation. Therefore, to reimagine EdTech beyond traditional learning spaces, we need to: (1) reframe our understanding of 'tech' away from a focus on the latest high-tech towards a holistic concept of 'tech'; (2) reframe our expectation of EdTech to include aspects of widening access and inclusion of previously excluded learners, and (3) take the conversation beyond traditional education settings like schools and classrooms so that EdTech can actually achieve more than just incremental improvements for those who already had access to education in the first place. As such, EdTech can be reframed from its current implicit notion of technology in education, which implies leaving education mostly as it is and plugging technology into education, to the notion of technology for education, which we see as an understanding of technology as a way not just to enhance, but fundamentally change education. With this paper, we aim to contribute to the still relatively small critical voice and perspective on education technology in a field dominated by an overall optimistic - if not euphoric - tone of potential and promise