Learning, Media and Technology

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What in the world is educational technology?

Rethinking the field from the perspective of the
philosophy of technology

Tao An & Martin Oliver

To cite this article: Tao An & Martin Oliver (2021) What in the world is educational technology?
Rethinking the field from the perspective of the philosophy of technology, Learning, Media and
Technology, 46:1, 6-19, DOI: 10.1080/17439884.2020.1810066

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2020.1810066

Published online: 24 Aug 2020.

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LEARNING, MEDIA AND TECHNOLOGY
2021, VOL. 46, NO. 1, 6–19
https://doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2020.1810066

What in the world is educational technology? Rethinking the field

from the perspective of the philosophy of technology
a b
Tao An and Martin Oliver
a
School of Smart Education, Jiangsu Normal University, Xuzhou, People’s Republic of China; bEducation and
Technology, UCL Institute of Education, London, UK

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

Technology has been an important influence on the development of Received 21 April 2018
education. However, very little research in Educational Technology Accepted 9 July 2020
considers this history, and even less questions it. In this paper, we argue
KEYWORDS
that our understanding of educational technology should be informed by Philosophy of technology;
the philosophy of technology – a field that has attempted to explore educational technology
what these historical developments mean. This paper focuses on the research; relational thinking
ontological turn in philosophy and the technological thought of Marx and
Heidegger. This is used to propose a foundation that can help researchers
rethink educational technology, expanding research to account for
human-education, human-technology and education-technology relations.
It is proposed that human-education relationships should make students
‘become what they are’, highlighting their subjectivity rather than
concentrating on information. Human-technology relationships can
change the focus of design practice, so that technology is not merely
seen as an efficient tool, but something ‘handy’ for peoples’ educational
needs. Education-technology relationships explain how technology can
shape education, and re-introduces the idea of ‘techne’ as something to
be valued in education.

Introduction
There can be no doubt that technology has permeated every social field; not only is it an important
factor in the development of contemporary society, it has been argued to be an integral part of what
sets humanity apart from even our closest hominid relatives (D’Errico 2007). Unsurprisingly, then,
technology has also influenced the form and development of contemporary education, both in the
creation of technological educational resources and of new learning modes (Cuban 2001). Through
this, technology has opened up new times and spaces for education, offering new possibilities for
participation (Esposito, Sangrà, and Maina 2013).
According to Dusek (2006, 31), technology is defined as hardware, rules and system. That is, tech-
nology is not merely visible hardware, but the integration of this with invisible and social elements.
Technology also plays a vital role in the development of educational technology, understood both as
an area of research and a form of educational practice, which includes instructional tools, resources
and approaches that draw on technological discourse to frame and explain educational dynamics
(Perrotta and Evans 2013). It is clear that the emergence of almost every new technology prompts
a further round of research in educational technology (Mayes 1995). For example, the growing
use of mobile devices has attracted the attention of researchers and gave birth to the field of mobile
learning, which was a popular topic in the field of educational technology for over a decade (Chiang
et al. 2016).

CONTACT Martin Oliver martin.oliver@ucl.ac.uk

© 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
 LEARNING, MEDIA AND TECHNOLOGY 7

This has led to repeated waves of educational technology research, emerging endlessly in response
to the rapid development of new technology. However, it seems that the field rarely reflects on this,
with the result that it is not clear what (if anything) gives educational technology coherence or
integrity during this relentless pursuit of the new, causing doubt and confusion about what
educational technology itself actually is.
This paper argues that the philosophy of technology could be used to provide some kind of
foundation for the field. In order to make this argument, firstly, reviews of the field are presented,
in order to characterize the current position more clearly. Then, ontological and epistemological
developments in philosophy, and in particular in the philosophy of technology, are reviewed.
These are used to propose a framework with which to understand educational technology.
This framework, which draws attention to human-education, human-technology and education-
technology relationships, is then discussed in order to illustrate the kinds of concerns and
implications that follow from it.

Reviewing the field of educational technology

The scope and definition of education technology remains a topic for debate. Any considered discus-
sion of this soon moves beyond artifacts and devices to consider practices and educational change
(see e.g., Januszewski and Persichitte 2008) – although research itself frequently fails to adopt this
perspective, meaning that the term has become ‘synonymous with such tools as computers, the inter-
net, mobiles and tablets and such issues as instructional design, mobile learning, social networking
and open education resources’ (Latchem 2014). Such a focus results in an unhelpfully narrow and
instrumental body of work (Friesen 2009).
Czerniewicz’s review of the field of educational technology (2010) shows that there is no single,
unifying narrative that brings all this research together. Work draws on many different traditions
and concepts, some of which are in tension with each other, and the field has been described as
being more strongly oriented towards shared problems than towards shared conceptions. Oliver
(2013) similarly points to the conspicuous absence of theories of technology within the field,
which has resulted in poor explanations of how technology use leads to learning.
Some attempts have been made to scope the field. The Association for Education Communi-
cations and Technology, for example, offered a definition (see Braden 1995) that has been particu-
larly influential on research, having been cited over five thousand times. According this definition,
educational technology is the integration of three conceptions and modes: visual instruction, person-
alized systems and systematic methods of evaluation. Together, these three elements constructed the
boundary of educational technology.
In this tradition view, educational technology is considered to be the educational application of
technology to improve the efficiency of education, which it achieves by virtue of the functionality
provided by the material of new technologies. This can be seen as a specific illustration that reflects
a more general evolution of technology, of the kind argued for by Arthur (2009). From this perspec-
tive, which remains driven by technological development even if social considerations sometimes fall
within its scope, it is not difficult to understand why practitioners working within this field prioritize
case studies of the application of new technologies whose functions become more and more powerful
(Czerniewicz 2010). In a sense, educational technology has been shaped by instrumental concerns,
remaining disappointingly a-political and a-social (Selwyn 2014).
Thus, in spite of the prevalence of case studies that might suggest technology causes improve-
ments in the field of education, the wide application of technology does not inevitably produce
ideal effects. Cuban has explored how computers have been ‘oversold and underused’ in education
(2001, 179), and found there were many unexpected outcomes or ‘revenge effects’ arising from the
relentless promotion of technology. This pattern has continued in the years since Cuban wrote his
book. For example, although MOOCs gained widespread popularity on the basis of their flexibility
and convenience up to 90% of students drop out for reasons including insufficient prior knowledge
8 T. AN AND M. OLIVER

and having no-one to turn to for help or support (Hew and Cheung 2014). In spite of new technol-
ogies being hyped relentlessly by various agencies, such as the New Media Consortium’s Horizon
Reports, many of their predictions fail, as the technologies do not have the expected impact (e.g.,
Sergio et al. 2011).
Even when educational technology as a field does take a more thoughtful approach, for example
in the development of new learning and instructional theories, the way in which people do edu-
cational technology – the way in which users make use of technologies in education – frequently
has not. Christensen argues (2008) that educational technologies are typically taken up as ‘sustaining
technologies’ that are organizationally adapted to streamline and extend prevailing methods, rather
than challenging fundamental educational suppositions, routines and standardized role-functions
(Thumlert, Castell, and Jenson 2015).
This dominant view of educational technology can be understood as the result of ‘substantial
thinking’ – an idea that will be explored further in the next section. It considers educational technol-
ogy to be the combination of educational factors and technological factors that play a supporting role
in educational activities. In this tradition, ideas about possible futures seem to emerge by looking at
the new functionality each novel technology offers to education.
However, this is not the only way of thinking about the relationship between technology and edu-
cation. In the next section, perspectives from philosophy will be introduced that offer alternative
ways of understanding this relationship.

The ontological turn and epistemological perspectives in philosophy

Ontology is the theory of what exists and is the foremost concern of metaphysics, which is the study
of the most fundamental questions about being and the nature of reality (Ladyman 2007, 303).
Ontology, therefore, is considered a primary concern of philosophy. Aristotle was an important
early influence on the development of this area of work; he focused on beings rather than the
idea of ‘being’ in a more general or abstract sense, and so proposed that substance should be the
first category of being. Later, building on Aristotle’s substantial ontological position, Descartes pro-
posed scepticism about taking the evidence of the senses at face value, and proposed instead that ‘I
think, therefore I am’ should be the foundational basis for ontological thought; this led to the estab-
lishment of mind–body dualism. Although Descartes’s development was important in highlighting
human subjectivity, it made the difference between ‘being’ and ‘beings’ further confused. Human and
the world become independent and separated substances, and later philosophers came to believe that
as a result, human’s ‘being’ had been forgotten (Heidegger 1996). At the beginning of the twentieth
century, philosophers began to discuss what it meant to be human, leading to a further ontological
turn in philosophy. According to Heidegger (1996), the fundamental constitution of human being
was ‘being-in-the-world’; this proposed that the world of humans is a ‘with-world’, and that being
human means being-with others. That is, the structure of human existence is considered as coexis-
tence, and philosophers following Heidegger have focused on human’s being, rather than consider-
ing ‘human’ as a kind of substance.
These changes in ontological positions have led to to associated changes in epistemological pos-
itions. Following ontological developments, an epistemological turn from substantial thinking to
relational thinking has taken place. Substantial thinking, which can be traced back to Aristotle’s
inquiry into existence, proposed that things pre-existed analysis: that substance was prior to thinking
about those things. This ‘substantial prior’ model dominated thinking with great success in the natu-
ral sciences and the development of society. However, with the development of complex areas such
as cybernetic science and perspectives such as feminist studies of science and technology, the tra-
dition of philosophical dualism that set the abstract, thinking subject apart from the material objects
of study was challenged (see, e.g., Haraway 1988).
The problem identified by these new perspectives was that substantial thinking ignored the
relations between things and did not provide a good account of dynamic developments. By
 LEARNING, MEDIA AND TECHNOLOGY 9

comparison, relational thinking proposes that the relationship between things results in the charac-
teristics that we perceive, rather than that these exist in things in isolation (Dépelteau 2008). The
implication of this, applied in the context covered by this paper, is that the qualities that we attribute
to educational technologies, for example, are not inherent to specific devices, but are instead the
result of a combination of many factors, including the relationships between users and the devices
they work with.
Relational thinking thus emphasizes the ‘being’ of the things, understood in terms of situated
practices, rather than the abstract ‘to be’ that results from ‘substantial prior’ thinking (Heidegger
1959; Whitehead 1929). While substantial thinking is a kind of vertical thinking – emphasizing hier-
archy – relational thinking is a kind of lateral thinking – emphasizing diversity, and looking for com-
monalities. There are analogies here with the Bernsteinian analysis of work in the field of educational
technology described by Czerniewicz, which characterizes educational technology research in terms
of horizontal knowledge structures and vertical knowledge discourses (2010).

The philosophy of technology

An important special case of the shift from substantial to relational thinking can be seen in the area
of the philosophy of technology, which – as authors such as Surry and Baker (2016) have argued – is
of direct relevance to work in the field of educational technology.
Technology can be understood a common material thing that pervades today’s society; arguably,
it is to humans, just as the spider Web is to the spider. However, philosophical investigation of tech-
nology is relatively recent. The philosophy of technology was comparatively neglected until the rise
of industrial technology, after which it was understood as a significant power affecting society and
was believed initially to follow its own intrinsic developmental logic (Wu 2009). Philosophy of tech-
nology has developed across the last few decades, however, notably through the work of philosophers
such as Marx, Heidegger and Ihde. These developments will be outlined here.
Marx (1964) advocated the importance of new technologies in promoting the development of
society, although he did not describe his work as ‘philosophy of technology’, focusing instead on
technological issues connected with human nature and social development. Marx considers that
technology is ‘the external revelation of man’s essential powers’, and that ‘the history of industry
and the objective existence of industry as it has developed is the open book of the essential powers
of man, man’s psychology present in tangible form’ (Marx 1975, 354). Marx sees technology not only
in terms of visible materials (which might be understood as an example of substantial thinking), but
also in terms of the social relationships that are formed by the production process. For example, an
industrial production line that can organize new forms of activities creates different social relations
from the ones prevalent in the agricultural age; this not only develops the relationships or division of
labor within the workers’ production process, but also promotes the development of industrial social
relations. That is to say, Marx proposed that the technology made by humans influences society, and
in doing so shows humanity’s essential force. Technology, therefore, might be considered as the
extension of human body, so that people equipped with different kinds of technologies can be under-
stood as being techno-human (Allenby and Sarewitz 2011) – an idea reflected in several strands of
contemporary educational technology research (Bayne 2015). It is evident that Marx emphasizes the
importance of technology in the development of humanity and society, and sees an internal consist-
ency between technology and human nature; this goes beyond the dichotomy of subject and object.
Technology was also an important issue in the philosophy of Heidegger. In his early thought, Hei-
degger (1996) developed his thinking about technology with his idea of the ‘useful thing’, which is
‘something in order to … ’. This analysis led to the differentiation of two kinds of relations between
humans and useful things – ‘ready-to-hand’ and ‘present-at-hand’. For example, there is a pair of
suitable glasses on our nose; they are ready-to-hand for us, because their presence contributes to
our actions, rather than disrupting them. However, once they are broken, we will feel uncomfortable,
and that pair of glasses is present-at-hand for us; we are aware of their presence, which disrupts our
10 T. AN AND M. OLIVER

activities. This sense of distance from technology is important throughout the history of educational
technology; it can be seen, for example, in research into the challenges of technology integration in
schools (e.g., Zhao et al. 2002), and explains the feeling that educational technology research is
always focused on fixing the integration of emerging technologies, not on understanding the vast
array of technologies that are already integral to educational work (e.g., Mayes 1995).
Moreover, Heidegger argues that the tool at hand shows the world: the context of useful things
appears as ‘a totality that has continually been seen beforehand in our circumspection’, and the
world makes itself known with this totality (1996, 70). Consequently, peoples’ use of technology
must be understood in terms of the totality of their situation, rather than just reduced to a focus
on the technology in isolation. In Heidegger’s later thought, the world becomes the central topic,
and Heidegger discusses the world in a way that includes technology. Concretely, however, he
does so with reference to specific handmade things, rather than to more complex or industrial pro-
ducts (Latour 2004). In Heidegger’s thinking about ‘the thing’, crafted artefacts are considered as a
gathering of the world. For example, Heidegger sees ‘the jug’ as not only being a vessel, but as rich in
meaning in a way that verges on the mystical: its ‘presencing is the pure, giving gathering of the one-
fold fourfold into a single time–space, a single stay’ (Heidegger 1971, 171); ‘each thing stays the four-
fold into a happening of the simple onehood of world’ (1971, 178). Therefore, from this perspective,
technology reveals the world and shows itself in the whole world, and the world becomes the dwell-
ing of the technology, human and other elements. In doing so, Heidegger’s thought about technology
again surmounts the duality of subject and object, and instead discusses technology from a perspec-
tive that emphasizes relations between human and technology. This kind of perspective has been
uncommon in educational technology, but is seen as increasingly important as a way of opening
up this field of research to new kinds of discussion and insight (Friesen 2009).
Ihde subsequently developed a post-phenomenological position that builds on Heidegger’s phil-
osophy of technology; this is referred to as the phenomenology of technics. Ihde (1990) distinguishes
four kinds of relations between humans and technology: ‘embodiment relations’, ‘hermeneutic
relations’, ‘alterity relations’, and ‘background relations’. Embodiment relations (discussed below)
mean that the technology becomes transparent and is taken into human’s perceptual-bodily experi-
ence. Just as a mobile phone might become a taken for granted artefact, technology can bring us clo-
ser but simultaneously withdraw from our attention. Importantly, however, Ihde proposes that
technology that is integrated into humans’ worlds not only extends peoples’ physiological functions
but also deepens their understanding of the world. For example, when used to observe the world, a
telescope can magnify perception through its optical function; this not only makes certain observa-
tional tasks more efficient, it also changes peoples’ ability to know the world, presenting a different
picture to us and changing our relationship to it. From this perspective, humans, technology and the
world constitute a relational triangle in which every factor has equal status and interrelates with each
other (Weiss 2008).
This triangular set of relations has become central to current debates in the field of philosophy of
technology, influenced by post-phenomenology and the empirical turn in the philosophy of technol-
ogy (Ihde 1990; Verbeek 2008). This perspective emphasizes that technology is not simply a neutral
means to a more efficient end, but rather is a kind of intervening factor in human activities and our
understanding of world. That is to say, when there is a change in the relationships between human
and technology, the relationship between human and the world is influenced by the intervening
effect of technology.

The nature of educational technology

Educational technology has become an important force in promoting the development of education
by virtue of the widespread application of educational media or technological methods; conse-
quently, it needs to be considered as a special case of technology and studied in its own right (An
and Li 2014).
 LEARNING, MEDIA AND TECHNOLOGY 11

According to Hegel (1967) and Heidegger (1977), what is ‘familiarly known’ is not properly
known. This means that our familiar, everyday experiences with technology are not sufficient as a
basis for understanding the nature of technology. We cannot rely on everyday, common sense dis-
cussions of technology as the basis for research in the field; instead, we need to develop a new and
considered alternative, one that encourages new and more disciplined insights to be developed.
Similarly, although a common sense understanding of ‘educational technology’ might suggest that
technology consists of specific activities or materials, this risks falling back into substantial rather
than relational thinking. The nature of educational technology does not lie in these specific instances.
Drawing on the technological analysis of Ihde and Weiss, outlined above, we can begin a more
considered discussion of the nature of educational technology by considering the relations among
education, technology, and humanity. Specifically, these include human-education human-technol-
ogy, and education-technology relations. These three sets of relations create a framework with which
we can develop a more thoughtful understand educational technology.

Human-education
Humans may be acting beings, but unlike most animals who are specifically adapted to their place in
the world, they act in ways that are undetermined by their nature or culture – in other words, they
have freedom, including the freedom to give in to external pressures, give up or otherwise act in ways
that are detrimental to themselves or others (Gehlen 1988). According to Kant (1990), a person is the
only being that needs education, and (s)he can only become a person by education, which changes
animal nature into human nature. Kant’s argument proposes that that through education, human
nature will be continually improved, and brought to such a condition as is worthy of the nature
of man. Therefore, the purpose of education is to promote the development of students; however,
the question of exactly how to cultivate the student is central to the human-education relationship.
In public debates, some policy and even some areas of research, education is reduced to a stan-
dardized knowledge transfer process. Students are positioned as outside of education, and are treated
as the object of education. As Freire (2005) famously proposed, much educational practice reveals its
fundamentally character as an act of ‘depositing’ information, giving rise to his characterization of
the ‘banking model’ of education. In this kind of account, students’ task is to patiently receive, mem-
orize and repeat the contents of teachers’ narration. It is clear that this kind of education has been
deeply influenced by substantial thinking, wherein knowledge exists independently of the students.
The consequence of this is that the relation between education and students can be characterized as a
subject-object binary. Even popular pedagogical approaches in the last two decades, such as out-
comes-based education and standards-based education, embody a substantial view of education.
Specifically, instructional objectives focus on the knowledge or competences which students should
achieve or be able to do by the end of the process, assuming that these exist in some way indepen-
dently of the individuals expected to engage with them. Direct instruction and explicit teaching are
the main approaches of such teaching (Donnelly 2007). Moreover, there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’
model in students’ learning, even within a single system-wide program (Willet 2018). Therefore,
we can argue that this approach ignores students’ subjectivity, and the possibility of education
being part of the world in which the student lives. The relationship between humans and education
should therefore be reviewed from the perspective of relational thinking.
As discussed above, there is an inherent relationship between human and education. Rather than
filling students with knowledge, education should meet the different needs of individuality. Students’
subjectivity should be highlighted in the educational process, and students should be treated as
autonomous learners. There are many historical examples of this kind of orientation to education.
According to Kant (1990, 30), for example, practical or moral education consists of instruction in
the practical matters of life and moral character, and can teach a person how to live as a free
being; students’ social and moral abilities will then be developed through this process. According
to Dewey, students’ growth is ‘a constant reorganizing and reconstructing of experience’; and
12 T. AN AND M. OLIVER

learning should be an active and constructive process of meaning making in co-constructions with
others (Dewey 1916, 76; Reich, Garrison, and Neubert 2016). Similarly, inquiry-based learning is
thought to emphasize active participation and student’s responsibility for discovering knowledge
(Pedaste et al. 2015), according to which students’ organization of their learning and collaboration
with others are emphasized, which helps students to develop their social abilities and moral
characters.
Another consequence of this view is that the educational process should be generative for stu-
dents, rather than closed and standardized. From the perspective of complexity theory, for example,
education is open, dynamic and relational, and its elements constitute and interact with each other
(Mason 2008). To illustrate this, we can recognize that there are various kinds of uncertainties and
ambiguities in educational processes that are situational, and which have different temporal and
spatial characteristics. For example, students’ learning preparedness and teachers’ instructional styles
both vary from person to person. Therefore, any pre-specified educational process will ignore lots of
rich alternatives, and will vary in appropriateness from person to person experiencing it. As a Chi-
nese educational proverb goes, ‘there are unlimited methods of teaching available that are worth
selecting’, meaning that different pedagogical approaches have been developed for use with students
in diverse educational situations, and the question of which one to adopt should reflect teachers’
engagement with learners rather than being pre-determined. In a sense, then, education should be
neither teacher-centered nor student-centered, but should be based on teacher-student engagement
and consultation. Education as a co-constructive process, recognizing the histories, situations and
dispositions of all those involved, can respect students’ individual differences and teach students
in accordance with their aptitude.
Heidegger explored the relationship between humans and the world using the concept of Da-sein,
understood as ‘being-in-the-world’. He argued that ‘the world’, here, is used as an ontic concept and
signifies the totality of beings, and designates the ontological and existential conception of worldli-
ness (Heidegger 1996, 60–61). In addition, Heidegger pointed out that the being of human is open as
a temporal being, so that rather than being fixed, ‘Da-sein is what it becomes’ (see Thomson 2004).
The consequence of this is that the character of things is emergent, rather than pre-determined: ‘men
by dwelling attain to the world as world. Only what conjoins itself out of world becomes a thing’
(Heidegger 1971, 180). Heidegger’s world concept, therefore, reveals the original relation between
human and the world, which has important implications for the relation between human and
education.
For students, education (which is an important part of the world they dwell in) should not be
designed following a kind of instrumental rationality to shape their knowledge and behaviors in
pre-specified ways; instead, it should be designed to reveal human nature. According to Heidegger,
education should promote thinking and reflection, and adopt an open orientation towards the
diverse ways in which students develop; accepting this diversity may even be understood as an ‘open-
ness to mystery’ (Wrathall 2011). Designed in this way, education could encourage students to
develop ‘Gelassenheit’ (an openness to what is) and ‘Besinnung’ (thoughtful engagement with
what is essential in things we encounter that are strange or surprising) (Huang and Liu 2016). In
this way, the dialogue between the teacher and the student should be highlighted, instead of the tea-
cher’s monologue. As Heidegger points out (2000, 56), human beings are a conversation. And dia-
logue is considered as a dynamic game of references, of signs, that allows new paths of thought (Pezze
2006). The teacher and students have their education encounter in dialogue, in which the united
reflection and action of the dialoguers is addressed towards the world, which is not simply a pre-
existing source (as it might be in ‘substantial prior’ approaches) but is instead to be transformed
and humanized (Freire 2005, 88–89). Through this kind of approach to education, students’ subjec-
tivity would be enhanced. If students’ growth processes are understood in this way – as a way of
revealing, rather than memorizing presumed knowledge passively – education can encourage
them to develop in ways that are authentic, so that students can ‘become what they are’ (Thomson
2004).
 LEARNING, MEDIA AND TECHNOLOGY 13

Human-technology
As discussed at the opening of this paper, in a sense, humans can be thought of as technology-using
beings.
Human beings are not able to lead nontechnological lives in some garden state, because on Earth they are inher-
ently technological organisms. (Mitcham 2006, 30)

From this perspective, students simply can not carry out learning activities without some degree of
technology use. However, not all technology use has the same character, and as a result, different
human-technology relationships can have very different effects.
From the perspective of substantial thinking, educational technology can be understood as being
standardized, non-personalized, external to students and about tools for learning. The relation
between students and technology, therefore, would appear separate and incidental. A substantial per-
spective presents technology as if it were like some radio programs or other broadcast, being pushed
at us, whilst we have no way to choose or interact with their content. This leads to standardized
‘dose-response’ models of educational technology, and simplistic questions about whether technol-
ogy ‘works’ or not, decontextualized from questions about for whom it works, under what circum-
stances, and so on (Oliver and Conole 2003). As discussed above, for example, although MOOCs
have become widespread, there are still high dropout rates; the same technology works for some
people but not others. Similarly, it is thought that quantified-self approaches using technology to col-
lect and analyze students’ learning data have a range of potential learning benefits; however, such
data-centric approaches are not necessarily fit for all students’ learning (see Eynon 2015). As
such, if we wish technology use to achieve better effects, technological applications should conform
to students’ experiences, knowledge and backgrounds.
We can turn to relational thinking to elaborate this alternative understanding of the human-tech-
nology relationship in the field of educational technology. Although technologies can contribute to
changes in students’ approaches to learning, they require recontextualizing in the specificities of stu-
dents’ own practices. Over time, however, these local acts of contextualization can be reflected in the
development of more systemic, shared developments. Simondon argues that technologies are
adapted to their multiple milieus by concretizing advances, which means establishing synergisms
between technologies and the various environments in which they are used (Feenberg 2002, 186).
Thus some new learning technologies can indeed ‘offer students learning opportunities that facilitate
flexible teaching and learning which in turn are designed to fit in with the particular needs of stu-
dents’ (Clegg and Steel 2002). For example, from the perspective of embodied cognition, learning
is deeply related to human’s sensorimotor system and the body’s interaction with the physical
environment, and technologies that can effectively combine virtual and physical elements create
the immersive, whole-body interactive conditions which could enhance learning (Lindgren et al.
2016). Therefore, in embodied learning environments, the boundary between the student and tech-
nology can be blurred by the interactive and immersive experience of technology, which involves the
use of the student’s body as part of the control mechanism. In this way, the technology can be inte-
grated with both body and mind, and these factors can improve learning together.
The human-technology relationship is a central concern for Heidegger. Following Heidegger, as
‘useful things’, technology should be ready-to-hand for students’ learning. That is to say, when exert-
ing its functions effectively, educational technology should withdraw from being the focus for edu-
cational information, or from being an explicit consideration in students’ learning processes – like
the famous hammer that Heidegger uses as an example, where fluent use allows the builder to
focus on the nail being hammered rather than the tool being used. Moreover, the more ‘handy’
relations are between students and educational technology, the more educational technology can
be useful. Therefore, the relationship between students and educational technology could be charac-
terized in terms of handiness and humanization, so as to improve not just the efficiency of students’
learning, but also its quality and character. According to Ihde, technologies should fit the application,
14 T. AN AND M. OLIVER

and this is achieved by balancing two desires that arising from the experience of embodiment
relations between humans and technology. The first is a wish for total transparency and embodi-
ment: for the technology to truly ‘become me’. The other is the desire to have the power that the
technology makes available, which transforms our relationship with other parts of the world in
which we are interested (Ihde 2003, 140). Therefore, the most advanced technologies will not always
lead to the best learning effect; the best technology is just like the hammer in Heidegger’s hand,
which draws no attention to its existence and is easy to use for the work at hand.
One interesting consequence of this is that the application of educational technology can develop
the relationship of being-with between the student and technology. That is, the technology is not
merely a means to an end for the student; instead there is a symbiosis between the student and tech-
nology, which constitute the subject of the learning process together. In this sense, following Idhe,
when the technology ‘becomes me’, the student’s being is developed, which may be important in
its own right. (An obbvious example of this might include musicians’ symbiosis with their instru-
ments, which may be an important outcome of musical education.) We should therefore move
beyond deterministic assumption that technologies possess inherent qualities, and are capable of
having particular ‘impacts’ or ‘effects’ on learners if used in correct manners (Selwyn 2010), and con-
sider instead how technology use might enable students to develop their relationships with the world,
and with technologies themselves.

Education-technology
In popular discussions of education, it is often taken for granted that technology will promote edu-
cational development. However, this kind of technological determinism is an over-simplistic account
of educational technology, in which technology is presented as if it causes particular educational out-
comes; it provides an imbalanced understanding of the relationship between education and technol-
ogy (Oliver 2011). This over-simplification is a result of substantial thinking, which would suggest
that the technology is simply a tool or means in the educational process that can be entirely detached
from education itself.
Moreover, the consequence of this account is that the traditional educational model is not chan-
ged but reinforced by technologies, which are positioned as more powerful means to transmit knowl-
edge to students. For example, Friesen has argued that the rapid emergence of the internet was
refashioned through virtual learning environments developed by universities, which reinforced
the traditional functions and identities of university personnel (see Oliver 2011). Although the appli-
cation of new technologies seems to have brought infinite hope to educators, there is instead a ‘slow
revolution’ in educational processes (Cuban 2001), and some educational applications could be
thought of as ‘old ideas, new technologies’ (Beckera and Birdib 2018). Instead, care should be
taken so that the role of technological applications in education is not exaggerated. To avoid
over-simplifying, the relationship between education and technology must be rethought.
From the perspective of relational thinking, education and technology can be integrated to
improve students’ learning. According to Latour (2005), education and technology can constitute
an actor network in which each interacts with the other. That is, technology can shape education,
but it is important to recognize that education also chooses and adapts technologies. Technology
is not produced in a cultural vacuum, but is instead a cohesion of various existing kinds of social
relations and approaches to communication. Technology, therefore, can have an effect on education
by reflecting this history in its design. Surry and Baker (2016), for example, have drawn on perspec-
tives from the sociology of technology to show how the links between technology and communities
can be reciprocal, rather than deterministic. However, technology adoption can have unanticipated
consequences; it is not always predictable or consistently positive. For example, open educational
practices, supported by networked and digital technologies, promoting decentralization and demo-
cratization of control over knowledge production, encouraging higher education to operate in ways
that are flexible and permeable (Oliver 2015). In this way, the formative influence of technology can
 LEARNING, MEDIA AND TECHNOLOGY 15

encourage education to become more individualized and go beyond homogeneity (Lewin and Lundie
2016). However, Clegg and Steel (2002) have argued that technologies which had been designed to be
flexible can instead create inflexibility, resulting in teachers and students driving themselves towards
constant participation, pushing higher education towards a Post-Fordist relationship with students.
According to Heidegger, technology not only reveals but also dwells in the world, and the relation
between technology and the world is a fundamental part of humanity’s ways of being. What is more,
in Heidegger’s later thought (1977), he questioned the essence of modern technology, which is con-
ceived of as the ‘Ge-stell’ – the view of technology as a mode of existence, which frames the world as a
‘standing reserve’ to be used efficiently. By contrast, he regarded ‘art’ as the saving power against the
violence of technology. Heidegger also highlighted the Greek concept of techné, which was thought
of as a way of revealing and belonged within poiēsis. In considering the relationship between
Education and technology, therefore, we should resist the danger of modern technology enframing
students, teachers and knowledge as a ‘standing reserve’ to be processed, and instead consider the
expressive way in which techné can present an alternative educational horizon.
According to Heiddegger, techné is considered as a mode of rendering beings manifest (1998,
259). It opens up a world, keeps it abidingly in force and gathers the unity of relations around itself
(2002, 22). In this way, the pair of shoes in Van Gogh’s painting could emege into the unconcealment
of its being, and the truth happens in the painting. Similiarly, educational techné not only manifests
itself as visible material products, but also discloses the world of education. Education can be in a
concealment and becomes a generative process rather than a presupposed one. For example, tea-
chers’ fascinating speech skills or educational films can create teaching situations, in which students
can grow up individually under tearcher’s inspiration. And thus, such education could represent its
authentic disclosedness by the reference of techné, whose natural thingliness is also revealed by itself.
Education, therefore, can get out shackles of modern technology and enter the realm of clearedness.

Discussion
Introducing perspectives from the philosophy of technology developed by Marx, Heidegger and Ihde
allows educational technology to be understood relationally, rather than on the basis of conventional
substantial thinking. Rather than understanding technology as an independent causal force that has
effects on education, the essence of educational technology can be rethought through a relational
frame that consists of relationships between human-technology, education-technology and
human-education. This offers a new way to frame our understanding of educational technologies,
considering the triangle of relationships among humans, technology and education; there is no
longer any straightforward ‘impact’ in some simple, mechanical way, but instead, purposeful action
and negotiated meanings developed through these relations (see Oliver 2011).
Understanding the essence of educational technology in this way not only changes our theoretical
knowledge, but also has implications for the practical development of educational technology.
In substantial thinking, educational technology is considered as merely a kind of tool, a means to
an end, resulting in simple and mechanical models of the relationship between humans, technology
and education. For example, it is typically taken for granted that the application of technology will
improve students’ learning and educational development (Kirkwood and Price 2014). What the rela-
tional re-framing clarifies, however, is that instead, the application of technology should be con-
sidered as part of – and as contributing to – a cultural and historical context. According to
activity theory, for example, technology should be considered in terms of social settings, and the
whole technological process should be studied, not merely its constituent factors (Oliver 2011).
The practical significance of this for educational technology is that we can no longer justify the
assumption that introducing new technology will make education ‘better’ in some way – or even
that it will work at all. From the perspective of relational thinking, technology cannot spontaneously
meet peoples’ educational needs, but instead invites wider changes. Aspects of this can be seen, for
example, in some versions of instructional design – when broadly conceived, rather than narrowly
16 T. AN AND M. OLIVER

focused on the design of materials. With a broader framing, the design process does not involve just
adding technology in order to cause efficiency, but instead as a kind of intervention which (it is
hoped) ‘transforms the world from its current state to a preferred state’ (Zimmerman, Forlizzi,
and Evenson 2007). Therefore, technology acts as a ‘mediator’ (Ihde 1990) between students and
education, changing the relationship.
This means that educational processes and content can be designed to support new kinds of
relationships between students and technology. As an example of this, virtual worlds, with their
open-ended and dynamic environments, can provide students with the means to construct new
kinds of representations of their knowledge, offering generative possibilities for education. The
design of these virtual technologies therefore needs to draw from the perspective of relational think-
ing, rather than substantial thinking, so that wider questions about the possibilities of open-ended
and dynamic educational uses can be foregrounded rather than ignored in favor of questions
about efficiency. For example, Minocha and Reeves (2010) proposed some principles for the design
of 3D learning spaces that embody the relations among students, pedagogy and learning spaces in
Second Life. As another example, 3D visualizations can enable students to represent knowledge in
new ways. 3D chemical or biological molecular models can help students to understand abstract
molecular structures; this may not only enrich educational meaning but also make the process of
studying more interesting. Historically, Logo provides an interesting example of how technology
can shift the relationship between students and education, offering a way of teaching mathematics
that encouraged embodied forms of thinking and understanding; however, the transformative vision
that designers had for the technology did not simply cause a revolution, but was itself mediated by
the wider socio-historical context, including the influence of school curricula, commercial interests,
national policies, marketing decisions and the influence of other programming languages (Agalianos,
Whitty, and Noss 2006).

Conclusion
Research in educational technology has typically focused on pragmatic questions and on under-
standing the features of new technologies. This has resulted in a limited understanding of what edu-
cational technology is, and contributed to inconsistencies and incoherence in the field. A richer
account can be developed by drawing from discussions within the philosophy of technology. The
work of philosophers such as Marx, Heidegger and Ihde has explored the essence of technology
and the relationships between technology, humans and the world. In this paper, this foundational
thinking has been used to develop a new framework that can be used within educational technology.
The traditional understanding of educational technology has been shaped by ‘substantial think-
ing’; this conforms to common sense, but has important conceptual limits. It frames the relationship
between education and technology as external and mechanical, leading to an emphasis on techno-
logical factors as causes that can overcome perceived problems in educational practice, and resulting
in the alienation of technology and education (Reveley 2013).
Relational thinking, however, provides a more sophisticated account of the relationships between
education and technology. It reframes educational technology as a way of understanding this
dynamic and complex relationship, offering a new perspective on the field. This allows the essence
of educational technology to be understood in terms of the relational triangle outlined in this paper.
This framework draws attention to human-technology, technology-education and education-human
relationships, requiring researchers to ask new kinds of questions about educational uses of technol-
ogy, including wider questions than are typically asked within research in this field, about the pur-
pose of education itself. Specifically, the philosophical work drawn on in this paper suggests that
human-education relationships enable students to ‘become what they are’; students’ subjectivity
should be highlighted, and education thought through in terms of what it means for them. The
human-technology relationships draw attention to the ways in which technology should be
‘handy’, so that it is ready-to-hand in the service of people’s educational needs. At the same time,
 LEARNING, MEDIA AND TECHNOLOGY 17

the idea that technology is an integral part (for good or ill) of what ‘being-in-the-world’ means, raises
important questions about what it means to be human in contemporary society. The education-tech-
nology relationships do imply the conventionally held belief that technology can shape education,
but also gives rise to important new questions about how techné can be applied in education.
Taken together, we can move on from thinking about what technology ‘does’ to education, and
start to think instead what ‘-in-the-world’ technology is, and what this means for the ‘being-in-
the-world’ of learners, teachers, and also educational designers and researchers.
Unless we as researchers and designers think about these relationships differently, we will keep
making the same mistakes in educational technology, expecting new functionality to cause enhance-
ment in some simplistic way. Perspectives from the philosophy of technology, and relational think-
ing in particular, offer new ways to think about the essence of educational technology, and an
opportunity to rethink its practice. Doing so requires us to ask new and wider questions about
the relationship between technology and education, opening new possibilities for research and prac-
tice in educational technology and allow the field to play a more significant role in education.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributors
Tao An is associate professor at School of Smart Education, Jiangsu Normal University, China. From 2015 to 2016, he
was an academic visitor at the UCL Institute of Education, UK. His research interests include the philosophy and dis-
cipline of educational technology.
Martin Oliver is professor of Education and Technology at the UCL Institute of Education, UK. His research interests
include theoretical perspectives on educational technology, and the uses of technology in Higher Education.

ORCID
Tao An http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9140-2210
Martin Oliver http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1836-6257

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