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Publication

Researching educational apps: ecologies, technologies, subjectivities and learning regimes

Journal Contribution - Journal Article

Apps are becoming increasingly important in education. However, critical educational research has hardly ever undertaken up-close analyses of educational apps. This article provides an extensive analysis of one ‘learning to code' app called Grasshopper. Drawing from the field of Science and Technology Studies, the article adopts a theoretical framework that situates app analyses at the dimensions of apps' situated ecologies, their platform and algorithmic technologies, the enacted user subjectivities and, as the sum of these previous dimensions, the projected learning regimes. Making use of the methodological entry points of app websites, stores and interfaces, the article makes visible and analyzes the app’s infrastructural settings, actively invokes different app situations, and uses these to advance the inquiry by offering a multidimensional point of view that navigates different scalar dimensions of educational apps. In doing so, the article examines learning to code through its concrete sociomaterial practices, and the specific pedagogies and sorts of education that are employed in order to bring about such learning.
Journal: Learning, Media & Technology
ISSN: 1743-9884
Issue: 4
Volume: 44
Pages: 414 - 429
Publication year:2019
BOF-keylabel:yes
IOF-keylabel:yes
BOF-publication weight:3
CSS-citation score:2
Authors from:Higher Education
Accessibility:Open