Tetheredness and Technology's Reassembling of the Social in the Classroom

• In Event: Fairmont Roundtable Session Seven
  In Roundtable Session: Foucault and Contemporary Theory (Table 16)

Abstract

This paper explores the implications of technology through the study of personal and educational digital tools and the role they play as mediators between students and in-school and out-of-school socio-cultural discourses. Actor Network Theory (Latour, 2005) was put to work to identify the social arrangements created by the entanglement of humans and technology. Video ethnographic methods (Tobin, 2019) were used during classroom observations to study focal moments in order to curate the network of actors. Findings showed that, when operating in a technology-rich classroom, students were able to engage with technologies that served as tethers between school and social spaces. The concept of the paradox of tetheredness is introduced to describe the social implications of wired and wireless technologies.

Author

• William J. Fassbender, Montana State University
  Presenting Author