Share Paper: Reconceptualizing technology as a social tool: A secondary school student case study

  1. Karley Beckman, University of Wollongong, Australia
  2. Sue Bennett, University of Wollongong, Australia
  3. Lori Lockyer, Macquarie University, Australia

Abstract: This paper asserts that technology is an innately social tool and that the field of educational technology can benefit from research with a sociological framing. The study reported on in this paper adopts Bourdieu’s sociological concepts to conceptualize and understand students’ technology practices. This paper reports in detail on one case from the multiple embedded case study, which aimed to investigate the broader milieu of students’ technology practices. The findings from this case demonstrate how the student’s technology practices were inextricably linked to the social contexts in which they occurred and how these social contexts shaped the student’s perceptions and ...