Coffee with a Friend Who Asked Me What I’m Reading in Ed Tech These Days

Here's my list.

1 minute read

We had turmeric lattes (who knew there was such a thing) and avocado toast (that I knew) at a cafe. My friend asked what I’ve read recently that’s interesting in the ed tech space. I rattled off a few titles but didn’t do the question justice. Here’s what I would have shared with a little more forethought, in no particular order:

Distrusting Educational Technology: Critical Questions for Changing Times by Neil Selwyn | A thoroughly informed skeptical exploration of the value of technology in education.
Beyond Technology: Children’s Learning in the Age of Digital Culture by David Buckingham | A sweeping examination of the influence of media on learning.
Big Data in Education: The Digital Future of Learning, Policy and Practice by Ben Williamson | A systematic presentation of the role of data in education, with particular attention paid to how market-driven values can undermine the higher purposes (and ethics) of education.
Digital Difference: Perspectives on Online Learning by Sian Bayne | A thoughtful and compelling review of online learning in its current and potentially future state.
Researching a Posthuman World: Interviews with Digital Objects by Catherine Adams and Terrie Lynn Thompson | A required reading for anyone who wants to better understand the human influences that make digital technologies what they are.
Coding Literacy: How Computer Programming is Changing Writing by Annette Vee | A bad-ass case for understanding coding as itself a composition practice, which could shift whole paradigms in K-12 CS education if taken seriously.
The Philosophy of Software: Code and Mediation in the Digital Age by David Berry | An accessible and wickedly intelligent study of the very nature of software itself (spoiler: software is a humanly constructed, often invisible, and thoroughly imperfect linguistic construct)