There Is No 'Virtual Learning': The Materiality of Digital Education

Abstract

Te distinction between face-to-face and distant digitally-mediated educational engagement is a complex one, and the two modes are ofen combined in practice, via ‘blended learning’ or the use of a VLE to support campus-based teaching. Te current Covid-19 pandemic has thrown this distinction into relief, in a context where educationalists have been forced to move to fully distant engagement in a very short timeframe. Tis paper explores how this predicament has brought to the fore the nature of our engagement with digital knowledge practices and screen-based communication, arguing that the notion of‘virtual learning’ is a fawed one. Instead, adopting a sociomaterial perspective, it argues that all aspects of digital engagement are in fact grounded in material and embodied entanglements with devices and other artefacts.