EdTech as an Empowering Tool: Designing Digital Learning Environments to Extend the Action Space for Learning and Foster Digital Agency

Abstract

Educational Technology (EdTech) can be both empowering or constraining depending upon the underpinning design. Drawing from the experiments conducted as part of a large scale EdTech intervention in India, this paper shares qualitative findings on designing digital learning environments (DLE) as tools that empower the learner. Building upon the literature on digital agency and microworlds, the first section propounds that for EdTech to become an empowering tool the design of EdTech should expressly cultivate a learner’s digital agency and extend the action space for learning. While digital agency encompasses aspects of competence, confidence and accountability; the action space for learning (ASL) is defined as a cognitive-pedagogic construct where learners operate. Subsequently, the paper outlines the key characteristics of EdTech that empowers, and shares research findings. It was found that when DLEs are thoughtfully designed to provide a manipulable action space in a microworld where learners can own the dynamics of the environment through variables and controls, then a learner’s digital agency is fostered through the extended possibilities of ASL.