Students often multitask with technologies such as computers, laptops, tablets and smartphones during class. Unfortunately, numerous empirical studies firmly establish a significant drop in academic performance caused by this media multitasking. In this paper it is argued that cognitive studies may have clarified the negative consequences of this activity, yet they struggle to address the processes involved in it. A cognitive characterization of attention as a mental phenomenon neglects the interaction between bodies and technologies, and it is suggested that a (...) postphenomenological understanding is necessary to account for the materiality of practice. Notions of embodied habits and technical mediation are introduced, and an example of a postphenomenological account of media multitasking is introduced. It is argued that this approach enables researchers to investigate media multitasking as it occurs in everyday educational practice. (shrink)

There is a surge of attempts to draw out the epistemological consequences of views according to which cognition is deeply embedded, embodied and/or extended. The principal machinery used for doing so is that of analytic epistemology. Here I argue that Dewey's pragmatic epistemology may be better fit to the task. I start by pointing out the profound similarities between Dewey's view on cognition and that emerging from literature of more recent date. Crucially, the benefit of looking at Dewey is that (...) Dewey, unlike contemporary writers, also devises a corresponding epistemology. I then identify two senses in which contemporary analytic epistemology conflicts with e-cog—concluding from that the superiority of the Deweyian framework, at least as it concerns accommodating e-cog. (shrink)

In this paper I highlight the significance of Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s contribution to the study of teacher learning. I particularly draw on his notion of embodiment to show that professional knowledge is embodied knowledge and that teachers make sense of their professional world through their embodied action. I contrast my interpretation with a professional learning model that has been influential in Canada, the US, the UK, Australia and other countries. I suggest that policy makers interested in education reform initiatives would benefit (...) from interrogating the nature of professional practices in education. (shrink)