Sticky edtech: enacting postdigital platform realities in lower secondary schools

Abstract

This article addresses the micropolitics of platformisation by exploring the affective dynamics between students, devices, and digital platforms in two lower secondary schools in the Nordic countries. Platformisation is at the core of contemporary edtech, constituting a central phenomenon of postdigital schooling. Yet, much remains unknown regarding student experiences of the ubiquitous hybridity in mundane school settings. We conceptualise ‘sticky edtech’ and analyse students’ affective experiences of engaging with devices and digital platforms. By analysing video-stimulated focus group discussions, we propose three modes of stickiness that illuminate how postdigital platform realities are enacted at schools: sticky device ownership, sticky infrastructures, and sticky data. Findings illustrate the underlying material care and maintenance practices that enable platformed edtech use, and hence, the research attends to the ambiguity of postdigital schooling.