A Special Issue of Studies in Philosophy and Education, co-edited by David Lewin and David Lundie titled ‘Philosophies of Digital Pedagogy’ has just been published.

Featuring an interview with the French philosopher Bernard Stiegler, this special issue draws attention to an emerging field of study, combining the philosophy of technology and information theory, with critical pedagogy and educational philosophy. While virtual learning environments, MOOCs and the like are generating a great deal of interest, it is less clear that they are provoking sufficient pedagogical and philosophical reflection. This is partly because of the widely held assumption that technologies are tools, fundamentally neutral with respect to the purposes for which they are developed or to which they are applied. Tools, so it is assumed, do not in themselves imply a set of commitments, values or any particular way of being. Problematizing this assumption, the papers in this collection address a range of devices, platforms and affordances which stand poised to colonize the educational space. These include the massive open online course, mobile internet-associated technologies such as tablets and smartphones which are now ubiquitous in classrooms, and learning analytics software which promises to measure educational outcomes and efficacies with ever increasing granularity.