Issue 5.1 Social media for learning and teaching in higher education
Edited by Kathy Chandler and Katy Jordan
This special issue continues from the 11th International Social Media for Learning in Higher Education conference. The theme for the 2025 conference was “Blue skies and green shoots: Thriving in uncertain times”. The social media landscape has seen considerable upheaval in recent years, with familiar spaces becoming subject to shifting social and political dynamics. Our sense of identity and community have been common threads throughout the history of the conference - how has this affected us and our ways of working as learners, educators and scholars in higher education? Where have we found places to take root, and grow, in response to the changing environment?
This call provides an opportunity for conference presenters to submit papers based on their conference participation.
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Issue 5.2 Redefining the practice of teaching and learning
Edited by Philip McCarthy, Sebah Al-Ali and Theron Muller
The integration of digital technologies into higher education has long been marked by cycles of enthusiasm, concern, and uncertainty. This pattern emerged with computers (Brady, 1990), search engines (O’Hanlon, 1999; Walster, 1997), social media (Alexander, 2006), and now generative AI. While these tools initially appear disruptive and raise conflicts between established traditions and necessary innovation, they urge us to critically examine long-standing beliefs and assumptions about how educators teach, how students learn, how researchers work, and how disciplinary fields evolve. The tools also question our understanding of expertise, craft, creativity, and scholarly judgment. Despite many efforts over the years to resolve these tensions and questions, emerging technologies such as GenAI repeatedly spark the same debates and emphasize the need for ongoing critical reevaluation of teaching, learning, assessment, research, and disciplines in higher education.
This Special Issue focuses on how digital technologies actively reshape, constrain, or transform teaching and learning practices, professional identities, institutional systems and governance structures, and the boundaries of scholarly disciplines themselves in higher education settings.
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Issue 5.3 Activity theory in technology enhanced learning research (part 3)
Edited by Brett Bligh and Philip Moffitt
Activity theory (sometimes known as Cultural Historical Activity Theory, or CHAT) is an established theory widely used in technology enhanced learning research, as well as in many other fields of enquiry. It is a mature theory with a rich history, yet it is still under active development by many scholars internationally. It is particularly interesting to technology enhanced learning researchers because it foregrounds the concept of mediation, and in doing so positions the role of ‘technologies’ as central to everything that humans do. Within educational research, activity theory is often valued for its ability to grasp the dynamics of complex social situations and understand phenomena in context. Yet its dense terminology and long history of debate can seem unforgiving for newcomers.
This special issue will consider the use of activity theory within technology enhanced learning research. It will collect together a range of papers describing research endeavours that use activity theory to understand how social and cultural contexts are crucial for how technology is used in practice.
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