Incommensurate practices: sociomaterial entanglements of learning technology implementation

The framing of “implementation” of learning technologies in universities can have profound effects on approaches to teaching and learning that may be insufficiently acknowledged by practitioners. This paper investigates a case that demonstrated the formation of strong connections between technology and pedagogy, in which a learning content management system (LCMS) called for a series of accommodations between technology work and academic work. The site for this study was the mesolevel: those practitioners working in-between academics and institutional learning technologies, and draws on the accounts of practice by learning technologists during this implementation. The discussion of practice that emerges from these accounts draws on sociomaterial perspectives (Fenwick, 2010) to draw attention to the contingencies of particular connections during the implementation process. This study does not assume that the work of implementation follows naturally from plans and intentions of human actors, rather, it investigates actual arrangements and the entangled practices that bring significant unintended consequences. The findings suggest the need to attend to the potential for conflicting practices when system technologies become a key component of e-learning, and I argue for implementation to be scoped early to encompass pedagogical goals, and for interventions by learning technologists and teaching academics over all the social, material and discursive factors that are critical to e-learning practice.