This course is the foundation element of the MSc, giving you the opportunity to explore a range of key themes in digital education, and to become familiar with studying online. You will take part in stimulating, confidence-building collaborative activities, which will be backed up with a high level of one-to-one tutor support. The course will give you the chance to engage with digital learning environments and also cover many of the theoretical, political and pedagogical issues which define digital education as a vibrant field of study. You will use a blog to record and reflect on your studies throughout the semester.
This is a double credit course, successful completion of which will gain you 40 credits toward your MSc.
The course is structured according in blocks, each of which covers a theme of current importance to the field. In this way you will get a good sense of the key issues to be developed over the rest of the programme.
Online methods will include moderated small and whole group discussion in synchronous and asynchronous modes, guided reading, reflection, self-directed exploration and hands-on creation. Individual support will be available to students through student blogs and discussion forums. The core platform for delivery will be Blackboard Learn but this is supplemented by various other platforms and applications.
The course is assessed in two ways.
(Private) blog (60% of your final mark)
The idea of the blog is to use it as an online reflective diary across the period of the course – a place where you bring together your various threads of investigation and thought. The blog is intended to be a record of your thinking and development. There is more in the course handbook on the criteria we use to assess blogs. Blogs are generally private between students and their personal blog tutor, though are free to make them open if you choose. The blog tutor provides one-to-one feedback on your blog over the course of the semester.
Assignment (40% of your final mark)
The assignment topic will relate in some way to one of the issues you are introduced to during the course, and there is plenty of scope for crafting topics in an area that fits your personal interests. The form of the written assignment may be experimental or conventional, as you choose.
On completion of the course you will be able to:
- describe the key theoretical and pedagogical issues currently impacting on digital education
- demonstrate advanced knowledge of a range of digital environments for learning
- contextualise your own practice in terms of the key issues emerging from current research in digital education.
Indicative readings are:
Bayne, S. (2026). Digital education imaginaries. in Handbook on Education History, Philosophy and Theory. Edward Elgar Publishing, 355-367. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781035317707.00036
Bayne, S., & Gallagher, M. (2021). Near Future Teaching: Practice, policy and digital education futures. Policy Futures in Education, 19(5), 607-625. https://doi.org/10.1177/14782103211026446
Komljenovic, J. (2021). The rise of education rentiers: Digital platforms, digital data and rents. Learning, Media and Technology, 46(3), 320-332. https://doi-org.eux.idm.oclc.org/10.1080/17439884.2021.1891422
Ross, J 2025, 'Stories from the future of lifelong learning: Fiction, technology and speculative pedagogies', Learning, Media and Technology, 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2025.2591697
Ruiz, N, Gallagher, M & Najjuma, R 2025, 'Postdigital science and education and the majority world', Postdigital Science and Education, 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-025-00545-0