In this contribution, I would like to conceptualize the “learnification” of online education in order to explore the question: “what are the conceptual potentialities of existential media studies for providing a new understanding of online education?”. The main aim of this contribution is to provide a preliminary frame of reference to assist in developing such a new understanding.

Biesta (2010) argues that nowadays, there is a propensity of  “learnification” of education in both educational theory and policy. Using this term, Biesta refers to reducing education to learning, which reflects a loss of importance of some critical aspects of educational processes, phenomena, and experiences. One of these losses is an instrumentalization of education, i.e., understanding education as some kind of economic transaction, as mere information transfer to be optimized through scientific research and technological development.

To oppose this reduction, I lean on the post-critical movement in philosophy of education. This framework proposes to think education beyond any political or economic goal, speaking – therefore – of education for its own sake (Hodgson, Vlieghe & Zamojski, 2017). That being the case, some immanent educational practices and experiences must be reaffirmed, such as sharing love for the world, showing newcomers that there is a common world, drawing attention to things that matter, among others (Vlieghe, 2022). This affirmative stance is connected with the potential of opening new educational realities and, new horizons of action that can be acknowledged and meaningfully interpreted through the educator's practice (Zamojski, 2015). 

The first objective is to distinguish between online learning and online education. I will treat the former as the pursued efficient transfer of chunks of information, skills, and competencies through digital technology. On the other hand, online education should refer to the technologically mediated practices of, e.g., discovering new aspects of the world, aspects that matter and that one may come to love (Vlieghe, 2022). Transposing Biesta’s (2010) discussion to the online modality, I want to indicate that online education is reduced to online learning.

The second objective is to explore the potential of digital technologies to support a genuine online education. Influential philosophical pieces on online education (e.g., Dreyfus, 2009; Friesen, 2011; Vlieghe, 2022) highlight the limitations embedded in this modality. Analyzing these arguments, I reduce them to two aspects that are arguably necessary for education following the post-critical tradition: the creation of a dedicated time and space for educational experiences, which I call the issue of temporospatiality  (Masschelein & Simons, 2013; Vlieghe & Zamojski, 2019), and a lack of control that allows education a certain extent of spontaneity, of something new coming to happen, i.e., risk in education (Biesta, 2014).

The third objective is to counter such a standpoint by turning to the field of existential media studies. Lagerkvist (2017) proposes an investigation of our digitally mediated life by focusing on our experience while existing online. This approach shows that nothing essentially neglects the risk and temporospatiality while living online. On the contrary, Lagerkvist highlights the struggles and vulnerability of being thrown into such a reality. Moreover, Markham (2020) emphasizes the specificity of being captured in a particular place and time while navigating through the digital world.

Finally, the fourth objective is to draw some directions of future philosophical research on online education in a framework beyond “learnification.” Educative experiences that emerge during online life beyond formalized educational practices can be identified. After this identification, its essential aspects can be singled out, and the possibilities of their formalization, to some extent, can be experimented with. Two directions are singled out for such research: empirical and phenomenological.

The primary methodology of this work is based on literature review, both primary and secondary sources. The essay proposes a dialogue between contemporary philosophy of education, research on online education, and the emergent field of existential media studies. Furthermore, the diagnosis of the current reduction of online education into online learning will be achieved by analyzing the scientific discourse and EU policy about online education. The former will be represented by the “Research anthology on developing effective online learning courses” (Information Resources Management Association, 2021). Two pieces of EU document will be explored, the 2016 OpenEdu framework (Fucci, 2018) and the 2021-2027 Digital Education Action Plan (European Comission, 2020).

The expected outcomes can be summarized as (1) the diagnosis of online education as online learning and its consequences, (2) the introduction of the topic of online education to the field of existential media studies, (3) opening up new horizons for a genuine online education taking the issues of risk and temporospatiality into close consideration, (4) a clear proposal for future philosophical research on online education. Hopefully, this essay will encourage further research attempting to identify and explore educative experiences that emerge while living online. Moreover, developing more formalized educational guidelines and projects based on these experiences is a significant action dimension that can reveal more precise paths towards overcoming the instrumentalization of online education.

Biesta, G. (2010). Good education in an age of measurement: Ethics, politics, democracy. Boulder, Co: Paradigm Publishers. Biesta, G. (2014). The beautiful risk of education. Boulder/London: Paradigm Publishers. Dreyfus, H. L. (2009). On the internet (2nd ed). Routledge. European Union, European Commission. (2020). COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT, THE COUNCIL, THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COMMITTEE AND THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS. Digital Education Action Plan 2021-2027. Resetting education and training for the digital age. (Document 52020DC0624). Retrieved from: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal- content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A52020DC0624 Friesen, N. (2011). The place of the classroom and the space of the screen. Peter Lang (New York & Bern) Fucci, M. (2018, September 28). OpenEdu Framework and guidelines. EU Science Hub - European Commission. https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/en/open-education/framework-guidelines Hodgson, N., Vlieghe, J., & Zamojski, P. (2017). Manifesto for a post-critical pedagogy. Goleta: Punctum Books. Information Resources Management Association (Ed.). (2021). Research anthology on developing effective online learning courses. IGI Global. Lagerkvist, A. (2017). Existential media: Toward a theorization of digital thrownness. New Media & Society, 19(1), 96–110. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444816649921 Markham, T. (2020). Digital Life. John Wiley & Sons Masschelein, J., & Simons, M. (2013). In Defence of the school. A public issue. Leuven: E-ducation Culture & Society Pub. Vlieghe, J. (2022). Sharing Love for a Common World On and Off Screen. A Pedagogical and Technocentric Account. Journal of New Approaches in Educational Research, 11(1), 1-14. doi: 10.7821/naer.2022.1.855 Vlieghe, J., & Zamojski, P. (2019). Towards an Ontology of Teaching Thing-centred Pedagogy, Affirmation and Love for the World. Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16003-6 Zamojski, P. (2015). Philosophy for Education – an attempt at exercise in thought. Kwartalnik pedagogiczny, 235(1), 127-151.