Digital technology is expected to change education systems, and discussions around the nature of this change have started to move beyond technocentrism or unfounded optimism, to focus on the nuances of integrating digital technology into the education system. Many applications and studies of digital media in education, however, either augment and reinforce text-based practices or replicate them on digital platforms. 

Theoretical perspectives from cognitive science, psychology and anthropological studies suggest that our minds are so intertwined with media in our cognition that the term ‘intra-action’ helps better express their co-constituted nature. Text has also been fundamental in shaping our conceptual and bureaucratic structures. The textual medium is thus foundational to our learning systems, both cognitively and institutionally.

The introduction of digital media is, therefore, not merely a matter of substituting one medium of communication with another. New features in digital media are fundamentally altering our relationships with each other and with knowledge systems. Simultaneous consideration of how various bodies in the educational ‘assemblage’ – learning spaces, administrative bureaucracies, and conceptual systems – might be affected, will help policymakers, practitioners and researchers guide the complex reassembling of the educational network, from its text-based foundations to more digitally rooted institutions