Written By: Paulina Rikala, Minna Ylönen, Panu Forsman, Susanna Paloniemi, Tommi Kärkkäinen & Raija Hämäläinen

Abstract: Digital agency is an emerging concept in research on technology use in education, social inclusion, and working life, yet its conceptual fragmentation calls for synthesis. To address this gap, we conducted a rapid hybrid systematic-narrative review of 42 studies, identified using the search terms “digital agency,” “transformative digital agency,” and “technological agency” in Dimensions.ai and Google Scholar, supplemented by snowball sampling strategies. The review addressed three questions: What is the current state of research on digital agency? How is digital agency interpreted through concepts like digital agency, transformative digital agency, and technological agency? In which contexts of study has digital agency been examined? First, the review revealed that research on digital agency is growing but lacks conceptual coherence. Second, digital agency is understood through three overlapping concepts: digital agency, transformative digital agency, and technological agency. Each emphasizes a slightly different focus. Nevertheless, collectively, they describe individuals’ capacity to act, adapt, and influence in digital environments shaped by sociotechnical conditions and an understanding of technology and its impacts. These concepts highlight the mindset—digital competence, confidence, and accountability—that motivates or inhibits technology use. Third, digital agency has been studied in education, social inclusion, and work, often as a situational and individual phenomenon. This study synthesizes these perspectives into a multilayered framework and an integrated definition that encompasses conceptual, individual, situational, and sociotechnical dimensions, offering a foundation for future research.

Keywords: digital agency, hybrid systematic-narrative review, multilayered digital agency framework, rapid review, transformative digital agency, technological agency

Written by: Bonnie Stewart & Thu Thi Kim Le

Abstract: What does belonging mean in a learning context, in this globalized digital age? What practices – what combination of pedagogical, institutional, and cultural elements – can help foster an individual’s sense of being part of something bigger than themselves, educationally? And how do socio-material principles and approaches of digital belonging align with the literature on belonging as a placed and relational experience? The article explores how belonging as a signifier is shifting in contemporary Higher Education, risking weaponization and neutralization of the term. The paper offers a critical theorization of the terms belonging and State of Belonging (SoB), synthesizing how the concepts are framed and understood across axes of identity, culture, disciplinary field, and learning modality, through multiple theoretical lenses. The aim of the paper is to make visible the various ways in which SoB operates in the complex digital environments of higher education, with emphasis on how the concept consistently refers to relational connections and power relations, no matter the context.

Keywords: belonging, state of belonging, higher education, digital learning, participatory learning, place-based learning, topologies, relationality, weaponization

Written by: Gila Hammer Furnes

Abstract: In a culture where children witness cruelty, grief, and injustice on their screens before breakfast—often without an adult to hold what they have seen—this essay reclaims moral presence as a pedagogical condition. Drawing on Lévinas, Buber, Todd, Biesta, and Ellsworth, it introduces Hineni—the Hebrew phrase meaning “Here I am”—as an ethical stance of availability that precedes instruction, autonomy, or deliberation. In contrast to dominant models of moral development that locate ethics in reason, regulation, or curriculum, Hineni reconfigures the child not as a future ethical subject, but as one already present in their trembling response to the world. Situated at the intersection of digital culture, ethical phenomenology, and critical pedagogy, the essay resists calls for digital resilience and instead frames education as a space of mutual presence. It argues that pedagogy must not merely protect the child, but stay with them—in their silence, uncertainty, and proximity to harm. To teach ethically in a digital age, it suggests, is not to command response, but to echo it.

Keywords:Hineni, moral education, digital culture, ethical responsiveness, critical pedagogy

Image: "Hineni" by Howard J Duncan is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Written by: Brent Lucia

Abstract: This paper analyzes Apple’s Vision Pro promotional video to show how rhetoric shapes the way audiences understand technology and space. Using spatial theory—particularly Henri Lefebvre’s framework for the production of space and Edward Soja’s concept of “third space”—the study offers a rhetorical case analysis of Apple’s introduction of “spatial computing.” The analysis demonstrates how Apple crafts compelling spatial narratives that blur distinctions between physical and digital environments, work and leisure, and private and public life. Four major themes emerge: the construction of place and identity through exclusive, idealized environments; the crossing of boundaries between material and virtual spaces; the concealment of power and control through language of user choice and agency; and the cultural production of space that reinforces neoliberal norms of productivity. Together, these findings show how Apple’s spatial rhetoric simplifies complex spatial relationships, privileges a digitally elite user, and reframes personal environments as commodified spaces.

Keywords: Apple Vision Pro, Spatial Theory, Space, Power, Enhancements, Control