Designing for reciprocity
Participatory online professional learning after platformization
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21785485 |
|---|---|
| Authors | T Philip Nichols (0000-0002-8648-1276, Baylor University, corresponding author), Rachelle Meyer Rogers (0000-0002-5980-5634, Baylor University), Kuel Chung (0009-0006-4962-3366, Baylor University) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Pages | 1-15 |
| Publication date | 2026-05-28 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Learning Media and Technology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1743-9884 • E-ISSN: 1743-9892 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/17439884.2026.2680171 |
| OpenAlex | W7162808564 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 50 |
Early accounts of educational platforms celebrated their potential to revolutionize professional learning through ‘participatory culture,’ enabling teachers to share resources, gain knowledge from peers, and build professional identities. However, research on platformization has shown how platforms’ technical architectures and commercial interests often, in practice, narrow instructional expertise and convert peer networks into markets. This article reports findings from a design-based research study that applied insights from platform studies to co-design of a free, resource-sharing platform with educators and developers. Data sources include surveys, interviews, focus groups, and fieldnotes on the iterative design process. Findings center on ‘reciprocal design’ as both a process and a value. First, reciprocity was central to negotiating competing stakeholder needs (instructional requirements, technical constraints, material costs) during platform development. Second, reciprocity functioned as a professional value that participants sought to embed in the platform’s design itself. The study demonstrates the potential for educators and developers to forge participatory practices that avoid the extractive tendencies of platformization, leading toward technologies that prioritize the needs of educators and students over commercial imperatives
Citizen journalism · Educational technology · Electronic learning · Experiential learning · Higher education · Professional development · Professional learning community · Qualitative research · Teaching method · Technology integration · Digital Education and Society · Educational Theory and Curriculum Studies · Innovative Education and Learning Practices
The Culture of Connectivity
The Platform Economy
Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture
The Platform Society
The dark side of information
Design-Based Research Methods for Studying Learning in Context
Informal online communities and networks as a source of teacher professional development
Behind the Scenes of Co-designing AI and LA in K-12 Education
Co-design as a Networked Approach to Designing Educational Futures
We need a curricular cooperative
Critical and participatory design in-between the tensions of daily schooling
Introduction
The education influencer
Issues of quality on Teachers Pay Teachers
Teachers on the market
A Decade of Research on K–12 Teaching and Teacher Learning with Social Media
Teachers beware and vet with care
Platform Studies in Education
Distracting, Erasing, and Othering
How and Why Educators Use Twitter
Infoglut
Infrastructure studies meet platform studies in the age of Google and Facebook
Seeing the forest for the trees
Speculative Capture
Instructional Advice and Information Providing and Receiving Behavior in Elementary Schools
Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes, Second Edition
The politics of 'platforms
Smart mobs
Visualising the school
The Constant Comparative Method of Qualitative Analysis
The Platformization of the Web
Focus, Fiddle, and Friends
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |