Within, without, and amidst: A review of literacy educators’ perceptions of participatory media technologies

With strict no-cell phone policies in classrooms becoming commonplace, national and international electioneering campaigns eroding trust in social media platforms, and content posted years prior affecting students’ acceptance into the colleges of their choice, it is little wonder that educators often think twice about bringing participatory technologies into their instruction. This literature review seeks to address how literacy educators reckon with the risks and potentials of these participatory technologies in the midst of our current sociopolitical climate, through an examination of an array of factors and influences that shape and give rise to educators’ understandings of participatory technologies’ place in 21st-century education. The hope is that doing so will help delineate a clearer problem space for future investigation into the relationships between teacher perceptions, participatory technologies, and educational transformation.