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Technology has dominated discourse on the future university and how digital technologies disrupting wider societal activities can be leveraged in higher education. To gain an insight into UK institutional perspective on technology adoption in teaching and learning and visions for the future, two corpora of text are analysed: Teaching Excellence Framework statements (n = 88) and university strategy documents (n = 88), totalling 1, 129, 736 words. Quantitative empirical analysis reveals that institutions write about how they 'use' technology for teaching and learning. Interpretative analysis found that technology is 'used' as an end in itself as well as a means for specific ends (such as assessment and feedback and flexible learning). Using concepts from science and technology studies and philosophy of technology, these perspectives are theorised as instrumentalist, substantivist and essentialist and problematised when viewing technology in education as apolitical, neutral and inevitable. Perceived neutrality ignores the many competing ideologies and interests at play. In this context, a dichotomy of 'pedagogy first' or 'technology-led' design is explored. Critical theory of technology is used to bridge these binary discourses which are described as reductive in a complex sociotechnical university assemblage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The lament that ‘students can’t write’ remains loud and defiant, even after years of research pointing to the myriad factors that make students’ writing challenging, particularly when they move into university. This paper reports on a longitudinal, ethnographic study which explored students’ writing ‘in transition’, from A-levels to university in the UK, through the critical lens offered by the academic literacies conceptual framing. This paper offers critical analysis of the ways that students, teachers and institutions position writing at A-level and university, exploring the assumptions and beliefs that underpin their understandings and practices using Ivanič’s framework of discourses of writing. The analysis proposes that the centrality of assessment in the treatment of language at both levels creates an ‘assessment discourse of writing’, which originates in school, and becomes a defining and restrictive frame for students’ writing as they move into higher education. The analysis further suggests that assessment is the principal cause for the students’ challenges with adapting to the writing requirements of university. Moreover, assessment is used as a metalanguage for discussing writing at A-levels, and can become an unhelpful ‘anchor of continuance’ for students as they move into university. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]