RESEARCH Open Access Pedagogic dilemmas to flows of knowledge in the age of digital technology Ángel San Martín Alonso 1* and Ángel García del Dujo 2 * Correspondence: asanmart@uv.es 1 Departamento de Didáctica y Organización Escolar, Avda. Blasco Ibáñez 30, 46010 Valencia, Spain Full list of author information is available at the end of the article Abstract The main purpose of this paper is to argue why we adopted the socio-technical system as a heuristic device. We understand it is a good methodological resource to interpret what is happening in education systems with the progressive introduction of digital technologies, helping us to understand the changes that are occurring, and documented here, concomitant with the technological innovation, also involved political factors and economic modeling ending the “new education”. Keywords: Pedagogy, Socio-technical system, School management, Internet Introduction: the internet and the pedagogy without rules There are two narrative resources which have become recurring arguments of irrefut- able authority in many reflections on education. One of them is the allusion to the controversial PISA reports and the other one is the reference to the transforming impact of information technology. Moreover, they are usually linked to each other so that their authority is strengthened. However, even though they are usually resorted to, the deeper meaning of the complex relationship between technology and education is not evident. Nevertheless, the two of them are common topics due to the fact that both offer surprising results and, above all, because both initiatives have become a strategic factor for the neoliberalism in contemporary societies (Allen & Light, 2015; OECD, 2015a). One of the consequences of the aforementioned relationship is the fact that the edu- cational institution is progressively losing its monopoly and responsibilities to educate and teach young generations. This loss is strengthened by the intensive transfer of technology with innovative purposes every time teaching practices are patterned by a technical system, especially during the last two decades (García & San Martín, 2014). For this article, this system is adopted as a methodological resource in order to explain and reflect on what is happening in education. In any case, if previously the school followed Fordism, it now has to follow what is called “fabricación digital” (Fundación Telefónica, 2014, see “Bits and Atoms”). It will be necessary to be prepared so that teaching is not reduced to a simple instruction or what would be worse, to training. This article will not focus on to what extent information technology is involved as an “object” or “medium” for teaching. These aspects are already common in literature. The focus will be, however, on analysing the room left for pedagogy by technologies when teaching itself becomes a part of the design and development of an important © 2016 The Author(s). Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. San Martín Alonso and García del Dujo International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education (2016) 13:26 DOI 10.1186/s41239-016-0030-1