Journal of Information Technology and Application in Education Vol. 1 Iss. 4, December 2012 173 In Their Own Words: A Digital Account of Innovative Scholarship in Education Karyn Cooper 1 & Robert E. White 2 1 Faculty of Education, University of Toronto, 252 Bloor Street West, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 1V6 2 Faculty of Education, St. Francis Xavier University, P.O. Box 5000, Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada, B2G 2W5 1 karyn.cooper@utoronto.ca; 2 rwhite@stfx.ca Abstract The qualitative paradigm of educational research continues to incorporate fast‐evolving technologies to improve and bolster interpretive approaches. The use of modern digital technology, combined with scholar autobiographies, serves as an example of an innovative method that can be used to delve into significant educational issues. Drawing upon video interviews with distinguished scholars such as Professors Elliot Eisner, Clifford Geertz, Henry Giroux, Maxine Greene, William Pinar, and Max Van Manen, this digital account highlights the innovative scholarship of these renowned researchers whose work has been used to improve education and to serve the public good. Challenges associated with modern digital technology are also addressed. Keywords Education; Scholarship; Autobiography; Innovation; Technology Investing in education: The role of autobiography More than ever before, matters of diversity, equity and inclusion have become commonly acknowledged social issues in the pluralistic milieu of the 21 st century. Consequently, there has been a renewed focus on these issues in this postcolonial era through policy, education and research initiatives [1]. Given that society has invested extensively in social structures such as education to assist in resolving social problems relating to matters of diversity, equity and inclusion, research efforts employed to investigate topics and related issues have become of paramount importance in the realm of education. Therefore, in the past several decades, qualitative research in education has experienced an explosion of new methods and methodologies that endeavour to address the messy, complex and dynamic nature of life in the postmodern context within which we live. For example, some of these include such new and wide‐ranging methods and methodologies as arts‐ based research [2, 3, 4], visual ethnography [5], narrative research [6] and phenomenological research [7]. In addition, numerous tomes on educational research (e.g., [8]) and significant textbooks such as the Handbook of Qualitative Research [9, 10, 11, 12], Hermeneutics and Education [13] and Poststructuralism and Educational Research [14] overlap and interpenetrate a variety of themes and issues that cut across these perspectives. The field of education has spent many decades drawing its conceptual and methodological theories in qualitative research from other social disciplines such as anthropology, philosophy, psychology and sociology. Religious studies and history have also contributed to principles of qualitative theories and methodologies in education. These disciplines within the social sciences and humanities are richly adorned with (auto) biographical and historical works. Where would we be without Freud’s accounts of his own dreams, or Durant’s The Story of Philosophy [15] for instance? But, in qualitative research, autobiography is more than an object of historical record: it is an essential component of the research process. Perhaps it is simply because the discipline of education has matured relatively lately, it has reaped the benefits of this incubation and is now able to return “borrowed” conceptual and methodological theories in qualitative research from other social disciplines and present them in new and evolving ways. It is telling that, every few years, yet another handbook on qualitative methods in education appears. What seems to be missing with regards to the evolution and development of research methodologies and approaches in education is an historical perspective. In this regard, it is important to