Boundaries in Formal Education and the Role of Technology in Breaking Them

Abstract

This conceptual paper presents a framework for understanding how technology can help transform formal education by blurring five foundational boundaries: time and space, knowledge, pedagogy, hierarchy, and community. It is grounded in the interactions between technology and key schooling components, namely, learners, instructors, peers, and content, and promotes thinking about technology integration in schools not merely as instrumental, but as a driver for educational change. We apply the framework to three reported cases of technology integration in different educational contexts, analyzing each in terms of its potential to disrupt traditional boundaries. Through this analysis, we illustrate how certain uses of technology may enable deeper pedagogical shifts and foster more equitable, flexible, and collaborative learning settings. This illustrates the power of the proposed framework in allowing a nuanced understanding of technology integration, and the entanglement of pedagogy and technology for meaningful changes to occur. The paper concludes with recommendations for educators, policymakers, researchers, and designers seeking to promote boundary-blurring innovation. Ultimately, we advocate for a shift in discourse—from using technology to optimize education, to using it to reimagine its foundational structures.

1. Introduction

In a scene in the movie The Princess Bride (Reiner, 1987), Inigo Montoya, one of the main characters, nonchalantly looks at Vizzini, an antagonist in the movie, when the latter wonders again, “Inconceivable!”, and says: “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means”. This line humorously captures a serious problem with educational technology, that is, the frequent use of terms like “innovation” to describe practices that, after a close examination, can be understood as merely digitize traditional models. For example, consider video lectures that replace in-person lectures, or grading algorithms that substitute teacher feedback. In many cases of integrating technology into teaching and learning, the underlying structures remain unchanged, leaving no room for a foundational change that represents technology’s true potential in education. For such a transformation to happen, we need to challenge the very boundaries that structure teaching and learning.

The term “boundary” has been mostly used in education research in the context of individual learning, specifically of individuals who are required to implement knowledge they had acquired in one context in a different one. In that sense, a boundary is a “socio-cultural difference leading to discontinuity in action or interaction” (Akkerman & Bakker, 2011, p. 133). Boundaries exist between different contexts, and individuals should cross them as they transition between those contexts. This is a horizontal view of learning—rather than a vertical, developmental perspective—and it is clearly exemplified in Engeström et al.’s (1995) notion of polycontextuality. However, even before individuals are expected to cross boundaries between contexts that lead to discontinuity, they are bound to various restrictions in the original context that limit their learning experience. Specifically, we are interested in the case of formal education.

Formal education systems and learning processes have been traditionally characterized by various boundaries, from place to pedagogy to technology to culture (Erstad & Silseth, 2023). Blurring boundaries in education has been therefore part of the educational discourse in contexts of both criticism and innovation. For example, scholars have criticized the rigid organization of school spaces, which have been linked to issues of power and identity, as well as schools’ lack of associations with out-of-school communities, which have raised societal and cultural questions (Collins & Coleman, 2008). Innovation-wise, a few striking examples help us explicitly link boundary blurring and growth: when the impressive growth story of the Western Governors University (Millcreek, UT, USA)—from 33 to 1581 graduates within 4 years—was presented, it was framed in the blurring of physical, temporal, social, and pedagogical boundaries (Eastmond, 2007); when the positive impact of massive open online courses (MOOCs) in extending accessibility was emphasized, it was framed again with the blurring of the same boundaries (Loeckx, 2016); and the very idea of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education has been proposed as a boundary blurring between different subject matters (Pitt, 2009).

In the context of this paper, a boundary of an educational setting should be thought of as a restriction that foundationally limits learning or teaching in this setting. Therefore, blurring such boundaries may be considered not just as an enabler for more effective learning or teaching, but rather as a driver for new ways of learning and teaching. However, in discussing such boundaries, we found no updated framework that is focused on enhancing learning and teaching. The closest framework can be found in Dolan’s (1994) call for restructuring schools. Apropos criticism, Dolan sketches the boundaries in the context of a desired change in the education system—specifically, in the case of the USA—while explicitly defining six boundaries. All but one of Dolan’s boundaries consist of education stakeholders, namely, Board of Education, administration, unions, staff, students, principals, central office, parents and community; the exception is information systems, in the context of assessment and evaluation of the education system operation.

While Dolan’s framework is comprehensive in the sense that it identifies various factors that limit education systems to operate more effectively and efficiently, it calls for a systemic change that is out of reach for individuals within education institutions, hence we found it less applicable for our purpose. An example of a framework that is more closely related to our point of view, i.e., of boundaries that can be more easily blurred by stakeholders within schools, is brought in the recent work of Knain et al. (2025). Knain et al. identify three boundaries of traditional schooling, namely, the disciplinary dimension, the social-relational dimension, and the inter-institutional dimension. Per them, expanding knowledge towards new domains or new associations between existing domains, expanding collaboration and collective agency, or promoting connections between schools—may promote a transformation essential for advancing greater social equity and environmental sustainability. This framing considers some important issues of knowledge, pedagogy, and administrative organization; however, it does not stem from the very notion of teaching and learning, but rather from a societal point of view, hence we feel that it is not wide enough to discuss these issues. While Dolan’s (1994) framework refers to technology in the educational context—albeit in a limited way—Knain et al.’s does not. Therefore, we aim to bridge the existing gap in defining school boundaries by offering an updated framework that stems from a focus on teaching and learning, and particularly refers to the role of technology in these processes.

Life in a technology-rich environment can—and should—lead us to ponder about relationships with our surroundings, and, consequently, about such connections in teaching and learning. In its very core, technology is change, as it is a product of humans’ thinking about change, it changes the way we humans think and operate, and it constantly changes by itself—and this is true also for educational technologies (Spector, 2013; Venn, 1963). Think of the inventions of writing systems or of the printing press—two of the most important knowledge technologies in human history—and how they changed us as learners. Later, the inventions of the home computer and of the Internet changed us again. It is no wonder then that one of the most common frameworks to understand and assess technology integration in teaching and learning is Puentedura’s SAMR, which defines four levels of change (Zamri & Azlan Mohamad, 2025).

Therefore, technology is not merely a tool for educators and learners, but rather a means for change in education that has the potential to modify teaching and learning in ways that will eventually better learners and teachers. Consequently, our focus here is to examine how technology promotes a fundamental transformation of the structures and relationships that define formal education systems. As such, our leading research question is the following: What are the foundational boundaries that characterize formal education systems, and how can technology help in blurring these boundaries?

We address this question in this conceptual paper by drawing on a broad body of research spanning both earlier and more recent scholarship. First, we identify these boundaries, defined within an established framework that describes technology-mediated interactions within schooling contexts. Next, we examine each boundary in detail, describe its characteristics, and suggest ways in which technology can help blur it. Finally, we apply this framework to several case studies to demonstrate its descriptive power. Importantly, we discuss these issues in the context of both K–12 and higher education, covering various facets of formal education, with examples from both levels interwoven throughout our argument. We are fully aware of the substantial differences in teaching and learning perspectives across this wide age span and its different educational contexts; however, for the purposes of discussing boundaries, we believe these differences can reasonably be set aside.

2. Defining Boundaries in Formal Education

To discuss how technology can blur boundaries in schooling, we looked for a comprehensive framework that focuses on technology in this context. We find Vrasidas and Glass’s (2002) useful, as it defines the very interactions of technology with four key elements of teaching and learning: instructor (we will interchangeably use the terms “instructor” and “teacher”), learner, peers, and content. Although it was originally defined to study distance education, we find it highly relevant to many forms of education. Examining the interactions between pairs of these elements, we define relationship-induced spaces, each of which reveals the boundaries present in formal education. For demonstrating the breadth of this framing, we will explicitly state (in parentheses) how each of these boundaries refer to a fundamental question about teaching and learning.

Between the learner and their peers lies the community space, which refers to the members who participate in the learning process (who is learning?). Between the content and the peers lies the knowledge space, which relates to the desired shift from known to unknown that lies at the heart of teaching and learning (what is being learned?); this space is also relevant to the relationship between the content and the learner, however the content-peers seems like a more generalizable relationship once we defined the community space Between the teacher and the content lies the pedagogical space, which pertains to teaching methods (how is it being taught?). Between the learner and the teacher lies the hierarchy space, which defines the relationship between these two seemingly different functions (whose process is it?); this space is also relevant to the relationship between the teacher and the peers, referring to hierarchical structures within the learning community, however we positioned it here as “teacher” and “student” are often perceived as two ends of a learning-related hierarchy in school. All these relationships exist within the broader context of time and space (where and when it is happening?). Two pairs are missing from this analysis, namely, teacher-peers and learner-content. We feel that the knowledge space lies between the learner and the content just as it lies between the learner and the peers, hence we chose the more generalized relationship to define it. Similarly, the hierarchy space lies between the teacher and the peers just as it lies between the teacher and the learner, and here we chose to define it based on the latter as “teacher” and “learner” more strikingly represent two ends of a learning-related hierarchical structure in schools (as we will detail below). See Figure 1, in which we augmented Vrasidas and Glass’s (2002) with our boundary spaces.

Let us put forth our underlying assumption: Breaking these boundaries is beneficial, first and foremost, for learners and to other stakeholders, and therefore may also contribute positively to teachers and instructors. Breaking time and space boundaries has shown to advance student-centered pedagogies, to increase flexibility, and to promote inclusion and access (Eastmond, 2007; Reh & Berdelmann, 2012; Sundgren & Jaldemark, 2016). Breaking knowledge boundaries is evident to promote learning, interest, and meta-cognitive skills (Pitt, 2009; Tonnetti & Lentillon-Kaestner, 2023). Breaking pedagogical boundaries, while using innovative pedagogies like active learning or flipped classroom, contributes to students’ engagement, motivation, and higher-order thinking (Baig & Yadegaridehkordi, 2023; Doolittle et al., 2023). Breaking hierarchy boundaries is to advance student agency and to enhance relationship between education stakeholders (cf. Williams et al., 2024). Finally, breaking community boundaries by situating schools in a broader context than themselves can increase engagement, ownership, and communication within and beyond educational institutions, and can establish different types of collaboration and partnerships (James & St. Leger, 2003; Maier et al., 2017; Peck, 2015). We will now present each of these boundaries, and will suggest how technology can help break them down.

2.1. Time and Space

Time and space are the most well-established boundaries that characterize learning. Since the very formation of modern schooling, at all levels of formal education, each institution has had its own physical location in which students and teachers have gathered—at the same place, at the same time—for students to learn. Both time and space are divided each into its own sub-units that create sub-boundaries. Learning in schools is usually divided into individual time-bound lessons that together form a time-restricted school day, and learning occurs throughout a limited school week. It is also divided into smaller, separated restricted sub-spaces dedicated to different kinds of teaching and learning; these sub-spaces are usually characterized by topic, e.g., Chemistry Lab, Gym, Library; personnel or participants, e.g., a teacher- or student cohort classroom (as accustomed in different countries), a professor’s office; or function, e.g., “Lecture Hall 223”, or Makers’ Lab; at a higher-level, fully separated spaces are dedicated to different groups of students, either by age (elementary, middle, and high-schools are totally different physical entities, and higher education institutions are fully apart from these) or content (think of faculty buildings). Traditionally, time and space boundaries have also characterized vocational and organizational training settings, and even non-formal ones. That is, learning has been most identified with the “when?” and “where?” of it.

It is true that distance learning, which breaks time and space boundaries, has a long history of a few centuries, e.g., via correspondence (Harting & Erthal, 2005), but this has always been the exception that proved the rule. Even today, fully online schools are still relatively rare. For example, a recent report indicates 726 fully online schools within K-12 education in the USA in 2021/2, with about 580 thousand students enrolled in them, which is only about 1% of the total of 54.2 million students that had enrolled that year (Fabina et al., 2023; Miron et al., 2023). In the US higher education system, numbers are slightly higher, with 4.5% of postsecondary institutions offering courses primarily online in 2022 (National Center for Education Statistics, 2023)1. More commonly, time and space boundaries are being blurred, using online learning, as part of standard, brick-and-mortar, schedule-based learning programs (Simunich et al., 2024; Weber & Gay, 2024); this may be explained by that these boundaries are the easiest to break. Take a traditional, teacher-centered lesson and move it from the physical classroom to the online sphere (say, via Zoom), without changing and of its core features—and you already broke space boundaries; take any time-constrained, classroom-situated exam and administer it as a week-long home exam, without changing even a bit of it (suppose you do not care of cheating)—and you immediately broke both space and time boundaries. The ease of breaking time and space boundaries—without necessarily dealing with other boundaries—help formal education institutions operate in emergency situations, as was strikingly demonstrated around the globe after the outbreak of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic.

Different learning configurations can be classified according to how they maintain or break the boundaries of time and space. This is done using a two-by-two matrix model, in which the spatial dimension (columns) includes the values “same place” or “different places,” and the time dimension (rows) includes the values “same time” (synchronous) or “different times” (asynchronous) (Coldeway, 1986). The model is presented in Figure 2.

In the bottom-left cell (same place, same time) is traditional face-to-face classroom instruction, which can be carried out in many ways; even in this configuration, technology can be used to enrich teaching and learning, for example, by using a Kahoot quiz. In the bottom-right cell (different places, same time) is synchronous online learning, such as a class held via Zoom, where instead of meeting in a physical classroom, the instructor and students meet in a virtual classroom. Other configurations that belong to this cell include, for example, remote hosting of experts during class or a remote museum tour using a robot (Chang, 2019); the former can be likened to the experts “coming” to the classroom, and the latter to students “going” to the museum. Also in this cell is the performance of tasks outside the classroom during class time, so that the learning location is not limited to the classroom space; for example, using mobile devices to support language learning via authentic tasks such as, “Go to one of the offices and record a short conversation in which you ask someone there what their favorite food is,” or “Go to the bookshelf in the learning center, find the book […], photograph the story on page 34, and write a paragraph arguing whether you agree or disagree with its message” (Rivers, 2009).

In the top-right cell (different places, different times) are asynchronous online learning configurations, for example, MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses), which are conducted in such a way that learners from around the world, or even from within a single school, self-guide their own learning process in the course (Kim, 2022; Soffer & Cohen, 2015). This cell also includes learning through online discussion groups, or via tasks in which learners are mobile in physical spaces, e.g., for documenting street signs. In the top-left cell (same time, different places) are, e.g., tasks in which students are asked to visit and document a specific site in their free time, or learning under personal guidance, such as in the lecturer’s or teacher’s office or a dedicated learning space.

2.2. Knowledge

Just as teaching in formal education institutions is divided into units and sub-units (and so on) of time and space, it is also divided in terms of knowledge. Primary and secondary schools are divided by grade levels, each of which has their own curricular knowledge to be taught; within each grade-level there are subject matters, and within each subject matter there are smaller units of required knowledge. Higher education institutions are divided into faculties, based on overarching categories of academic disciplines; each faculty is further divided into schools, and schools are divided into departments or study programs. Each of these administrative units has its own body of knowledge, which is more often than not independent of others’. Knowledge domains defined by different study programs in higher education are generally isolated from one another, and same goes for subject matters taught in schools. Of course, there are many cases of combinations between disciplines, a nice example of which is double-major degrees. However, even then, a significant separation is maintained, rather than forming one larger knowledge domain, two slightly smaller and distinct ones exist.

In the context of higher education, there has been a growing trend of creating new fields based on combinations that previously seemed unrelated, for example, computational linguistics (a blend of linguistics and computer science), biophysics (a combination of biology and physics), or geoinformatics (a fusion of civil engineering and geography). These combinations, which generate new interdisciplinary bodies of knowledge—often due to technological developments—demonstrate the strong connectivity that already exists in the world of knowledge and enable us to imagine further future combinations. Still, higher education institutions mostly keep multidisciplinary programs that combine several distinct fields of study instead of having a meaningful integration between knowledge domains (Mcdossi, 2018).

The idea of STEM can be seen as part of the notion of integrating different knowledge domains, which is also relevant in K-12 education. Originally, STEM—an acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics—was about integrating these four disciplines into a joint educational experience. This could be done, for example, by designing a solution to authentic problems. However, in practice this term has become an umbrella of merely teaching these disciplines separately, with not much integration (Martín-Páez et al., 2019; Zhan & Niu, 2023).

Importantly, technology is, by definition, external to the disciplinary structure of knowledge. It draws bits of knowledge from different fields to meet specific practical needs. Therefore, technological knowledge is activity-dependent, and it can be seamlessly implemented across the curriculum for various pedagogical purposes (Churches, 2008; Faraon et al., 2023). As such, the mere integration of technology into the curriculum, especially through hands-on experience, represents a breach of disciplinary boundaries (Herschbach, 1995), and this could—and should—be made explicit to learners and teachers. A prominent example of this is the field of Digital Humanities, a term describing the intersection of technology and the humanities, involving the use of digital and computational tools to enrich knowledge in the humanities. Teaching under the umbrella of Digital Humanities enables the integration of digital skills, information literacy, or programming, with various areas of the humanities. As such, this field is breaking knowledge boundaries by definition, merely by bringing in technology.

More broadly, skills and literacies are now considered essential for fulfilling lives in the digital age. The focus on skills and literacies began in anticipation of the new millennium, driven by dramatic changes in the interplay between technology and society. For example, hypertext navigation literacy has been defined as a new form of spatial orientation; information literacy includes comprehensive information handling (searching, evaluating credibility, collecting, organizing, retrieving, and using information); and multimedia literacy refers to the ability to use and create in a multimedia world. Emphasis has also been placed on skills such as critical thinking, creativity, and computational thinking (Mioduser et al., 2008; OECD, 2018; Silber-Varod et al., 2019; Trilling & Fadel, 2009). The promotion of these literacies and skills is a top priority for any society wishing to survive in the modern world. Therefore, they must be cultivated and refined across all age groups and throughout life, alongside the acquisition of knowledge.

The good news is that explicit instruction of skills and literacies, when accompanied by practical experience in a specific context, is effective in developing them and in enabling their application across contexts (Andrade, 2020; Billing, 2007; Hirsch, 2012). Even better news is that using modern teaching approaches, e.g., flipped classroom, can improve students’ skills—e.g., collaboration, listening to others, self-directed learning, or critical thinking—even if these were not explicitly addressed during the teaching process; the improvement stems from the need for students to adapt to the new learning format (Murillo-Zamorano et al., 2019).

2.3. Pedagogy

Close your eyes for a moment (but only after reading this sentence to the end), and try to imagine a classroom; what does it look like? In a recent study we conducted, we used metaphors to describe the roles of lecturers and students in university classes. The most prominent metaphor among lecturers regarding their role in face-to-face teaching, by a wide margin, was that of a tour guide. The most prominent metaphor among students regarding their role in face-to-face teaching, also by a wide margin, was that of an audience at an entertainment show. Together, these metaphors paint a clear picture of the traditional perception of higher education teaching and learning: the lecturer is the holder of knowledge, and their role is to transmit it to attentive, mostly passive students (Usher & Hershkovitz, 2023). Similarly, other studies of K-12 schoolteachers had found that their most common metaphors depicted a teacher-centered approach to teaching, often as merely as transmission of knowledge (e.g., Alger, 2009; Martínez et al., 2001).

An interesting way to observe the prevailing perception of teaching is to ask generative AI engines to describe such a setting. Since they are trained on vast existing knowledge bases, these engines are inherently biased by existing social stereotypes (Gross, 2023; Srinivasan & Uchino, 2021), making their use for this purpose especially intriguing. Indeed, when generative AI was prompted with: “Draw an image of a lesson in [elementary school/high school/university]”, the resulting images depicted a very traditional setting: a teacher, standing by a blackboard, facing a group of students who are sitting in front tables—each with their own notebook—lecturing to them. (Apropos social stereotypes of generative AI, also note that K-12 teachers are females while the university teacher is a male) see Figure 3.

In higher education, this setting became common due to the rise in student enrollment and, therefore, in class sizes, which made lecturing the dominant pedagogy. Acknowledging its limitations, there has been an emphasis in recent decades on the need to refresh the lecture method and to focus on the cognitive, motivational, and social aspects of the student learning process. Technology plays an important role in this call for change. Practical recommendations for pedagogical innovation typically address two major aspects of lecture-based lessons. First, dividing the lesson time into short lecture segments between which a variety of activities can be incorporated where students engage in writing, thinking, discussion, or group work; these activities can be enriched using various digital tools—and even enable collaborative work through platforms such as Padlet or Google Slides—to create artifacts that can be presented to the entire class. Second, engaging students in active writing, thinking, discussion, and group work, while providing immediate and effective feedback; a simple example is asking a question during a lecture and allowing all students to respond using apps like Socrative, Poll Everywhere, or Mentimeter, which increases student engagement, fosters interaction with the content, with peers, and with the lecturer, enables immediate feedback while maintaining student anonymity, and supports discussion based on student responses (Wood & Shirazi, 2020). Enabling this type of active learning, students’ learning and perceptions of learning may significantly improve (Hartikainen et al., 2019; Kozanitis & Nenciovici, 2022; Tutal & Yazar, 2022). Notably, the increasing availability of teaching technologies and the growing need for formal education institutions to meet diverse student needs and address globalization make the use of technology for implementing various pedagogies a rising reality (de Bem Machado et al., 2024).

2.4. Hierarchy

In its classical sense, teaching assumes that teachers are the exclusive holders of knowledge, and students come to learn from them. This traditional structure of power is relevant across education stages, from early primary education to advance stages of higher education where “sage on the stage” is not just a metaphor but a reality dictated by design of lecture halls in many institutions. Alison King’s call for a change in teachers’ role, i.e., the now-cliché “From Sage on the Stage to Guide on the Side” (King, 1993), is literally related to closer proximity in the classroom and metaphorically to a re-consideration of pedagogy; however, this change still preserves the power structure in which learning occurs among students alone. Even the Socratic approach to teaching is a method that keeps the power structure untouched; although while implementing it the teacher does not provide direct answers—but rather directs the student, through a question-and-answer dialogue, to stimulate critical thinking and illuminate ideas—the teacher is still the one leading the process.

How can we change this century-old power structure in formal education? First step would be to reconsider the term “teaching”, leaving old assumptions behind. One such assumption would be that teaching should follow a given set of methods (i.e., pedagogies), which we discussed above; moving away from a discourse of “methods” would allow us to re-imagine the seemingly inevitable power teacher-learners power structure. One of the principles in Parr-Modrzejewska’s (2020) post-method approach to teaching and learning is “possibility”, which emphasizes that each participant in this process, both students and teachers, has a unique identity and a unique role to be considered; particularly, students’ own experience and prior knowledge should be relevant, that is, teachers are no longer the sole knowledge holders, which highlights that King’s (1993) notion of the desired shift should be expanded (Morrison, 2014).

An example that illustrates a different, more equal type of power structure is circle pedagogy, in which students and their teacher sit together in a circle for engaging in joint learning. This arrangement effectively shifts the traditional lecturer-versus-student hierarchy to a situation in which everyone listens carefully to one another, both physically and mentally, with the teacher as an integral part of the group, just one point on the circle. Make no mistake, this is not a new or novel approach to teaching. On the contrary, it reflects ancient tribal ideas of learning and knowledge-sharing that were often suppressed by the adoption of modern school-based instructional methods (Pollack & Mayor, 2022). Other pedagogical approaches that dismantle the perception of lecturers as all-knowing are, e.g., inquiry-based learning, project-based learning, or collaborative learning, where the learning baton is passed to the students and where the lecturer is not the source of knowledge. To minimize the extent of situations in which students ask their teacher direct questions—that is, positioning the teacher again as the “sage”—it is recommended to create a situation in which students and teachers are entirely equal in terms of knowledge. How can this be achieved? The answer is as simple as it is complex: design the student task in a way that the specific knowledge required to complete it is also new to the teacher (Tranquillo, 2015). This idea can also be realized while mentoring students in a task where they are asked to write new Wikipedia pages (Evenstein Sigalov et al., 2024).

Technology may play an important role in blurring traditional, strict hierarchical borders. A simple example is when students become creators of learning materials to share with their peers or teachers. Using digital tools for creating textual, video-based, or auditory resources, this task is relatively easy to implement and has a positive impact on student learning (Ribosa & Duran, 2022). Another example is the use of peer-feedback or peer-review, an approach that reconsiders traditional hierarchical boundaries as it situates learners as teachers to their peers; this approach bears affective, cognitive, behavioral, social, and meta-cognitive benefits to students (Wei & Liu, 2024), and using online platforms it can achieve better outcomes than face-to-face implementations (Awada & Diab, 2023).

2.5. Community

Learners and teachers typically constitute closed communities within school-based learning. A significant part of this stems from time and space limitations and from the existence of closed knowledge domains, as discussed above. In higher education, added to this are admission procedures for students and promotion paths for instructors which together impose rigid restrictions on participation in those learning communities. Traditionally, breaking down the learning community boundary was realized by bringing in guests or by stepping outside the classroom meeting with others. Using technology, this has been enabled by hosting guests remotely or being hosted in online events.

The integration of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) into schools and universities illustrates a prominent way to break through these community boundaries using technology (Soffer & Cohen, 2015); in such cases, students enrolled in the online course as part of their schooling also encounter learners from other communities. Another way to cross community boundaries is by bringing together students from different schools—including from different countries—for joint learning (Appiah-Kubi & Annan, 2020; Kolm et al., 2022), or to bring together teachers from different locations (García-Martínez et al., 2022). This may promote learners not only academically, but also at the social and emotional level, and may help promote their intercultural competence; further, it may support teachers’ professional development. Interestingly, even a single international learning experience may help students consider the importance of extending perspectives about their learning community (Hershkovitz & Lahav, 2023).

2.6. Summary

To sum up, integrating technology in schools can help in breaking down—at least, blurring—strict boundaries that have been traditionally constraining educational experiences. It can expand teaching and learning beyond time and space; bring together knowledge from different disciplines in a holistic, authentic way, and help promote important skills; change the landscape of pedagogy with a rainbow of new approaches; change the hierarchical, power-based structure between teachers and learners; and extend communities of learning.

3. Analyzing Technology Integration Using Our Framework

In this section, we will use our framework to analyze technology implementation scenarios that were previously published. Though our selection of authentic cases is anecdotal, it will help us to demonstrate how our framework is useful to understand such integrations in a nuanced manner. For doing so, we arbitrarily chose a few recent empirical papers published in Education Sciences; we chose papers that explicitly describe technology integration in authentic educational settings. These cases were selected to illustrate how the framework can be applied across varied educational settings. While not comprehensive, these three cases taken together highlight the framework’s flexibility and relevance. In this section, we briefly describe the relevant aspects of technology integration in each of these cases, and then analyze the extent to which each scenario promotes boundary blurring, on a scale of 1 (not at all) to 5 (very much so); this ranking should be taken with a grain of salt, as its main purpose is to demonstrate the nuanced understanding of technology integration that our framework allows. Analysis is summarized in

Table 1. A summary of our analysis of boundary blurring in three case studies (Section 3).

	Time and Space	Knowledge	Pedagogy	Hierarchy	Community
Case I: Flipped Classroom (Weimer et al., 2025)	2	2	5	1	1
Case II: Vlogs (Urena-Rodriguez et al., 2025)	2	3	4	4	1
Case III: International Online Collaboration (Simões & Sangiamchit, 2023)	4	5	5	3	3

, with a visual radar chart in Figure 4.

3.1. Case I: Flipped Classroom, Medical Education (Weimer et al., 2025)

Context and Technology Integration Description. In a study by Weimer et al. (2025), the authors present a flipped classroom approach in the context of third-year undergraduate medical students. The presented ultrasound training program consisted of 16 teaching units of 45 min each, with a pre-course phase (introduction and independent preparation using teaching materials, 4 teaching units), a course phase (attendance phase with theory and practical training, 6 teaching units), and a post-course phase (independent follow-up, 6 teaching units). The digital module was included in the pre-course phase, where students had at least 1 week and a maximum of 2 weeks to self-learn the teaching materials. To that end, the authors designed a web-based e-learning module that covered the required content in a digitally structured format with interactive navigation, zoomable and clickable images, and embedded videos; the digital format aimed at promoting active engagement through quizzes with immediate feedback and interactive learning elements.

Boundary Blurring Analysis. This case demonstrates a common implementation of a flipped classroom (also known as an inverted classroom), where activities traditionally conducted in the classroom—in this case, theoretical and practical knowledge, e.g., anatomical basics, key clinical questions, sonographic instructions, and standard cross-sections and measurements—become home activities, and activities normally constituting homework—in this case, practical implementation of the theoretical material—become classroom activities (Akçayır & Akçayır, 2018). At its very core, the notion of flipped classroom helps blur Time and Space boundaries, as students are relatively flexible in when and where they learn. In this case, there was still a definition of Time Units, and students had a rather limited time—that adhered to a traditional course timeline—to complete this phase, therefore we will rank the blurring of this dimension as “2”. Knowledge-wise, the e-learning unit still referred to the very same content students are expected to learn anyhow in this training; it is true that implementing a flipped classroom may improve students’ skills even when not explicitly referred to (Murillo-Zamorano et al., 2019), however skills were not addressed at all in this implementation, therefore we will rank the blurring of this dimension as “2”. Pedagogy-wise, this implementation changed the traditional approach of teacher-led learning of the materials, shifting the teaching burden to the students themselves, therefore we will rank the blurring of this dimension as “5”. Hierarchy-wise, even though students seemingly became teachers, the presented implementation still relied mostly on teaching materials supplied by the instructor, hence keeping the notion of the instructor being the main knowledge source; accordingly, we rank the blurring of this dimension as “1”. Finally, regarding Community, there was no change in the course team, and registered students with their instructor were the only members of the learning community; therefore, we will rank the blurring of this dimension as “1”.

3.2. Case II: Peer-Feedback on Vlogs in Closed Online Groups, English Proficiency Course (Urena-Rodriguez et al., 2025)

Context and Technology Integration Description. In a study reported by Urena-Rodriguez et al. (2025), students in an English proficiency course used video blogs (vlogs) to engage with English public speaking in an authentic manner. The course was targeted at international students, and was based on a 16-week face-to-face lessons of 75 min each. One of the primary assessment activities required students to reflect on diverse topics using vlogs posted on closed groups—either on the course LMS website or on Facebook—and then to watch and respond in audio, video, or written to one of their classmates’ videos. Each students was required to upload a total of 10 vlogs throughout the course, timed according to the course syllabus.

Boundary Blurring Analysis. Peer-feedback has become a common pedagogical approach in various academic contexts, and supporting it technologically has shown to help students get engaged and motivated (Priyantin, 2021; Wei & Liu, 2024). By its very definition, the use of peer-feedback helps blur hierarchical boundaries, as students become the evaluators of their peers, modifying their traditional roles of students as merely focused on providing responses to prompts; in this case, the whole learning process was still administered and handled by the teaching team, therefore we will rank the blurring of the Hierarchy dimension as “4”. Regarding Time and Space boundaries, students were relatively flexible in when and where they could post vlogs and comment on others, however the timeline of these activities was strictly aligned with the traditional course timeline, therefore we will rank the blurring of this dimension as “2”. Knowledge-wise, the use of vlogs allowed the teaching team to extend students’ engagement with English towards topics that would otherwise be a bit more difficult. For example, the prompt for the vlog on At-Home Learning Spaces was as following: “Learning spaces are physical settings at home that you set for educational purposes. What is your ideal learning space? What characteristics does it have (space distribution, ventilation, light, furniture, etc.)?”. As such, students were able to shift from pre-prescribed domains of knowledge towards areas of their choice. Also, producing a vlog may involve editing, which may require—or rather involve teaching if—some digital skills, and posting it and discussing it in online groups may provoke collaboration and social skills (Rap & Blonder, 2016). Such skills were not explicitly mentioned in the paper as they were not in the heart of the study, however we may assume—for the matter of this discussion—that they were acquired at least to some degree. Therefore, we rank the blurring of this dimension as “3”. Pedagogy-wise, this implementation changed the traditional approach of teacher-led learning of the materials towards a task-centered learning that included a reflection process on others’ work, therefore we will rank the blurring of this dimension as “4”. Lastly, regarding Community, although communicating was partly done via a Facebook group, it was a closed group for the course members only, hence registered students with their instructor were the only members of the learning community; therefore, we will rank the blurring of this dimension as “1”.

3.3. Case III: International Online Collaboration, EFL Classroom (Simões & Sangiamchit, 2023)

Context and Technology Integration Description. In Simões and Sangiamchit’s (2023) study, undergraduate students in an English Language and Business Communication course collaborated online with international peers, as part of a project-based learning process. The students, who study in Portugal, were assigned with students from Thailand, and together they conducted a research project the outcome of which was a 10-page, APA-formatted “Country and Culture Profile Report” paper; the international teams wrote reports on either Thailand, Cambodia, or Myanmar—countries that are much more familiar to the international students than to the Portuguese students. Collaboration was facilitated via any way suitable for the international teams, with most common tools being Zoom, WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook Messenger, and Google Docs; research and presentation were again up to each team to choose, and various tools were chosen, e.g., Google, Google Scholar, and ResearchGate for research, and PowerPoint, free image websites, and Canva for presentation. This activity was structured into the course timeline, and was assigned with about two months, between introductory sessions and oral presentations.

Boundary Blurring Analysis. Collaborative online international learning (COIL) is strongly related to two of our framework dimensions (Shaw et al., 2025; Vasquez & Ramos, 2022). First, Community—by its very definition, COIL extends traditional closed learning communities. This is indeed the case in this implementation, where the Portuguese students, where the course was given, collaborated with international peers. In this case, however, the collaboration is between two specific institutions and with collaborators who are all undergraduate students, hence we will rank this dimension blurring as “3”. Second, COIL usually contributes much to participants’ knowledge and skills that go beyond merely acquiring domain-specific knowledge, such as cultural competence, communication skills, and teamwork skills. In this case too, emphasis was placed on strengthening competencies for the global digital workplace, like virtual teamwork, project management, business communication, and intercultural competence—and indeed these skills were successfully developed among participants; therefore, we will rank the blurring of this boundary as “5”. Regarding Time and Space boundaries—besides the flexibility in working anytime anywhere for a relatively long period of time, we also consider the fact that the intense collaboration and communication somehow shortened the large physical distance between Portugal and Thailand to an imaginary short digital proximity. Therefore, we will rank this boundary blurring as “4”. Pedagogy-wise, this implementation of project-based task can be considered as a meaningful shift from traditional approaches, with a wide range of options for the students to complete the given task. The instructor was there to help, to guide, and to support during weekly check-ins and whenever requested. Therefore, we will rank the blurring of this boundary as “5”. Finally, the Hierarchy dimension was significantly blurred as well, with most of the knowledge-acquiring done by the students. Still, it was the instructor to whom students turned with issues such as how to use citing and references, or how to tackle sensitive issues. Also, it was the instructor who initiated and administered the whole process, including calling up for volunteers from the Thai institution and pre-organizing the teams. Therefore, we will rank the blurring of this boundary as “3”.

4. Discussion

In this paper, we suggested a framework describing boundaries within formal education systems, and discussed how technology can help blur them. In practice, technology’s role in education is mostly perceived as instrumental (e.g., Aurangzeb et al., 2024; Crompton et al., 2021), however we think of its role as more radical. It goes beyond promoting more effective, efficient, and accessible education, to bear the potential to fundamentally change existing educational structures. We believe that our framework is timely as it re-examines formal education institutions in the digital age from a point of view of change. Thinking of the desired change requires a clear definition of what it is that needs to be changed, which has led us to define the boundaries of time and space, knowledge, pedagogy, hierarchy, and community. Notably, this framework is anchored in the relationship between technology and the basic components of teaching and learning in formal education, hence by defining these boundaries we already opened the door to discuss how technology can drive blurring them. In a sense, technology is the driver to discuss these boundaries, and these boundaries are the driver to discuss how technology can break them down.

4.1. Technology, Education, and Change

When regarding technology integration in education, we would like to shift from a discourse of bringing technology into existing educational practices to one that wishes to rethink those educational practices in the first place. We are inspired by the mathematician and computer scientist Seymour Papert (1928–2016), who, in the early days of educational technology, distinguished between learning from computers and learning with computers (Papert, 1980). The former is what has been usually referred to when talking about integrating technology in formal education—think, for example, of the many pieces of software developed for students to use to learn, e.g., Khan Academy for mathematics, or Duolingo for language; the latter, however, is what may enable the realization of a wide range of opportunities available to learners to promote a meaningful understanding—think, for example, of a student who creates and interacts with mathematical constructs in GeoGebra or interacts with simulations in NetLogo. Papert’s ideas help us reimagine individual learning as a process that is extended towards a (virtual) partner, and by doing so extend the notion of learning from its bounded nature. However, the notion of individual learning as a bounded process is a modern one, with roots that go back to the early days of schooling in universities, and then in K-12 schools. The wish for mass participation in formal education—a need that was raised due to technological and societal changes—was accompanied by the formation of educational institutions which were bound by various restrictions as we discussed here. Now, technology can serve to free these institutions from such boundaries. Echoing Papert’s distinction, we envision technology integration in formal educational settings that go beyond using it in existing, bounded configurations, to help us reimagine schooling without these boundaries.

Most importantly, it is not a given technology that will drive a specific change, but rather the characteristics of the way that technology is integrated in a particular context that should be studied. Puentedura’s SAMR model had made this very clear, pointing out to the fact that it is not the tool but its use that matters (Zamri & Azlan Mohamad, 2025). Our framework goes beyond this notion of improving teaching and learning, highlighting that various foundational aspects of formal education can be affected by proper uses of technology. Yes, teaching and learning may be improved by doing so, but this result is only the endpoint of a deeper process of re-examining the mechanisms that have limit teaching and learning in the first place.

It is worth noting that such views on boundaries—and on their breaking—are themselves likely to change as technology becomes increasingly integrated into our daily lives. To put it bluntly, it is possible that the boundaries that we identify today will be much less prevalent in a few years from now. This makes our framework itself sensitive to change, as today’s “5” may be tomorrow’s “4” or “3”, or even, theoretically speaking, if today’s novelty is tomorrow’s new norm—a “1”. This indeed characterizes models of change that rely on some traditional baseline. Indeed, SAMR model was also criticized in that sense; since pedagogical practice evolves, one of the recommendations for its improvement is to explicitly describe established practices at the point-in-time when using the model (Blundell et al., 2022). Therefore, our framework potentially suffers from a similar issue, and may not grow old nicely if boundaries on education systems will be all broken in the future; however, as this scenario is desirable, we will gladly accept this outcome.

Another important and related point concerns the following question: Is a greater blurring of a boundary necessarily better? The simple answer would be a definite “No!”. Back to SAMR model, one of its critics was that “higher” in the SAMR ladder is considered better, which is not always the case (Hamilton et al., 2016). Technology should not be considered for its own sake and education-related change should be considered only for the sake of the change, but rather they should address educational goals (although this too is a complex issue, and we will touch upon it in the next section). Therefore, we wish our model would be considered as descriptive and not prescriptive, and we urge for empirical research that would test for associations between levels of boundary breaking and various educational measures.

4.2. Technology and Pedagogy

As can be inferred from the case studies of using our framework to analyze boundary blurring, pedagogy plays an important role in this process. As much as a certain technology may drive a pedagogical change (think, for example, of how the emergence of easily available online videos had enabled the flipped classroom), pedagogical needs may drive a certain use of technology (think of the use of online videos in Case II above). On the other hand, the implementation of a given technology—for example, one-to-one computing—may be done in a way that keeps pre-implementation practices, and when changes occur following such an implementation—it may be derived by pedagogy rather than by technology (Hershkovitz et al., 2019; Hershkovitz & Karni, 2018).

So, it is not necessarily “Pedagogy first!” or “Technology first!”, as technology and pedagogy may be entangled (Fawns, 2022). In any case, it is for educators and learners to work together to lead technological-pedagogical changes. When viewing boundaries as limiting the transition of an individual between different contexts, a boundary object—namely, a tool—may help this individual to make the transition more successful (Akkerman & Bakker, 2011); when discussing boundaries as limiting learning in a single context, like we did here, it is individuals—namely, persons—who help communicate changes within organizations (Forkosh-Baruch et al., 2005).

5. Conclusions and Recommendations

Formal education systems are bound by traditional structures, and these boundaries can be blurred using technology. The framework that we suggest here can help us re-imagine a whole new, boundless teaching and learning processes, still within existing institutions. Our framework provides educators and researchers with a lens for identifying where and how meaningful transformation can occur. It shifts the conversation from “How do we use technology in education?” to “How can technology help us rethink education altogether?”

We offer several recommendations for applying this framework in practice. For educators, we recommend to first identify the dominant boundaries in their own contexts, and then to choose technologies and pedagogies that intentionally aim to soften or break these constraints. For school and university leaders, we recommend to support boundary-blurring innovations through flexible scheduling, hybrid physical/virtual spaces, curricular flexibility, cultural adaptations regarding power structures, and extending relationships and collaborations with various communities; overall, it is recommended for them to encourage pedagogical experimentation and innovation in teaching and learning at large. For policymakers, we recommend reconsidering how policies might enable, rather than constrain, educational innovation and evaluating learning outcomes not just in terms of content mastery, but in terms of students’ ability to navigate complex, boundary-crossing learning experiences. For researchers, we recommend using the framework to design studies that examine how and to what extent specific educational interventions succeed in blurring one or more boundaries; specifically, longitudinal and comparative work could help evaluate which combinations of boundary-blurring lead to the most meaningful student outcomes and teacher growth. Finally, for technologists and instructional designers, we recommend co-creating tools with educators and students, ensuring these tools are flexible enough to support new pedagogies, challenge hierarchies, and cultivate community. All in all, we hope that our framework will help all education stakeholders to avoid the pitfall of reinforcing old structures through new digital means.

6. Epilogue

As we began with a cultural reference, let us end with one—this time from the musical Hamilton by Miranda (2015). In the song The Room Where It Happens, Aaron Burr—one of the main antagonists–is frustrated of being left out of the dinner between Alexander Hamilton—the protagonist—Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison, in which an unprecedented political compromise was achieved between the three. A key moment in US political history, this Compromise of 1790 resulted with the decision on the location of the capital city of the new nation in the South, Jefferson and Madison’s home region, in exchange for their support of Hamilton’s financial plan. “No one else was in the room where it happened,” Burr is saying yearningly, and we can refer to it in light of our framework. Like teaching and learning in a traditional space- and time-bounded classroom, that compromise took place in a specific location (“the room”), in a specific time. This event also demonstrates clear community boundaries, as it was closed to all members outside the room (like Burr). The meeting was set-up for the sole purpose of discussing a possible solution to the problem (Hamilton did not have the vote for his grand plan), hence demonstrating a knowledge boundary. Pedagogy in the case of this dinner can be attributed to the way knowledge was brokered, and this too was done within the traditional border of the political game, i.e., in a quid pro quo manner. Finally, hierarchy-wise, we learn that the power structure was kept, as Hamilton—who is portrayed as President Washington’s right-hand—is still the stronger player in this event; apparently, he knew all the time that “it doesn’t matter where you put the U.S. capital”, and as Burr points out to him, “you got more than you gave”. We may wish that our political institutions would act more ubiquitously, inclusively, open-mindedly, innovatively, and equally. Until that happens, we can strive for our education systems to behave that way. Our framework is a first step in this direction.