ABSTRACT
What kinds of people do we take ourselves to be in this digital age? In this chapter we want to explore how the cybernetic style of thinking which is characteristic of the digital age manifests itself in the ways we address, represent and identify ourselves. What do we think our identities are in these cybernetic times? And how are such identities defi ned, projected and distributed through education? In order to unpack these questions, we fi rst provide a partial overview of recent approaches to the issue of ‘identity’ in social theory, particularly accounts of ‘digital identity.’ We then articulate the formation of a particular kind of ‘pedagogic identity’ associated with the use of new technologies for learning, and show how the construct of a ‘digital learning identity’ has much in common with notions of an ‘enterprising self’ in recent social theory, an identity understood in terms of its capacity for self-regulation, self-fulfi lment, and self-realization. And fi nally we explore how such self-realizing digital learning identities have been promoted through one particular prototypical area of educational technology development: the use of videogames as a medium for learning.
