Abductive Reasoning and ICT Enhanced Learning: Towards the Epistemology of Digital Nomads

The core features of mobile technology are said to be mobility, interactivity, contextuality, ubiquity, pervasiveness, personalization and collaboration. These features seem to tally surprisingly well with the ideals of constructivist pedagogy. Information and communication technology -enhanced learning in general and mobile learning in particular seem to favour the abductive form of reasoning. I suggest that abduction is the mobile (or “pedestrian”) form of reasoning

par excellence

because it meets the demands of a mobile learner envisioned by constructivist pedagogues. However, knowledge by abduction has its limitations. In addition to abduction, tacit knowledge and aura are concepts that help exploring the limits of ICT-enhanced knowledge and learning. It is suggested further that there are certain features connected to advanced mobile technologies by which one may overcome some limitations of ICT-enhanced education and edutainment. These features are multisensoriality, context-awareness and vireality (i.e. mixtures of the real and the virtual).