‘Enthuse and inspire’: edtech brokers and the affective construction of teacher innovation

Digital technologies interact in different ways with the professionality of teachers to ultimately reshape the most defining features of their job. In this article, we explore how edtech brokers, intermediary organizations that guide schools in edtech procurement, adoption, and usage, are playing a role in transforming the professional role of the teacher in the context of rapid developments in digital technologies. Through interviews, observations, and website analysis, we focus on the affective practices of brokers to disentangle how they aim, not only to influence teaching practices around the use of edtech, but also to create a desire to want to change. Albeit in contextualized and differentiated ways, we found that brokers adapt techno-optimist imaginaries in local settings, reinforcing a preference for innovative and entrepreneurial teacher professionalities. Brokers also create new synergies between the public and the private, as well as the for-profit and not-for-profit sectors, around common goals for digitalization.