CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 208Digital Education and SocietyGlobal Educational Policies and ReformsTechnology-Enhanced Education Studies

Automation, APIs and the distributed labour of platform pedagogies in google classroom

Perrotta, Carlo, Gulson, Kalervo N., Williamson, Ben, Witzenberger, Kevin·2021·Critical Studies in Education
DOI 10.1080/17508487.2020.1855597

Published version of a preprint

Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

Digital platforms have become central to interaction and participation in contemporary societies. New forms of ‘platformized education’ are rapidly proliferating across education systems, bringing logics of datafication, automation, surveillance, and interoperability into digitally mediated pedagogies. This article presents a conceptual framework and an original analysis of Google Classroom as an infrastructure for pedagogy. Its aim is to establish how Google configures new forms of pedagogic participation according to platform logics, concentrating on the cross-platform interoperability made possible by application programming interfaces (APIs). The analysis focuses on three components of the Google Classroom infrastructure and its configuration of pedagogic dynamics: Google as platform proprietor, setting the ‘rules’ of participation; the API which permits third-party integrations and data interoperability, thereby introducing automation and surveillance into pedagogic practices; and the emergence of new ‘divisions of labour’, as the working practices of school system administrators, teachers and guardians are shaped by the integrated infrastructure, while automated AI processes undertake the ‘reverse pedagogy’ of learning insights from the extraction of digital data. The article concludes with critical legal and practical ramifications of platform operators such as Google participating in education.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1080/17508487.2020.1855597

Cites

42 of 42 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Claims the paper makes

This paper’s full text isn’t openly available, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Students from disadvantaged backgrounds frequently face obstacles like poor internet and limited device access, significantly hindering their interaction with AI.

    “Students from disadvantaged backgrounds frequently face obstacles like poor internet and limited device access, significantly hindering their interaction with AI (Vogels, 2021; Perrotta et al., 2021; Selwyn, 2019).”

    From From avoidance to adoption: strategies for integrating AI in higher education contexts (2026) · cites this paper as Perrotta et al., 2021

  • AI literacy in higher education is unevenly shaped by socioeconomic, disciplinary, and institutional factors.

    “AI literacy in higher education (HE) is unevenly shaped by socioeconomic, disciplinary, and institutional factors.”

    From From avoidance to adoption: strategies for integrating AI in higher education contexts (2026) · cites this paper as Perrotta et al., 2021

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

3 of the 45 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Perrotta, C., Gulson, K. N., Williamson, B., & Witzenberger, K.
Affiliations
  • Monash University (AU)
  • School of Education and Social Work, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
  • University of Edinburgh (GB)
  • UNSW Sydney (AU)
Corresponding author
Perrotta, Carlo
ORCID
Venue
Critical Studies in Education
Publisher
Informa UK Limited
Published
2020-12-09
Volume
62
Issue
1
Pages
97-113
ISSN
  • 0076-6275 (ISSN-L)
  • 1750-8487
  • 1750-8495
DOI
10.1080/17508487.2020.1855597
OpenAlex
W3112490946
Cited by
208
References
45
Citations by year
2026: 39 · 2025: 24 · 2024: 38 · 2023: 45 · 2022: 40 · 2021: 22
FWCI
25.19
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Locations
  • Critical Studies in Education (publishedVersion)
  • OSF Preprints (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Digital Education and Society
  • Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Global Educational Policies and Reforms
  • Social Sciences › Education › Technology-Enhanced Education Studies
Keywords
Google Classroom, application programming interfaces, educational automation, school surveillance, datafication, interoperability, platformization of education, artificial intelligence in education, school administrators, guardians, digital infrastructure

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review