Becoming human with technology: rethinking digital practice in physical education

The rapid digitalisation of education has intensified fundamental questions about how technologies shape the purposes, practices, and possibilities of teaching and learning. Physical education (PE), grounded in embodiment, relational interaction, and shared inquiry, offers a distinctive vantage point for examining these shifts, as learning in PE is inseparable from bodily presence and situated social relations. This paper argues that digitalisation should not be understood as an external force acting upon education, but as a constitutive condition in which pedagogical, technological, and ethical dimensions are continuously intertwined. To navigate this condition, the paper advances rehumanisation as both a pedagogical praxis and an analytic lens. Rehumanisation is conceptualised as an interpretive, ethical, and relational effort through which teachers and students actively shape digital entanglements toward meaningful and embodied learning, rather than merely adopting technologies as neutral tools. Using an entangled view of pedagogy, the paper examines three illustrative cases in PE. Across these cases, technologies gain educational value only through contextual interpretation, relational framing, and teacher-led mediation. Pedagogical judgment, therefore, remains irreducible to technical outputs or algorithmic recommendations. The paper concludes by positioning PE as a critical site for imagining more humanising digital futures in education.