Ferrés i Prats, JoanMasanet, Maria-JoseMateus, Julio César2018-11-152018-11-152018Ferrés J, Masanet MJ, Mateus JC. Three paradoxes in the approach to educational technology in the education studies of the Spanish universities. International journal of educational technology in higher education. 2018;15:15. DOI: 10.1186/s41239-018-0097-y2365-9440http://hdl.handle.net/10230/35764The education studies of the Spanish universities are not alien to technological innovations, but their approach to them tends to be basically instrumental. Neuroscience’s contributions about the functioning of the minds that interact with these technologies give new perspectives to the academic world; perspectives that are necessary for optimizing teaching-learning processes. This article analyses the recent scientific production on ICT and innovation in Spanish higher education, as well as the Spanish university teaching guides of education degree subjects about technologies. This critical analysis is organized around three paradoxes related to information, rationality and critical sense. Comparing the analysis results with the discoveries of neuroscience during the last decades reveals limits and contradictions in those areas that tend to be considered strongest in the technology-education relationship. We draw conclusions for revising the parameters for the approach to ICT in university education.application/pdfeng© The Author(s) 2018. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.info:eu-repo/semantics/articlehttp://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s41239-018-0097-yICTInnovationHigher educationNeuroscienceEducational technologySpainMedia educationStorytellingEntertainmentEmotionsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess