Successful and appropriate informal digital learning can help individuals and communities build sustainable and meaningful livelihoods, strengthen social cohesion and resilience, preserve and enhance cultural traditions and engage constructively and robustly with the wider world. Building digital learning that embodies participative and collaborative development and community ownership and control rests on the work of educators who understand these individuals and communities and their cultures, which may be very distant and different from global norms and the mainstream of their countries. These educators may, however, be reliant on research tools and techniques that are inappropriate or inadequate in these different settings and situations. This paper sets out a brief critique of these established tools and techniques as the prelude to reviewing a range of more innovative and eclectic ones drawn from a variety of disciplines. This is timely because COVID-19 has increased the barriers that separate educators from would-be learners whilst also increasing the education that these people and communities need.