For a (self)conscious use of digital and data technologies in educational institutions
UNBLACK THE BOX is a network initiative founded in 2019 by scholars in the fields of education, sociology, media education, art education, and health education, as well as teachers and organisational and process facilitators in schools, colleges, teacher education and professional development programmes, and extracurricular education. We support educators, learners, and their parents in addressing the growing datafication and digitisation of educational settings with critical and informed decision-making and agency, even without extensive IT knowledge. This also includes decisions in the context of artificial intelligence (AI). A key goal is to promote critical data literacy across the entire education system.
WHAT
The UNBLACK THE BOX initiative offers the following resources for educational institutions, educators, students, parents, and other caregivers:
- Information on research findings, projects, and publications related to the datafication and digitisation of education;
- Open Educational Resources (OERs) for critical engagement with digital technologies in educational contexts (e.g., the EdTechReflector). These may be used, modified, and redistributed free of charge (for non-commercial purposes) under Creative Commons licenses;
- Detailed teaching concepts (in German) for use in higher education, schools, and extracurricular settings;
- Practice-oriented workshops and consulting services for educational institutions and other interested parties on topics such as critical data literacy, reflection on the impacts of AI, the engagement with and shaping of educational technology, data-driven educational management, school development, digitisation and health, media education collaboration with parents, and the promotion of “digital” resilience;
- Newsletter (in German) featuring event tips, recommendations, and commentary on current developments.
WHY
In a culture of digitality, schools, colleges, early childhood education institutions, out-of-school youth education programmes, and continuing education institutions are increasingly permeated by digital technologies that help shape social and pedagogical practices. These include devices and infrastructure, as well as the growing use of platforms, educational software, and learning analytics, all the way to the application of AI technologies. High expectations are often pinned on the introduction or expansion of these technologies, including improved learning outcomes, greater educational equity, and reduced workload for teachers.
Although the field of (academic and practical) engagement with educational technologies has become increasingly diverse in recent years and an ever-expanding body of critical research on datafication and digitisation has emerged in this context, the majority of voices in education policy – as well as teacher training and professional development programmes – continue to focus on applied skills and the (effective) use of hardware and software. Aspects of critical engagement are primarily reduced to topics such as data protection, ethics (often in “checklist format”), or disinformation. This means, however, that digital technologies are not fully understood in terms of their underlying logic or their diverse historical contexts, and often continue to appear as a “black box” to users.
This is exactly where the UNBLACK THE BOX initiative comes in, by:
- fostering a (more) holistic, critically reflective perspective on the background, functioning, and mechanisms of data (and data technologies) in educational practice and policy contexts, and
- providing educational institutions and educators with tools for the conscious, creative shaping of data technologies. This shaping deliberately includes maintaining or even expanding analogue technologies.