We (critically) analyse the algorithms, standards, models, data processes and infrastructures underlying educational technologies for schools, especially those marketed as AI. One focus lies on how inequality is baked into edtech and which edtech initiatives are oriented to equity. Another focus lies on the stories told about digital education. We also explore digital research methods.

Previous and current projects include the analysis of Germany’s public national educational platform (Wikimedia), DATAFIED (BMBF), Bildungsmedien 4.0? (DFG), Reconfigurations of Educational In/Equality in a Digital World (RED, Riksbankens Jubileumsfond) and The Discourse of EdTech.

Publications include:

• Bock, A., Breiter, A., Hartong, S., Jarke, J., Jornitz, S., Lange, A., & Macgilchrist, F. (Eds.). (2023). Die datafizierte Schule. Springer VS. doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-38651-1.
• Macgilchrist, F. (2023). Diskurs der Digitalität und Pädagogik. In S. Assmann & N. Ricken (Eds.), Bildung und Digitalität. Analysen – Diskurse - Perspektiven (pp. 47-71). Springer VS. doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-30766-0_3
• Macgilchrist, F. (2023). KI und Schule: Sichtweisen, Anwendungen und Gestaltungsmöglichkeiten. SCHÜLER-Heft (Friedrich-Verlag), Thema „Hybride Lebenswelten“, 82-84. www.friedrich-verlag.de/friedrich-plus/schule-paedagogik/jugendwelten/lernen-schule/ki-und-schule-15871
• Seeman, M., Macgilchrist, F., Richter, C., Allert, H., & Geuter, J. (2022). Konzeptstudie. Werte und Strukturen der Nationalen Bildungsplattform. Wikimedia. www.wikimedia.de/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Konzeptstudie-Werte-und-Strukturen-der-Nationalen-Bildungsplattform.pdf

We draw on feminist tech principles, decolonial futuring, digital humanities, and justice-oriented design methodologies to explore how to design an education otherwise.

Previous and current projects include the EdTech Studio (Lower Saxony’s Ministry for Science and Culture), Oldenburg’s Mobile Digital Lab (Lower Saxony’s Ministry for Science and Culture), Education, Technology and Inequality: A Critical Utopian Approach (ETIC, Volkswagen Foundation) and FaBuLoUS (BMBF).

Publications include:

• Macgilchrist, F. (2021). Rewilding technology. On Education. Journal for Research and Debate, 4(12).  doi.org/10.17899/on_ed.2021.12.2
• Macgilchrist, F. (2024). Design justice and educational technology: Designing in the fissures. In B. Williamson, J. Komljenovic, & K. N. Gulson (Eds.), World Yearbook of Education 2024 (Digitalization of Education in the Era of Algorithms, Automation, and Artificial Intelligence) (pp. 294-310). Routledge. doi.org/10.4324/9781003359722
• Macgilchrist, F., Allert, H., & Bruch, A. (2020). Students and society in the 2020s: Three future 'histories' of education and technology. Learning, Media and Technology, 45(1), 76-89. doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2019.1656235
• Macgilchrist, F., Jarke, J., Allert, H., & Cerratto Pargman, T. (2023). Designing postdigital futures: Which designs? Whose futures? Postdigital Science and Education, online first. doi.org/10.1007/s42438-022-00389-y

We explore lived experience with media in schools. Drawing on practice theory, media theory, discourse theory and science and technology studies, we avoid describing good/bad teaching or universal advantages/disadvantages of edtech. Instead, we observe classroom practices to understand how teaching and learning, living and desiring are changing today.

Previous and current projects include Reconfigurations of Educational In/Equality in a Digital World (RED, Riksbankens Jubileumsfond), Lernkulturen im digitalen Wandel: Ethnographische Studien (LernDiWa, Lower Saxony’s Ministry for Science and Culture), Transnational Solidarities (TransSol, DFG) and digDAS and globalDAS (German Foreign Office).

Publications include:

• Ferrante, P., Williams, F., Büchner, F., Kiesewetter, S., Chitsauko Muyambi, G., Uleanya, C., & Utterberg Modén, M. (2023). In/equalities in digital education policy – sociotechnical imaginaries from three world regions. Learning, Media and Technology, 1-11. doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2023.2237870
• Rabenstein, K., Wagener-Böck, N., Macgilchrist, F., & Bock, A. (2022). Interferenzen in digitalen Praktiken der Bereitstellung von unterrichtlichen Aufgaben. Ethnographische Beobachtungen in der Pandemie. Sozialer Sinn, 297-316. doi.org/10.1515/sosi-2022-0016
• Wagener-Böck, N., Macgilchrist, F., Rabenstein, K., & Bock, A. (2023). From automation to symmation: Ethnographic perspectives on what happens in front of the screen. Postdigital Science and Education, 5, 136–151. doi.org/10.1007/s42438-022-00350-z
• Proske, M., Rabenstein, K., Moldenhauer, A., Thiersch, S., Bock, A., Herrle, M., Hoffmann, M., Langer, A., Macgilchrist, F., Wagener-Böck, N., & Wolf, E. (Eds.). (2023). Schule und Unterricht im digitalen Wandel. Ansätze und Erträge rekonstruktiver Forschung. Klinkhardt. doi.org/10.25656/01:26251.