Program
Day 1
9.00-9.30
Welcome
Prof. Teresa Cerratto Pargman, Prof. Anders Buch & Prof. Ylva Lindberg
Room: Hb 221
9.30-10.30
Speculative methods, sociotechnical imaginaries, and making education futures
Room: Hb 221
Discussant: Teresa Cerrato Pargman
Abstract
Educators and educational researchers need generative, creative ways of engaging with the sociotechnical imaginaries that underpin much policy, practice, and innovation in our field. Speculative methods in educational research can allow alternative or unexpected futures to emerge and can help keep the future moving. Futures are inevitably complex and provisional, and speculative methods can generate playful, imaginative, glitchy, and strange encounters that respect this complexity while taking seriously a responsibility to act ethically towards the future. Rather than attempting to predict, prevent or impose the future, speculative approaches work with the future as a space of uncertainty and use that uncertainty creatively in the present. This talk explores why such methods are necessary in a time of rapid technological change and datafication in education and increasingly pessimistic predictions about where this change may be leading.
In this talk, Jen Ross will define and discuss some key aspects that characterise speculative methods, exploring issues of audience, the relationship between past, present, and future, and the nature of speculative questions and knowledge. She will illustrate these issues with an account of the 2020 ‘data stories’ project, which generated an online tool for the creation of anonymous stories about surveillance and monitoring in higher education. The data stories told help us understand the power of sociotechnical systems of surveillance and the futures they seem to point to, but also some ways those futures might be interrupted, reconfigured, or reimagined.
Coffee Break 10.30 – 10.45
10.45 –11.45
Digital technologies as zombie and obsolete futures: an alternative perspective for the Global North
Dr. Alexandre Monnin, Clermont Business School, Lyon
Online presentation
Room: Hb 221
Discussant: Ylva Lindberg
Abstract.
Digital technologies still give an image of the future we should live in. While this future tends to be increasingly described as a dystopian one, an additional question needs to be asked: not only "should it happen?" but "will it simply happen?" and "for how long?" Some even go as far as to call digital technologies "zombie technologies" (José Halloy). Would ICT be a prime example of an obsolete future? On July 1, 2022, Ben Rienhardt tweeted that he wondered "if 50 years from now we're going to look back at how we've redesigned our world around computers with the same regret that people look back at how we redesigned cities around cars.". Indeed, it is very much possible that we'll only consider the necessity to de-digitize only once we've fully digitized society. Hence, how should we rethink ICT's trajectory in the future? Especially in the North. We will try to raise and answer some of these questions in this talk.
11.45 –13.00
Introducing and facilitating group formations and collaborative work
Workshop organizers and Dr. Etienne Trayner-Wenger
Room: tables outside Hb 221
Activity: World café conversation model
Core questions: Why is it important to talk about the future now? What issues would you like to discuss in relation to the future (s) of education? What is the future of data-driven education in Nordic countries? How can fictional literature contribute to engaging with the future(s) of education?
Outcome: Group formation given the collaborative work. Each group selects a symbol or a name.
Materials: paper, pencil, post-it, colour
LUNCH 13.00 –14.00
14.00–15.00
Suggesting topics and imagining these topics in the year 2042
Each group suggests topics that are important for their professional work and imagine these topics in the year 2042
Group rooms: Hb 217b, Hb 217c, Hb 313, Hb 314, and tables outside Hb 221
Group work (in Swedish or English) – choose a protocol keeper and a presenter.
Activity: Agree on a topic for the collaborative writing of a story about education in 2042.
Outcome: Each group presents the chosen topic for their collaborative story about education in 2042.
Materials: A table with objects, different supports, colours, papers, and images to use and be inspired by.
Coffee Break 15.00 –15.30
15.30 – 16.30
Feedback session with all groups
Workshop organizers and Dr. Etienne Trayner-Wenger
Room: Hb 221
Activity: Each group presents the story’s topic in 2042.
Core question: How can the chosen topic develop into a short story about the future (s) of education in 2042 in Nordic countries.
16.30–17.00
Incorporate feedback into the group work and plan the writing work for the next day.
Group rooms: Hb 217b, Hb 217c, Hb 313, Hb 314, and tables outside Hb 221
19.00 Dinner in town
Day 2
9.00–9.15
09.15 – 10.15
The Future writes back
Dr. Jerry Määttä, Stockholm University & Dr. Michael Godhe, Linköping University
Moderator: Ylva Lindberg
Abstract
In this inspirational talk, Dr Jerry Määttä and Dr Michael Godhe, show how speculative genres such as science fiction can be used as a heuristic tool to investigate possible and preferable futures. Firstly, the talk gives a short introduction to the birth of the science-fiction genre and its development into our times. Subsequently, Määttä and Godhe show some the generic tendencies within the genre, such as cognitive estrangement and the novum, that is, how science fiction can help us to understand and conceptualize common and even mundane phenomena with new eyes by estrangement and innovation – and by that help us to analyze and question the taken-for-granted.
In the second part of talk, Määttä and Godhe introduce the exercise in science fiction writing connected to teaching and digitalization and pose some questions from the interdisciplinary research field Critical Future Studies that can be helpful to use in futures writing.
Coffee Break 10.15-10.30
10.30 – 11.30
Session 1 –Character, site, and plot
Group rooms: Hb 217b, Hb 217c, Hb 313, Hb 314, and tables outside Hb 221
Activity: Collaborative writing
Core question: Who are the main characters, where are they situated, and what do they live through in the short story?
Outcome: A draft of characters, sites, and plot.
Materials: A table with objects, different supports, colours, papers, and images to use and be inspired by.
11.30 – 12.15
Feedback session with all groups
Room: Hb 221
Activity: Short report on the status of the work in each group.
Materials: A table with objects, different supports, colours, papers, and images to use and be inspired.
Lunch 12.15–13.15
13.15 – 14.40
Session 2 – Actions and events
Group rooms: Hb 217b, Hb 217c, Hb 313, Hb 314, and tables outside Hb 221
Activity: Collaborative writing.
Core question: How are actions and events unfolding in a text?
Outcome: The first draft with actions and events with descriptions and dialogues.
Materials: A table with objects, different supports, colours, papers, and images to use and be inspired by.
14.40 – 15.00
Feedback session with all groups
Workshop organizers and Dr. Etienne Trayner-Wenger
Room: Hb 221
Activity: Short report on the status of the work in each group.
Materials: A table with objects, different supports, colours, papers, and images to use and be inspired by.
Coffee Break 15.00–15.15
15.15 – 16.30
Session 3 – Putting the character, site, plot, actions, and events together
Group rooms: Hb 217b, Hb 217c, Hb 313, Hb 314, and tables outside Hb 221
Activity: Collaborative writing
Outcome: A minimum of two written pages + a visual (an image) for the story.
Prepare for exposing the story's plan with the visual at the final gallery.
Materials: A table with objects, different supports, colours, papers, and images to use and be inspired by.
16.30 – 17.00
Final gallery: A visit to the workshop’s stories in 2042
Room: Hb 221
We walk around the images, read the story's plans and enjoy the conversation!
17.00 Thank you and Goodbye!