Presenters:

Anna Wilson (University of Stirling); Jen Ross (University of Edinburgh);  Pat Lockley (Pgogy Webstuff); Jane McKie (University of Edinburgh); and Amy Collier (Middlebury College)

About the Workshop

In this workshop, participants will discuss and imagine data and surveillance futures in education.  You will have a chance to experience the storytelling tool 'Data Stories Creator, tell a data story of your own, and consider the use of data stories in your own work with colleagues and students.

No creative writing or storytelling experience is required – just an interest in these issues and a willingness to try something new. The workshop is open to anyone with an interest.

Some Context

Technologies in university settings help us communicate, collaborate and create, as well as store data, keep track of activities, assess performance, remind us of due dates, check for plagiarism, and more. Many of these technologies offer the capacity for increased surveillance, and some are already being used to monitor and/or quantify our activities. The Covid-19 pandemic and the shift to greater use of online systems and services to support learning, teaching, research and collaboration has exacerbated some forms of monitoring and introduced others, often at great speed. We need time to collectively and individually take stock of what has been happening, where we are now, and what might come next.

The Data Stories Creator is a scaffolded storytelling tool that uses fiction writing to explore aspects of an interaction with technology, and hopes or concerns it raises, by speculating about what could happen (now or in the future).

For more information about the project and the online story creator, see here.

anna.wilson@stir.ac.ukTo take part in the workshop please contact Dr Anna Wilson (anna.wilson@stir.ac.uk)