ABSTRACT

The large-scale digitalisation of education has escalated not only globally distributed edtech products, services and automated decision-making systems but also uncertainty about how to address accompanying social, ecological and technological controversies. A key question this raises is: How can stakeholders with diverse expertise reconfigure knowledge about education in an age of planetary-scale computation? In particular, emerging public spaces and controversies offer a valuable opportunity to democratise expertise between various groups to inform measured action. To explore these planetary-scale controversies and spaces, a speculative design thought experiment was conducted. The ‘EdTech Stack’ introduced is a geo-design brief which articulates a set of systemic capabilities and aligned controversies. This conceptual and methodological innovation seeks to democratise expertise across multiple scales, so as to reconfigure digital education governance in more just, sustainable and equitable ways. I hope it inspires diverse stakeholders to identify the limits and possibilities of the EdTech Stack we Have, through interplaying with the EdTech Stack to Come.