This paper examines how language-based artificial intelligence is envisaged to imagine new futures for indigenous languages. It draws on the visions, programmes, and plans of six language initiatives that are developing language technology for often-marginalised indigenous, tribal, and minority (ITM) languages, such as Gondi, Maithili, Rajasthani…

Apps are becoming increasingly important in education. However, critical educational research has hardly ever undertaken up-close analyses of educational apps. This article provides an extensive analysis of one 'learning to code' app called Grasshopper. Drawing from the field of Science and Technology Studies, the article adopts a theoretical…

In this paper, I intend to explore the role played by reflexivity in grounding a more critical perspective when designing, implementing and analysing participatory digital media research. To carry out this methodological reflection, I will present and discuss a recently concluded research project on young people's game-making in an after-school…

This paper examines visions of 'learning' across humans and machines in a near-future of intensive data analytics. Building upon the concept of 'learnification', practices of 'learning' in emerging big data-driven environments are discussed in two significant ways: the "training" of machines, and the "nudging" of human…

This paper shares reflections and stories from a collaborative design process between the Lifelong Kindergarten group at the MIT Media Lab and a global network of community-based educators to develop a creative coding app called OctoStudio, which supports children and families to create and share interactive projects on mobile devices. The app…

This paper critically examines the ways in which ClassDojo is altering the disciplinary landscape in schools through the datafication of discipline and student behaviour. ClassDojo is one of the most popular and successful educational technologies and is used internationally. It is a school-based social media platform that incorporates a gamified…

New data-driven technologies appear to promise a new era of accuracy and objectivity in scientifically-informed educational policy and governance. The data-scientific objectivity sought by education policy, however, is the result of practices of standardization and quantification deployed to settle controversies about the definition and…

This paper proposes a pedagogical approach for teaching and learning critical thinking through multimodal analysis--that is, "multimodal analysis for critical thinking". The approach builds on the conviction that students require competencies that move beyond traditional notions of literacy to meet the changing demands posed by media and…

Traditionally media production with young people has been characterized by an aspiration to 'give voice' or 'empower youth', but this core value is under threat. Recently, the rationale for undertaking youth media production has shifted to focus on enabling young people to acquire digital and entrepreneurial skills that serve the needs of rapidly…

In this article, we argue that the contributions of documentation studies can provide a useful framework for analyzing the datafication of students due to emerging learning analytics (LA) practices. Specifically, the concepts of individuals being 'made into' data and how that data is 'considered as' can help to frame vital questions concerning the…

Openness has a long genealogy in education. Whether through the use of post, radio, television and digital technologies, extending learning opportunities to more and a wider range of people has been a significant aspect of educational history. Transcending barriers to learning has been promoted as the means of opening educational opportunities in…

Learning design is currently slanted to reflect a course-based approach to learning. This article explores whether the concept of learning design could be applied to support the informal aspects of work-based learning (WBL). It also discusses the characteristics of WBL and presents a WBL-specific learning design that highlights the key features…

Civil and natural resources engineering students at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, take specific courses requiring small group research projects and the presentation of findings to staff and peers. Although one of the aims of these presentations is to assist in the development of the students' communication skills, staff have raised…

This paper analyses how an elementary-level future school in Singapore implements and uses various open-source online platforms, which are easily available online and could be implemented with minimal software cost, for the purpose of teaching and learning. Online platforms have the potential to facilitate students' engagement for independent and…

This article presents the results of a three-year study of "Gamestar Mechanic" (www.gamestarmechanic.com), a flash-based multiplayer online role-playing game developed for the MacArthur Foundation's digital media learning initiative by the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Gamelab in New York. The game's objective is to help children…