Speculating educational futures: agency, imaginaries and tensions

Universities are navigating rapid digital transformation that often demands immediate decisions. This sense of urgency usually leaves little room to question underlying premises and implications. In such contexts, the responses tend to become reactive rather than strategic. This workshop examines how dominant technological narratives shape these dynamics and asks how educators and staff can exercise situated agency within them. Through future-oriented, participatory, and speculative methodologies, participants surface implicit assumptions and explore alternative courses of action. They develop new perspectives on educational futures and gain transferable methodological tools to engage actively and critically in institutional decision-making.

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Methode: This workshop combines speculative futures, co-design, and participatory methods. Short audiovisual prompts, including brief excerpts from the anime Ghost in the Shell, stimulate reflection on possible futures, technological imaginaries, and institutional tensions. Participants engage in collaborative scenario-building exercises and create tangible future artifacts. Through group discussions and plenary reflection, these exercises help explore assumptions about current digital transformation processes and generate shareable outputs. Interaction is dialogical and collaborative, giving participants hands-on experience in imagining and shaping possible educational futures.