Re-wilding EdTech: a collaborative speculative scenario design workshop

What if we stopped trying to control our digital tools and let them run wild instead? This workshop uses speculative design methods to imagine educational technologies that refuse to behave, systems that glitch creatively, algorithms with unpredictable logic, and learning platforms that evolve beyond their design.

Through collaborative activities, we’ll share stories of technological chaos prompted new thinking, explore uncertain futures using scenario techniques, and sketch alternatives to conventional EdTech. Instead of chasing efficiency, we’ll consider how breakdowns and digital decay might become creative catalysts.

Drawing from Tyrrell’s concept of “waste as an interface” in classrooms (2025), we’ll examine how invisible maintenance work shapes learning environments and explore alternatives to sterile tech-utopian visions. Participants will try out methods like collaborative scenario mapping and speculative sketching to question how educational technology might shift from control to adaptation, from optimisation to experimentation, from smooth operation to productive disruption.

We’ll compost (Hall, 2021) our frustrations with obedient technology into wild possibilities for educational futures. Participants will leave with tools for speculative design and a different perspective on what EdTech could become when freed from human expectations.

Bring: one tale of technology misbehaving, readiness to sketch rough concepts, enthusiasm for constructive chaos.