"Unboxing," the act of opening packages and commenting on their contents, is one of the most popular formats on YouTube. The seminar "Unboxing Digitalization – Life in a Digitalized Society," held from June 14-18, 2021, with trainees from the Louise-Schroeder-School, also focused on this close examination and "unboxing" of content. The topic and methodology merged seamlessly, as the seminar was conducted entirely online due to the pandemic.
The digitalization of all areas of life is progressing rapidly. The COVID-19 pandemic has further accelerated this trend, for example, forcing the adoption of online seminar formats. However, this also presented an opportunity to discard established routines and explore new approaches, such as the question, "How do we want to learn, work, live – communicate, enjoy ourselves, etc. – in the future?" This challenge will continue to occupy us all – even beyond the pandemic.
How does machine learning work? What is weak and what is strong artificial intelligence?
How are algorithms written and trained? Can algorithms exclude and discriminate against people – or is it the people who write them?
Based on input on these and other questions, as well as their own interests, the participants developed key topics in three parallel workshop groups and – guided by instructors – explored these topics using the medium of their workshop.
The workshops in photography, comic making, and creative/staged writing a diverse range of results, reflecting very different perspectives.
Some of these are published here:
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Photography Workshop Group:
How have everyday objects and activities changed? The photo series "Contrast to Digitalization" showcases record players and smartphone music apps, postcards and digital mail, and more. The photo series "Digital Planning versus Human Reality" focuses on the transformation of logistics processes. Mobility, and thus cars, are also changing, as demonstrated by the photo series "The Digital Functions of a Modern Vehicle .
"Anonymity in Lowercase, "Where Does Our Data Fly?", "The Data Octopus, "Traces Left Behind: A Data Collection" approach places, occasions, and the handling of data distribution and/or processing in very different ways. "The Thing About Facial Recognition" experiments with the digital recognition of human faces in a photo series. "Surveillance/Transparent Society" takes a closer look at surveillance sites and the atmosphere associated with them.
Together, the workshop group conceived and implemented their photographic works as a digital exhibition on the virtual whiteboard of mural.co. The photo exhibition can be viewed here: https://app.mural.co…wannseeforum4302/…
The Comic-
Maker workshop group's name derives from the concept of "making" or "creating," combining digital and analog construction/action. In this workshop, participants experimented with combining comic drawing with the Scratch programming language . Here, all participants faced the challenge of their own digital work and production. They wrote their own algorithms using a modular system to create interactive, playful content from their drawings. With Scratch, they tested an open-source software developed in an educational context and published their projects on the Scratch platform.
Everyone has made their projects available for you to try out in a Padlet : Simply click on the project in the Padlet , then the project will open in Scratch , click on the green flag there and follow the instructions on the right – have fun!
Workshop Group Creative/Staged Writing:
Artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things promise new possibilities for production, logistics, and communication, both locally and globally, and thus a better life and work in networked worlds. But what is the state of digitalization in Germany? And what major questions and challenges are associated with smart devices ? The participants in the Creative/Staged Writing workshop adopted a wide variety of perspectives when writing their own texts . Even the character names in their digital presentations reveal that they playfully explored viewpoints that invite further discussion. These presentations can be viewed as a live recording (!) from the online presentation on the last day of the seminar. Enjoy!
The issue of digitalization...
...will continue to be a topic for us in seminars – both offline and online!
The seminar was funded by the Senate Department for Education, Youth and Family and took place as part of the collaboration in the program “Political Youth Education in the AdB” in the project group “Digital Media and Democracy” .
