Magda Pischetola

What do you research?

My research focuses on the critical aspects related to the use of digital technologies in schools, universities, and in teachers’ professional development programmes. I am particularly interested to explore how the teaching and learning environments change with the presence of technologies and through their agency. This includes examining the everchanging nature of teachers’ digital work, the learning paths opened (or closed) by generative AI, and the way inequalities, marginalities, and vulnerabilities are reproduced through educational infrastructures and data tracking of which most users are not aware.

Why is it so important?

Since the critical and feminist pedagogies have emerged, teaching has been conceived as a space for affirming actions and political transformation. In this perspective, relations are the core of teaching and affect makes pedagogical encounters meaningful. Research should thus include the subjectivities of those who are involved, as well as their emotions and their positionality in terms of center/periphery within the networks of relations. Studying digital technologies through this theoretical lens means understanding technology as one more actor in the network, which allows for unveiling its material agency – its doing – in educational settings. It raises critical/ethical questions about: Whose interests are represented in the use of a specific technology? What are the underlying mechanisms of knowledge production and distribution? Who will benefit from it and how? The perspective is relational and so is its accountability.

A project you are proud of?

I have worked with many projects for digital literacy in schools of Italy, Ethiopia, and Brazil between 2007 and 2019. My most recent research project (2020-2022) was an interinstitutional collaboration (ITU, KUJura, Design school Kolding, Royal Danish Academy of Arts) to realize a professional course for higher education teachers. The project was called Teknosofikum (https://teknosofikum.dk) and was funded by UFM. I am proud of the way I have contributed to design the course, providing teachers with grounding knowledge about learning theories and tools, but also raising discussions about the way technological trends are impacting their professional roles and decision-making processes.

Updated October 2024

Through her participation in Policy Fellowship 2024-2025, Magda will be working with Thomas Hyldal, principal of Gefion Gymnasium and chairman of Danske Gymnasiers Digitaliseringsudvalg.

In previous policy fellowships, Magda has worked with Jenny Bøving Arendt, Head of Danske Gymnasier (Alumner - Policy Fellowship).