The Basement: A Lab for Digital Education
The new Digital Lab of the Georg Eckert Institute - Leibniz Institute for International Textbook Research (GEI) launches with a digital promotional week
On 22 February, "The Basement" opens its - virtual - doors at the Georg Eckert Institute in Braunschweig. The opening week "5 days - 5 actions" from 22 to 26 February 2021 offers a new offer every day, for example the story quiz "The Lost Room" or the game analysis "Through the Darkest of Times" with game developer Jörg Friedrich. More about the Basement and the offers can be found at basement.gei.de.
"After months of intensive planning, many inspiring conversations and participatory workshops with students and teachers, we are looking forward to welcoming everyone who is interested in digital education," explains the research coordinator of the Digital Lab Maren Tribukait. The programme for the second half of the school year includes workshops for teachers like "Media upside down" or "Virtual Realities test & try", open events like "Open Basement" and activities for students like "Digital Scavenger Hunt". Because of the pandemic, digital formats will be offered first. However, face-to-face events are also planned for 2021, such as a review of the school year, which will summarise what this unusual school year has demanded of those involved, but also what new experiences and impulses it has brought.
Architecturally and in medial terms, "The Basement" is an innovative space that is set up for many different scenarios and usage situations and is open to everyone who wants to try out digital education themselves, explore it and shape it critically and reflectively with one another. The research focuses on the production, content and appropriation of school educational media from a cultural studies perspective. "It is important to us that 'The Basement' becomes an open space for exchange, where we can share our findings and benefit from the experiences of those involved - pupils, teachers, parents, head teachers, educational software developers, educational administrators and many more. We want to open up creative and critical perspectives on digital educational media and reflect on current solutions for open (digital) learning processes together with all interested parties," emphasises Prof. Dr. Felicitas Macgilchrist, Head of Department 'Mediale Tansformationen' at the GEI.
About the Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research
The GEI conducts research into the production, content and appropriation of educational media for schools in its socio-cultural, political, economic and historical contexts. It also provides unique research infrastructure services that are founded in research and available on site and digitally. At the core of the Institute is its research library containing the world’s most comprehensive collection of international textbooks for the subjects of history, social studies/politics, geography and ethics/religion. The Institute develops, and freely distributes, digital infrastructures for research on and using textbooks in the fields of cultural studies, humanities and social sciences. In addition, the GEI provides transfer services based on critical research for application in national and international education practice and theory.
Press contact:
Georg-Eckert-Institut
Leibniz-Institut für internationale Schulbuchforschung
Catrin Schoneville
Wissenschaftskommunikation
Tel.: +49 (0)531 / 59099 -504
Mobil: 0151 / 62842664
schoneville@leibniz-gei.de
www.leibniz-gei.de
www.facebook.com/GeorgEckertInstitut
Twitter: @GeorgEckert
Dr. Maren Tribukait
Tel.: +49 (0)531 / 59099-326
Basement(at)gei.de
www.basement.gei.de
