Our research is certainly showing the importance of schools’ data infrastructures, and the ongoing maintenance and repair work that is necessary to keep data-driven systems running.
Yet, these aspects of digital data are rarely acknowledged. Instead, the logic of novelty, rapid change and ‘innovation’ lies at the heart of how contemporary digital technologies are imagined.
As Vinsel and Russell (2020) put it, we should not privilege promises of innovation at the expense of maintenance of what we already have (in their words, “maintaining the things that matter most”).
Reference
Vinsel, L. and Russell, A. (2020). The innovation delusion. Currency