#327: Side Quests: Black Futures Technology-mediated Thinking and Practice in a Justice-oriented Future Educator Learning Environment

This paper explores Black futures technology-mediated sensemaking and practice within the context of a redesigned future educator technology course at a Primarily White Institution (PWI) that brings together Sociocultural theories of learning with Afrofuturist principles of learning and design. Through an analysis of the design and enactment of a core course task and participation structure, side quests, this paper addresses two research questions:1) What kinds of thinking around technology emerge within a Black future oriented learning ecology?; and 2) How did the side quest’s task and participant structures mediate this thinking?. Findings illustrate joint critical explorations of everyday technologies, such as artificial intelligence, to foster Black futures technology thinking and practice.