Within the ongoing world-wide datafication and digitalization of education, digital data and technologies as well as new intermediary actors, who promote these technologies, have been gaining more and more relevance in school policy, governance and practice (Landri 2018, Williamson 2017, Selwyn 2011, Hartong 2016, Sellar 2015). In Germany, this includes the implementation/expansion of state school monitoring systems, but also the rise of learning and school platforms. While the former has largely been driven by public state school agencies themselves, the latter has been powerfully triggered through the rise of public-private partnerships as well as private EdTech initiatives. Within this context, this contribution focuses on one of the strongest expanding platforms, itslearning, which is an international EdTech business sold either to individual schools or to states (thus covering all schools in those states). Building on to growing literature of Critical Data Studies (Kitchin and Lauriault, 2014; Iliadis and Russo, 2016) and (digital) education governance research (e.g. Landri 2018), this contribution takes a critical approach towards itslearning´s recent expansion and legitimation in Germany, focusing in particular on processes of normalisation and subjectivation inscribed in the platform's design as well as the company's agenda. In doing so, we not only shed light on itslearning’s corporate expansion strategies, but also on the effects of itslearning on school actors in classrooms as well as administration. Our methods hereby include qualitative data from participatory observations of itslearning user meetings, interviews with principals, teachers and students in schools which use itslearning, interviews with state officials as well as extensive online research and document analyses. Our results illuminate how itslearning has created a (digital) community around itself, inviting teachers and students to help develop and promote the platform, while simultaneously and powerfully shaping their subjectivities, consciousness and identity. Essential for this are so-called user conferences, which governmentally operate as “moments of meetingness” (Ball 2017), while at the same time devalorising potential critical perspectives on digitalisation. Simultaneously, while the actual usage of itslearning in schools so-far still appears highly context-dependent and, in contrast to the company´s vision, often limited to cloud service usage or curriculum development, the platform's design implies a gradual expansion of its usage also within schools, ultimately promoting interoperability between pedagogy, monitoring and governance

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