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Webinars

Why Technology Is NOT the Answer! The Challenges for Higher Education Post COVID-19

Thursday, November 5, 2020
1:00 p.m. - 2:00 p.m. (Eastern Time)

The “transformation” conversation is alive and well. EdTech vendors are busy “selling” the idea that a pivot from face-to-face to online is inevitable as colleges and universities face their future. They have the “answers”, but they are answers to questions no one is asking.

Join Dr. Paul Prinsloo, Research Professor in Open and Distance Learning (ODL), University of South Africa (UNISA) and Research Associate, Contact North | Contact Nord, as he hosts a conversation with Audrey Watters exploring the following issues:

  • What is the future of higher education and what role, if any, will EdTech play in that future?
  • How do we get past the EdTech “hype” and nonsense, and focus on what matters most?
  • What actions can policy makers, institutional leaders, faculty and student leaders take to ensure higher education is not “captured” by EdTech vendors who promise” better outcomes at a lower cost for more people” but can’t deliver?
  • How do we balance the opportunities, which EdTech may provide, with the need for an intensely human, relational learning experience?
  • How can we prevent the excesses of EdTech in relation to surveillance, privacy and the promotion of insecurity?

Host:

Audrey Watters
Journalist specializing in education technology news and analysis

She has written for Edutopia, MindShift, O'Reilly Radar, ReadWriteWeb, and The Huffington Post, in addition to her own blog, Hack Education.

Audrey Watters is author of The Monsters of Education Technology, The Revenge of the Monsters of Education Technology, The Curse of the Monsters of Education Technology, as well as a book arguing that students should control their digital identities and digital work, Claim Your Domain.

Her next book, Teaching Machines, is being published by MIT Press.