Education & Technology

What comes after COVID?

16th September 2022 in Conversations, Culture and Technology, Education & Technology, Media Watch, New Video, OE Videos

An interview with a university president Some time back I conducted an interview with the President of the University of Agder, in Southern Norway, Ms. Sunniva Whittaker. The interview was part of a process preparing for our annual conference World Learning Summit, where our university president has participated in parts each year since she entered office. Enthusiastic as we are about that, we also wanted to know a bit more in detail her thoughts on how a university re-connects after a long period of so-called ´lock-down´. Here is that interview.

Hello 2021: A new year — some old reflections:

2nd January 2021 in Culture and Technology, Education & Technology, EduLearn, Essays, Future Learning Lab, Notes from the classroom

It’s a new year and a new beginning … or possibly another repeat. A challenge at the start of a new year is to remember the pledges and resolutions from last year. Much depends on perspective. Some resolutions never made sense in 2020 or before: Be a better person, exercise more, eat less, talk more or less, write letters, visit parents, and you know — all those things that you either do or do not, regardless of resolutions. One perspective from 2020 centers on teaching, on being a teacher, on

2020: Looking back

31st December 2020 in Artificial Intelligence, Culture and Technology, Education & Technology, Innovation

About 2020 This post also appeared on Substack. We can agree that 2020 was a not too great year, COVID-19 added to other disasters and President Trump refusing to accept election defeat. A fast look at news media around the world is enough to confirm that there was no lack of disasters, catastrophes and crises. How easy if is to forget that something else also was true: Many things to celebrate, stuff that went well despite COVID. For me personally one of those was the way the New York Times

About Artificial Intelligence

29th April 2018 in Culture and Technology, Education & Technology, Internet, New media

A readworthy article from Washington Post, by Bill LaPlante and Katharyn White: “Artificial intelligence is the future. Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Appleare all making big bets on AI. (Amazon owner Jeff Bezos also owns The Washington Post.) Congress has held hearings and even formed a bipartisan Artificial Intelligence Caucus. From health care to transportation to national security, AI has the potential to improve lives. But it comes with fears about economic disruption and a brewing “AI arms race .” Like any transformational change, it’s complicated. Perhaps the biggest AI myth

Blockchain in education

28th March 2018 in Blockchain, Culture and Technology, Current issues, Education & Technology, Innovation, New media

Blockchain technology has been all over the news in recent months, mostly focused on Bitcoin and the many debates concerning “cryptocurrency”. In months to come we are likely to see more of a debate also on other uses of Bitcoin, begging the question: What is it? One interesting source I found recently is this one. In a nutshell, a blockchain is a decentralized public ledger that, according to Investopedia, “allows market participants to keep track of digital currency transactions without central recordkeeping”. Coindesk, which calls itself a “global resource on bitcoin and

Ending our fascination with the digital

19th November 2017 in Culture and Technology, Education & Technology, Media Watch

A noteworthy op-ed in the New York Times, November 18th 2017, adds to the mounting awareness of how digital technologies steal time as much as they save it, erodes relations as much as they enable them; offering a sense of “global belonging” and at the same time a rush to “belong” – all the time. Dan Sax writes: Many of us bought into the fantasy that digital made everything better. We surrendered to this idea, and mistook our dependence for romance, until it was too late. Today, when my phone

Visual futures of education

20th October 2016 in Culture and Technology, Education & Technology

How do students respond to the challenge of making stuff in class, rather than commenting on stuff in your usual group interactions? What happens when you ask them to express themselves differently, and together? Exploring new formats for student interaction – also known as collaborative learning? At our World Learning Summit in June 2016, WeVideo presented their tool for cloud-based, collaborative video production. They were with us at our Stanford University conference in May 2015, as well. And today, we got the chance at the University of Agder to spend

Education´s digital future?

28th April 2016 in Current issues, Education & Technology, Internet

As we are nearing the World Learning Summit June 14th – 16th; a few thoughts on how technology impacts on education and learning. We are all familiar with the debate on Massive Open Online Courses, and the history of MOOCs ascending, subsequent worries, commercialisation issues and more. We are familiar with the accelerating research and exploration on “flipped classroom”, and much more. But it still seems as if the way educational institutions and education research approaches the spectre of new learning forms, lacks a certain scope: What C.Wright Mills once

Arthur C. Clarke on Education

6th December 2015 in Books reviewed, Education & Technology, Global Development, New media, Notes from the classroom

There is a university that most of us have never heard of, unless you have reason to, or come from a place near by; it is called the University of Moratuwa. At one point in time it was known as the Ceylon College of Technology. If from Sri Lanka, certainly if from Sri Lanka, you will know of the many prizes students from this university have won in international competitions organised by the likes of Google and Microsoft. And one reason for it is Arthur C Clarke, who was the