International Conference
Learning Together:
Reshaping higher education in a global age
22 – 24 July 2007
The Institute of Education of the University of London is organizing this International Conference on Learning Together: Reshaping higher education in a global age.
The Conferecne takes place in London, 22-24 July 2007.
It seems valuable to begin addressing the issues and problems of current higher education as they are perceived and discussed across the world. There is a need to understand what globalization is doing and undoing to our culture(s) with some objectivity and from multiple points of view. It’s also high time to understand the role technology has to play in the educational endeavor. To begin, we are just beginning to understand the potential of Web-based education as a new mechanism (not format!) to do education in a novel way. Or perhaps to change education completely! What are education’s assumptions? Were they imported “as is” from the industrial society? Is it not time to question those assumptions?
As new media enter the expression arena, people need time to adjust to them and feel and internalize their potential. The first photographers were told: “Nice picture! It resembles a painting!” Same with cinema: it resembled theatre! Later on people discovered the new expressive powers of new technologies (as well as their drawbacks). We are now on the verge of understanding the enormous power of Web technologies in education. Not simply technology for education, but within education.
It seems this conference and research work goes in this direction: the integration of studies on media and communication theories with pedagogy and social learning, with innovation theories and information sciences. This is my first research context and interest.
I quote from the Conference site:
“This international conference is for students, teachers, researchers and administrators concerned with the urgent and compelling challenges of learning and teaching in higher education in a global age, marred by inequalities, but rich in opportunities for dialogue. Through an innovative combination of the presentation of research with workshops on curriculum, the student experience and the challenge of higher education pedagogies, the conference will be a significant contribution to how we reshape higher education.
Conference aims:
- to explore what economic, social and political aspects of globalized higher education mean for work in higher education classrooms around the world
- to link the perspectives of researchers, practitioners, policy makers and students on curriculum, pedagogy and policy in a swiftly changing global higher education
- to assess critically existing policy initiatives of governments and inter-government organisations in relation to issues arising from research and practice on curriculum, the student experience and the challenge of higher education pedagogies.”
