new:
Recording of Carol's keynote
This keynote will review some examples of what has and hasn’t changed over the last few decades, including some personal experiences, and will raise some questions about the future, for discussion. Past: Computer-based educational games, simulations and role plays have been around since the first digital computers. Improvements in speed and ease of access, with increasing complexity, have created radically different types of knowledge and learning over the last few decades. But has the student learning experience kept up with this? Present: We now have mobile devices, global connectivity and instant access to digital media. Even science fiction writers who predicted these technologies have often underestimated how fast they became a reality in day-to-day life. Most of our university campuses have technology-rich collaborative learning spaces. Recent data from students at Western Sydney University gives us an idea of what has and hasn’t changed. Future: Looking forward to the next few decades, perhaps we should be less timid in our integration of new types of knowledge into our educational designs. Are we ready for different types of cognition, different modes of ‘reading’ and different ways of defining and assessing learning?