{"id":8927,"date":"2018-09-19T13:35:36","date_gmt":"2018-09-19T13:35:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk\/cel\/?p=8927"},"modified":"2018-09-19T13:36:39","modified_gmt":"2018-09-19T13:36:39","slug":"past-present-and-future-of-learning-technology-a-review-from-alt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk\/flie\/2018\/09\/19\/past-present-and-future-of-learning-technology-a-review-from-alt\/","title":{"rendered":"Past, Present and Future of Learning Technology: A Review from ALT"},"content":{"rendered":"

The ALT Annual Conference<\/a>, 2018 was hosted at Manchester University 11-13th September. The keynotes focused on the past, present and future of Learning Technology\/Technologists.<\/p>\n

\"\"Dr. Tressie MacMillan Cottom<\/a>, a digital sociologist at the Virginia\u00a0Commonwealth University opened the conference with an animated discussion: “Context Matters: When and where we enter with learning technology.” In her keynote, she reminded us that learning technologies do not exist in a vacuum; learning technologies have emerged from administrative units; learning technologies, both analog and digital must be embedded in academic disciplines to create more just learning communities. Of course, she unpacked the context in which learning technologies exist: in a financialized higher education eco-system; in the liberalisation of academic funding and labour; and within historical inequality frameworks at every stage, which include: students, staff, faculties, institutions, disciplines and nation-states. To view her keynote, please watch here:\u00a0https:\/\/youtu.be\/gApkGG4nAW8<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Amber Thomas<\/a> launched Day 2 of the conference with her keynote reflecting on her\u00a0journey through educational technology, spanning national and institutional roles. She has worked on several big projects in UK FE and HE over this time and now leads\u00a0 academic technology from within IT Services at the University of Warwick.\u00a0She shared her observations on\u00a0 the complexity of the field, both within institutions and as a community of practice. She also discussed at length how the discourse around ‘disruptive innovation’ is often assume to come from the outside, from private funding, commercial vendors and through market-driven forces. She identified that this is\u00a0not<\/em> the case and that as a community of practice, learning technologists have brought shared services, open standards and open source. Watch her talk below.<\/p>\n

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