In this blog post Rebecca Swartz, part of the The Unbundled University: researching emerging models in an unequal landscape team, relates her impressions of the AltC conference, where she and Alan Cliff presented on the project.
Alan Cliff and I recently had the opportunity to attend AltC, held at the University of Liverpool from 5-7 September 2017. The theme of the conference, ‘Beyond islands of innovation – how Learning Technology became the new norm(al)’, provoked interesting discussion about the nature of technological change in higher education today, and urged participants to consider the language of ‘disruption’ in higher education discourse. The conference attracted university-based researchers and learning technologists, as well as representatives from the private sector. One of the most interesting parts of the conference was talking to private providers in the Exhibition Hall. This gave Alan and I a sense of the plethora of educational technologies on offer to institutions in the UK, as well as drawing our attention to the changing nature of higher education provision in that context.
Read moreReflections from AltC: Unbundling, rebundling and the ‘new normal’ for higher education