2022 UNESCO Chair in Education and Technology for Social Change International Seminar on Digital Education Leadership

The 2022 edition of UNESCO Chair in Education and Technology for Social Change International Seminar on Digital Education Leadership will be on the topic of “Digital Education Leadership”, November 17 at Sala Polivalent de Can Jaumandreu (UOC, Barcelona). The speakers of the event are Dr. Jill Jameson (Greenwich University, UK), Dr. Françoise Chevalier (Haute École d’Études Commerciaux, HEC, Paris, France) and Dr. Deborah Arnold (AUNEGe, France). The session will be moderated by Dr. Albert Sangrà (Director of UNESCO Chair in Education and Technology for Social Change).

While fully online universities have been implementing purposefully-designed distance and digital education successfully for many years, higher education institutions with a traditionally campus-based approach face major challenges. Students may demand the on-campus experience they have been ‘sold’, while at the same time expressing a desire for more flexible opportunities. Research shows that strategic approaches to digital education are still largely lacking, with insufficient attention paid to pedagogy, organisational change and wider ethical concerns. This was more than apparent during the pivot to emergency remote teaching during the lockdowns imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic, and we are now seeing a “snap-back” in which institutions and even national governments are vaunting the benefits of on-campus learning, and criticising online education as substandard with no regard for the evidence from decades of research. 

In order to make better-informed decisions about why, when and how to mobilise the potential of educational technology, HE leaders thus need a fine understanding of the implications from multiple standpoints. We also need to examine what we understand by the very concept of leadership, and what forms this leadership might take.

This international seminar brings together three experts in the field who will identify key issues, highlight current research trends and offer practical solutions.