The second day of the EDEN Dublin Conference saw keynote speeches from Paul Kim (Chief Technology Office at Standford University), Clare Dillon (Microsoft Ireland) and Graham Attwell (Director of the Welsh research agency Pontydysgu - Bridge to Learning). In all honesty, there could not have been a much larger stylistic or philosophical gulf between the three speakers, all of whom made their own kind of impact on the audience in the O'Reilly Hall on the University College Dublin campus. Paul Kim was both entertaining and urbane as he conveyed us through a journey which examined the ways new technologies are transforming learning experiences for children in developing countries. Dressed smartly in a suit and tie, he spoke with authoritative calm not only on the deployment of new mobile and wireless innovations - he was also well versed in how the applications were affecting education, and his conclusion was fitting. Paul borrowed from the well known aphorism and modified it slightly, stating that 'the future is not widely distributed, so it's not here yet'. He concluded by showing a tombstone with the epitaph 'I have nothing more to say', and pointed out that the date (1907-2007) was a long life represented by a simple dash. What is the dash for you? he asked. How will you fill the dash, and what will be your epitaph - the impact you have made upon the world.
Clare Dillon, Head of research and university engagement at Microsoft Ireland, spoke next on 'Technology Trends Driving Learning Opportunities', and was a pleasant surprise, not least because she is a former school teacher who appears still to understand the nuances and issues of classroom practice. Resplendent in an eye catching red dress, she elaborated on new technology, showing a number of new innovations and developments that have taken place in the last few months. Clare talked about how interaction is changing, not just in terms of new devices, such as natural gesture tools and voice activation, but also in terms of people's expectations of how we now interact with technology. There are also changes, she opined, in the way content is viewed online. Content now has to be interactive, clickable and searchable, another emerging expectation.
Graham Attwell, the eminence gris of Edupunk, and a well known disruptive activist, was the final speaker. In stark contrast, Graham wore a black skull and crossbones T-shirt, probably as more a political than fashion statement, and in his inimitable style, he stalked the stage as he spoke, berating the current educational system. He argued that real world forms of learning have never been constrained by the four walls of the industrial age classroom, and claimed that 'knowledge has escaped the academy'. Quoting from Ivan Illich (deschooling society and learning webs), Paulo Freire (pedagogy of the oppressed) and even Dave Cormier (Rhizomatic Learning, which can be first attributed to the seminal work of Deleuze and Guattari) he forged an argument that education needs to change. One of the funniest moments of the entire conference occured during his speech when session chair Sally Reynold's mobile phone began ringing, and she couldn't find a way to turn it off. Graham fixed her with a withering stare and said 'and you warned me to turn my mobile phone off!' In the end, she removed her battery to keep the peace. Graham's best takeaway was one of his final statements - 'Education needs to disrupt as much as it builds.'
There followed a brief, but intense discussion (read heated argument) between the speakers during the final discussion, which was a very welcome departure from the many restrained and polite conversations between protagonists we are familiar with from previous events. There should be more polemic and debate at conference, because everyone learns and everyone is challenged to defend their ideas and synthesise new concepts. We all need to feel the burn. More of these contrasting positions in future please, EDEN! (Video of the keynote speeches can be viewed here).
Image source by Jeff Turner
Feel the burn by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
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