News Story

Trinity keynote on disruptive technologies and bleeding edge Open Learning

Peter Scott, Wednesday 14 May 2008

Peter Scott presented a keynote talk to the 7th annual conference on enhancing learning and teaching using technology hosted by the Centre for Learning Technology of Dublin, Trinity College. In supporting the overall mission of TCD, to enhance the learning experience of every student, CLT acts as a one-stop shop for academic and college staff interested in capitalizing on the power of new media and technology to enhance teaching and research. CLT’s work in design-oriented research is widely published, award winning, and is recognized as a leader in the area of eLearning for universities across Ireland.

So, to kick off their event, I decided to speak about "Knowledge Media and the bleeding edge of Open Learning". And I tried to be a tad controversial too…

Essentially, I argued that disruptive technologies change the nature of businesses and transform their markets. The Higher Education business is now being disrupted by many new technologies, particularly social and communicative ones. Knowledge Media research is at the cutting and bleeding impact of that disruption in a world that is increasingly media rich, increasingly knowledge based and with the consumer as producer. The talk reflected on some of these changes. Our OpenLearn programme paints a picture of a future of open content in an Open Participatory Learning Infrastructure for both formal and informal learner. Our synchronous systems research has started to reveal the power of both effective mentoring and peer support for learning. In the new world, the student is at the centre of our activity – but they are far from passive; instead we are making them knowledge workers – and that is hard work.