Guest speaker - Helen Beetham, consultant researcher in digital education
We are very pleased that Helen Beetham, consultant researcher in digital education, will present a keynote address at the 2024 Teaching and Learning Symposium. View the programme outline.
Keynote abstract
Helen Beetham, consultant researcher in digital education
University learning in an age of AI
A critic of what she calls ‘AI fantasy and fatalism’, Helen invites us to step out of the hype cycle and focus on student learning. What value does university learning have when so much knowledge is available online? What use is expertise, when statistical models can produce (apparently) credible opinions and solutions? Rather than accelerating our productivity to the pace of the new ‘learning’ machines, Helen suggests that educators look again at what we know about student learning and its value. Finding AI fantasies improbable, but steering away from a narrative of decline, Helen invites teachers to see our own disciplinary knowledges and practices as adequate resources for supporting students through ‘disruptive’ times.
Helen's biography
Helen Beetham is a researcher and consultant in digital education. She has edited a number of standard texts including Rethinking Pedagogy for a Digital Age with Rhona Sharpe and has published peer-reviewed articles on topics from digital literacy to surveillance pedagogies, and from curriculum practice to feminist theories of technology.
Helen has advised universities in the UK, Europe, Africa and Australasia on their digital education strategies, and has worked for international bodies such as the EU, UNICEF, UNESCO and the Commonwealth of Learning.
Since 2004 she has played a leading role in Jisc programmes, building capacity for digital transformation in universities, and helping to centre the student experience in strategic thinking. Her Digital Capabilities framework is widely used in universities, in and beyond the UK.
Helen is currently completing a book ‘Teaching Critical Subjects in the Digital University’ on developing students’ critical digital literacies through subject teaching.
Her substack, Imperfect Offerings, has been recommended by the Guardian/Observer for its ‘wise and thoughtful’ critique of generative AI.
How to contact Helen
helenbeetham.substack.com, @helenbeetham, helen.beetham@gmail.com
