Webinar:
DiP Spotlight Session: Martin Weller “Metaphors of EdTech”
Date: March 19, 2024 - 14.30-16.00 CET
Venue: Online via Zoom (link to join will be sent out on the day)
Fee: Free
Webinar Chair: Rikke Toft Nørgård
Deadline: March 17, 2024 - 12:00 CET
The SIG-webinar is open to all.
DiP Speaker
Professor of Educational Technology Martin Weller, Institute of Educational Technology, The Open University
About the speaker
Martin Weller is Professor of Educational Technology, in the Institute of Educational Technology (IET) at the Open University. He is currently the Chair of the Open Programme, the Open University’s flexible, multi-disciplinary degree, and the Director of the GO-GN, a global network of Doctoral students in the area of open education. He developed the OU’s first fully online course in 1999, which attracted over 15,000 students annually. He was the OU’s first VLE Director, and is the Director of the OER Hub team, who undertake research into aspects of open education. He is the author of The Digital Scholar, 25 Years of Ed Tech and Metaphors of Ed Tech. He maintains a popular blog at blog.edtechie.net.
martin.weller@open.ac.uk
Blog: 
https://blog.edtechie.net/
Threads: https://www.threads.net/@edtechie
Metaphors of Ed Tech
In this talk I will explore why metaphors are both a useful and potentially misleading way of thinking about educational technology. A number of metaphors will be proposed and analysed which demonstrate how metaphors can shape our thinking and help us view educational technology from different perspectives. The Covid pandemic saw nearly all education institutions engaging in an online pivot, which usually involved online versions of existing practices, such as lectures. As we seek to build on this experience and offer a richer online experience it has become evident that the face to face lecture has become a dominant model that many struggle to see past. This talk will examine how different metaphors can help us approach educational technology.
Participants will come away with an appreciation of the potential for metaphors in educational technology and ideas to generate their own. There will be a subsequent open session to explore metaphors relevant to the DiP context.
Resources for the Spotlight Session
Open access book: https://www.aupress.ca/books/120309-metaphors-of-ed-tech/