Digifest is a free edtech event organised by JISC and held in Birmingham city centre. Over two packed days we had the opportunity to see and hear what leaders at the forefront of the technology industry think about current education trends, and to take part in hands-on workshops with staff and students from other UK universities and colleges.
This year’s key themes included:
- How education prepares students for work
- Lifelong learning
- Ethics and education
- Learning spaces with digital injection
- Education 4.0: technology in action, sharing best practice
Here are some snapshots of our favourite sessions.
Digital transformation: the bear in the room
One of the keynote speakers was Lindsay Herbert (Chief Innovation Officer, IBM). The key themes of her presentation were very relevant to the position IT Services is in currently, with the imminent launch of the Digital Strategy.
Lindsay spoke about the rapid change of what digital means, and how legacy governance and IT systems are not changing at the same pace.
The “bear in the room” in the title of the talk refers to the challenges within an organisation that everyone has grown comfortable with – to the point where we often forget that they’re there – but could cause real damage if left unguarded.
A quote which stuck with us: real digital transformation is to become adaptive to change itself.
Preparing students for the world of work
Attendees at Digifest had a variety of viewpoints on the purpose of universities. Do they exist to prepare students for the world of work, enabling them to earn good salaries and progress? Or do they exist as a scholarly endeavour, sharing knowledge and learning? Students paying £9000+ per year might think the former; others might disagree.
If universities exist to prepare students for the workplace, why do we still insist on assessing students with end-of-year written assessments (aside from challenging periods such as now!). As one prominent academic stated: “Education is currently preparing young people brilliantly for the 20th century.” Jisc recently published a report on ‘The Future of Assessment‘, which recommends principles for changing the nature of assessment in order to better prepare students for life after university.
In another related session, Jisc’s Head of Cloud talked through examples of how the modern workplace has changed. Cloud services, agile working practices and digital natives are all forging new ways of working, many of which were unthinkable even 5 years ago. This poses a real challenge for traditional campus based institutions – if we expect students to be educated and behave in ‘less modern’ ways, will they still flock to us?
Write-up by Tara Lamplough and Sam Harrow. More Digifest information upcoming in future editions of the newsletter.