This event took place on 27th April 2023 and was co-hosted with the Society for Research into Higher Education (SRHE) as part of the Digital University Network.

This recording contain presentations only with a very brief introduction from event Chair Dr Sinéad Murphy AFHEA.

About

This seminar foregrounded the concept of sociotechnical imaginaries, in order to examine the ways in which visions of desirable futures shape the relationships between education and technology. Sociotechnical imaginaries call attention to the ways depictions of the future reveal profound insights, not only in relation to the societal norms and values of the present, but also about the structures of power through which technologies, societies, and futures are made. Furthermore, sociotechnical imaginaries are performative, in the sense that they solidify and institutionalise particular kinds of futures over others. Given that the discussion of technology in higher education is habitually accompanied by an array of predictions, forecasts and prophesies about the future of the sector, sociotechnical imaginaries offer a potent means of critically appraising suggestions of the digital university. This seminar brings together three prominent scholars utilising the concept of sociotechnical imaginaries in their current education research.

Dr Jeremy Knox (University of Edinburgh, UK) Dr Lina Rahm (KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm), and Dr Barbara Hof (University of Lausanne, Switzerland) each provide a 20-minute talk on their respective research.  

Dr Jeremy Knox (University of Edinburgh, UK) 'China’s ‘Talent Pipeline’ for AI Expertise'

Dr Lina Rahm (KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm) 'Imaginaries and Problematisations: a heuristic lens in the age of artificial intelligence in education'

Dr Barbara Hof (University of Lausanne, Switzerland) 'Defuturization: how the OECD planned the computerized future of education in the 1960s' 

Further information

Hof, B. "Defuturization Machines: The OECD’s Early Efforts to Plan the Computerized Future of Education". How Computers Entered the Classroom, 1960–2000: Historical Perspectives, edited by Carmen Flury and Michael Geiss, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2023, pp. 217-238. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110780147-010

Knox, J. (2023) AI and Education in China: Imagining the Future, Excavating the Past. London: Routledge