Meet the OEB25 Speakers: Keynote Neil Selwyn

Neil Selwyn, a leading digital education researcher and professor at Monash University, explores the real-world challenges of integrating technology in education. We are thrilled to announce that he will be one of the keynote speakers at our opening plenary, bringing his insights on the future of digital learning to OEB25!

What was your first thought about this year’s conference theme “Humanity in the Intelligent Age: Empathy, Responsibility, and the Duty of Care”?

That we need to talk more about values – the (often problematic) values that currently are baked into the technologies that we most often see in education, and alternate values that we might actually want to see promoted through technology use.

If you could look into the year 2045, what do you envision learning will be driven by?

Data and platforms … we might anticipate these as a positive or negative driver of education, but datafication and platformisation are clearly long-term shaping trends in twenty-first-century education.

Which book should everyone read?

I’d just be happy to think that people continue reading books in full, rather than looking for shortcuts. There’s real value in long-form books, even in an area such as digital learning that appears to be changing so quickly!

Which question is asked too rarely when we talk about learning?

Shouldn’t we be talking about lots of other aspects of education rather than just ‘learning’?

Thank you, Neil. Neil Selwyn will be speaking at the OEB Opening Plenary.