We are happy to announce the release of the recording of the seminar:
Killing Us Softly? The Four Futures of Digital Education
Speaker: Dr Ivana Milojevic
Chair: Professor Sian Bayne
Event held on: 20th March 2025
The seminar can now be streamed through Media Hopper Create: link.
Abstract
This seminar explores four competing scenarios for digital education, drawing on futures thinking, critical pedagogy, and socio-technological imaginaries. These are: (1) Wild West Web: Corporate Digital Predation Disguised as Freedom, (2) Don’t Rock the Virtual Boat: Governmental Compliance Over Choice and Creativity, (3) The Spinning Wheel of User Death: Digitalisation for Incompetence and Laziness, and (4) Algorithms of Liberation: Digital Heterotopias and Participatory Futures.
While there may be consensus among educators on which of these scenarios represents the preferred future, the question of viable strategies for escaping technocratic determinism and dystopian fatalism remains. Is it still possible to foster cooperative digital governance? Can digital education truly function as a knowledge commons, rather than a site of corporate and governmental control?
Progressive educators have long advocated for ethical, human-centred digital education, launching projects to realise this vision. Yet, critical questions remain: What lies within our current and emerging zone of control as educators, researchers, and administrators in higher education? And where should we focus our efforts?
To conclude, the seminar will include a quick, interactive exercise where participants will hash out these final questions.
Biography
Ivana is a leading thinker in the field of futures studies, with a background in sociology, gender, peace and futures studies. As Director of the Metafuture think tank she has led futures-oriented work with a very wide range of organisations, while also publishing widely. Her work includes: The Futures of Education: Pedagogies for an Emergent World (2008); a special issue of Futures on Feminism/Gender (2008); Neohumanist Educational Futures: Liberating the Pedagogical Intellect (2006); and Alternative Futures of Education: Dominant and Contesting Visions (2005).
The recordings of previous seminars can also be streamed through our Media Hopper Create channel: link to previous seminars.
