Professor of Digital Education,
University of Edinburgh
I direct the Centre for Research in Digital Education and am based at the Moray House School of Education and the Edinburgh Futures Institute. I am also Assistant Principal Education Futures – all at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland UK.
My research is critical, creative and exploratory, focused on universities, technology, futures and utopias.
The best way to contact me is via email: see my contact page.
Actions toward digital education utopia
Utopia – what are we supposed to actually do?
New paper: Digital Education Utopia
My new paper, just out, uses Levitas’s ‘utopia as method’ as a way to approach the histories of digital education and its utopian possibilities.
Scorched earth technologies: work-in-progress seminar
The recording from my recent ‘work-in-progress’ seminar at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities is now online. It’s on the theme of utopia, re-imagining possibility through Ruth Levitas’ Utopia as Method.
Speculative futures for higher education #7:
The university of ennui
Automation has taken the place of most manual and professional employment, and paid work has ceased to be the defining activity of adult humans and posthumans. As a result, there is massively increased demand for higher education that advances creative, critical, philosophical and social skills. University education is extended through life. Ubiquitous technology has liberated humans and posthumans, providing effortless access to information and giving them space and unlimited time to celebrate their social and creative qualities.
However, without work and with the majority of manufacturing industries and services run by AIs, humans are struggling to understand what they are for. In universities the humanities, creative and arts-based subjects reign supreme as individuals seek to understand how to value what is distinct about being human. Education is now focused on supporting learners to navigate personal journeys toward happiness and fulfilment.
