About the talk
Education is broken. Classrooms haven't changed in hundreds of years. Robots are coming for our jobs. We don't need teachers. Our learners are 21st century learners. Innovation and disruption. Adapt or die. One of the most interesting aspects of digital education is the nature of the discourse that surrounds it. The way people often talk about the idea of digital education can have an impact on the way we do it.
In this plenary we critically examine some of this language as it has come into the field of English language teaching over the past 20 years. We explore key words being used to describe some EdTech developments (words like interactive, personalisation, gamification and disruptive to name but a few) and the stories that surround these words. I also question what happens when the more recent popular stories about education technology collide with older narratives we've been telling about ELT.