What lies ahead for the Media & Learning community: a return to traditional campus-based learning services, prioritizing quality and embracing gradual innovation? Or will institutions take a leap forward, embracing hybrid and hyflex arrangements that cater to students’ needs through a blend of in-person and online components, eventually transitioning into a fully online service landscape, while harnessing the transformative potential of AI and Immersive Learning technologies?
This is the conundrum facing many centres for teaching and learning, AV support services and anyone who works to bridge the gap in higher education institutions between teaching and learning and media based technologies. This is why the organisers of this year’s conference have chosen the conference is organised under the tagline Back to the Future? as we believe it encapsulates this challenge and helps us to shape an agenda providing plenty of opportunities to discuss the options.
The Media & Learning 2024: Back to the Future? conference, organised in collaboration with KU Leuven Learning Lab, will take place from 20 – 21 June 2024 at the Provinciehuis in Leuven. The conference will bring together a vibrant community of educators, researchers, and innovators passionate about leveraging media for enhanced learning experiences. Be prepared for thought-provoking keynotes, interactive workshops, and engaging discussions as we delve into the 14 themes listed below.
Meet our keynote speakers!
Piet Desmet, KU Leuven, Belgium
Gary Burnett, Loughborough University, UK
Maarten Lamers, Leiden University, The Netherlands
Lizzy Bleumers, Thomas More University of Applied Sciences, Belgium
Maya Georgieva, The Quantum Lab at The New School, USA
Media & Learning 2024: Back to the Future? conference themes:
- Defining expertise amongst educational technologists, educational media producers and audiovisual personnel – what does it mean to be an expert in educational media in this day and age? and what is the relevant skill-set required? What does it take to up-skill technicians to be pedagogically proficient and pedagogues to be technically proficient?
- Plotting the future for Centres for Teaching and Learning – services exist under many different names and play a variety of different roles from basic production and service provision to research and innovation, how best can they influence decision-making in relation to both teaching practice and the planning and allocation of resources and what role does the increasing drive towards internationalisation play?
- Enhancing the skills of teaching staff in the use of educational media in all its manifestations – how best to improve staff engagement and generate more useful tools and training opportunities?
- Ensuring pedagogical quality in media-rich teaching and learning materials and processes in higher education – what principles should apply in putting in place media supported services to support effective delivery and assessment of learning materials and opportunities?
- Navigating educational technology trends – whose opinions count when it comes to allocating scarce resources? How best to select from the latest developments in educational media technology that suit the teaching and learning needs and expectations of the higher education community and how can members of our community ensure they have a seat at the table when it comes to decision-making?
- Immersive learning experiences – what approaches, tools and services best serve institutions keen to produce the best possible educational material on a budget? Meet those people introducing XR and other innovative approaches successfully to teaching practices and hear their stories for getting XR into the learning offer made to students across a range of faculties.
- Power podcasting – share and discuss the tricks, skills and principles backed up by experience that make podcasting a masterful tool in higher education as well as the services that can best support teaching staff in podcast production.
- Re-thinking teaching and learning spaces in higher education – is hybrid the way to go? How are university administrations re-thinking their use of space in this post pandemic era and what impact is this having on our community? What does research tell us?
- AI’s impact on the use of media in synchronous and asynchronous learning support – what is the potential and experience of using AI tools to provide summaries, provide guides, ensure accessibility, enhance audio and video quality, support localization, etc. Practitioners and producers are invited to share their experiences of different tools and how they use them to make the overall quality of their outputs more intuitive, effective and engaging.
- Policies in practice for adopting AI – what has been the experience of implementing policies on the use of AI in Higher education and how are universities changing their educational delivery and assessment practices based on experience. Does AI have a role to play in helping make Higher education more accessible?
- Campus-wide approaches to XR – what strategies and tools can help make the transition to the large-scale uptake of XR, what is the role of industry? up-scaling for who – students, researchers, institution?
- Educational media in teacher education and training – how best to support teachers in training in terms of their use of traditional and innovative multimedia in the classroom of tomorrow?
- Bridging the Gap – exploring effective transfers of media-enhanced Higher Educational practices to Vocational Training contexts and vice-versa .
- Enhancing staff and students’ skills in using AI – the importance of building prompting skills in the use of AI in helping to improve student employability for post university careers in technology operation and production, not just in video and audio production but to be more employable with a full set of communication, creativity and collaboration digital skills.
Two half-day pre-conference workshops are scheduled for 19 June. To attend these pre-conference workshops, participants have to first register for the Media & Learning 2024: Back to the Future? conference.
10:00-13:00 CET, 19 June 2024 Unlocking engagement: exploring social presence and telepresence in online learning
14:00-17:00 CET, 19 June 2024 Navigating educational multimedia: strategies for success
Thanks to our exhibitors and sponsoring members for their continued support.
Don’t miss this exciting opportunity to connect, collaborate, and inspire at Media & Learning 2024!
