Online conference 20 & 21 October 2022 - 'Distance education: a brave new world?'

The Open University, the French National Centre for Distance Education (CNED), and French academic journal Distance and Mediation of Knowledge (DMS) are hosting a bilingual French-English conference on the challenges and opportunities of distance education in the time of Covid-19 and its aftermath. Distance education: a brave new world? will take place online on 20 and 21 October 2022.

This multi- and interdisciplinary conference will be organised around four key themes: 

1.     Developments in distance education policies and strategies 

2.     Transformation in teaching and learning 

3.     Educational models, configurations and practices  

4.     Perception of distance education and its mission 

The conference aims to attract educators, researchers and teachers who are focused on the pedagogy of distance education and technology-enhanced teaching and learning, students and decision-makers in the field, and, more broadly anyone who has an interest in remote and online learning, particularly within the context of the pandemic. The conference is open to anyone working in institutions of distance education as well as institutions practising hybrid modes of teaching and learning, and to traditional institutions that only delivered face-to-face education until the pandemic and had to unexpectedly move to remote teaching.

Speakers from WELS include Professor Agnes Kukulska-Hulme, from the Institute of Educational Technology (IET), who will give a keynote speech titled ‘Connecting informal and formal learning through mobiles: why and how?’, and Dr Klaus-Dieter Rossade who will be leading a roundtable discussion on the 'Societal impact of distance education'.