Digital and Postdigital Learning for Changing Universities

Book excerpt: This book explores the purpose, role and function of the university and examines the disconnection between students’ approaches to learning and university strategy. It centres on the idea that it is vital to explore what counts as a university in the twenty-first century, what it is for, and for whom, as well as how it can transcend social divisions. The universities of the twenty-first century need to have larger audiences, a broader voice, a shift away from othering and an effective means of progressing such shifts. What is central to such exploration is the idea that learning needs to be seen as postdigital. With a focus on how the growth of technology has and continues to affect university learning, this book: explores the concepts of the digital and the postdigital; promotes just and inclusive pedagogies for higher education; considers ways to ensure learning is an ethical and political experience; studies how to understand community and collective values through higher education; suggests ways of promoting personal and collective responsibility for our world and its peoples; presents ways in which the university can challenge ideologies based on capitalist modes of consumption, privilege and exploitation. Digital and Postdigital Learning for Changing Universities is essential reading for anyone seeking to reimagine the university in a postdigital age, despite institutional structuration and government intervention. It challenges current assumptions and practices, and encourages new ways of thinking about higher education and learning in the twenty-first century.