Plenary B
The Annual OEB Debate!
Date Thursday, Dec 7 Time – Room Potsdam 1
Always one of the highlights of OEB, the debate is an opportunity for participants to discuss one of the most important issues of the day with our expert speakers. The parliamentary-style format encourages a lively exchange of views and allows plenty of time for audience participation. The motion for debate this year is: “As the internet and social media are profoundly affecting both thinking and learning in ways that are not always beneficial, education institutions should take steps to encourage students to reduce their reliance on them”.
Our panel of expert speakers will open this fascinating and important debate about the effects of the internet and social media on students' capacity to think and learn. With such a controversial subject up for discussion, this year's debate promises to be as explosive as ever!
Marc Prensky
Founder and Executive Director, Global Future Education Foundation and Institute, USA
Marc Prensky, coiner of the term “Digital Native,” is an internationally acclaimed speaker, author, consultant and “practical visionary,” promoting civilization-level change in global education. Marc has spoken in over 40 countries, authored seven books, and published over 100 essays; his writing has been translated into 11 languages. He is currently the founder and Executive Director of the Global Future Education Foundation and Institute. Marc’s latest book, Education to Better Their World: Unleashing the Power of 21st Century Kids (Columbia TC Press, 2016), is a finalist for the 2016 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards in Education.
Links
http://global-future-education.org/http://www.marcprensky.com/
Julia Hobsbawm
Expert in Social Health at Cass Business School, London, Expert in Social Health at Cass Business School, London and author of Fully Connected: Surviving and Thriving in an Age of Overload, UK
Julia Hobsbawm founded the 'knowledge networking' business www.editorialintelligence.com and consults, writes, teaches, talks and blogs on a number of topics including entrepreneurship, the role of behavioural networks in politics and society, business productivity and the subject she has defined on modern knowledge networking - Social Health. She is the world's first professor of Networking, having been made Honorary Visiting Professor by London's Cass Business School and at the University of Suffolk. She is the author of several books and articles covering communication, business, the media and the future of the workplace. She has written and presented the 5 part BBC Radio 4 series "Networking Nation".
Hobsbawm's new book, 'Fully Connected' was published by Bloomsbury in Spring 2017 and was made Book of the Week by The Times Higher Education Supplement. It was praised by INSEAD and London Business School's Professor Herminia Ibarra as 'stella...a must-read for individuals and policymakers alike' and by Andrew Keen as 'the most profound book about connectivity published this century".
Professor Hobsbawm was awarded an OBE for Services to Business in the Queen's Birthday Honours list in June 2015.
Photo by Andres Reynaga
Links
http://editorialintelligence.com/http://www.juliahobsbawm.com/
Claire Fox
IOI Director, Director of the Institute of Ideas, Writer and TV and BBC Radio Panelist, UK
Claire Fox is the director of the Institute of Ideas, which she established to create a public space where ideas can be contested without constraint. She convenes the yearly Battle of Ideas festival and initiated The Institute of Ideas Debating Matters Competition for sixth-formers. She also co-founded the IoI’s residential summer school The Academy, with the aim to demonstrate ‘university as it should be’.
She is a panelist on BBC Radio 4’s The Moral Maze and is regularly invited to comment on developments in culture, education, media and free speech issues on TV and radio programmes in the UK such as Newsnight and Any Questions? Claire is a columnist for TES (Times Educational Supplement) and MJ (Municipal Journal). She is author of a recent book on free speech, I Find That Offensive (Biteback, 2016), and No Strings Attached! Why arts funding should say no to instrumentalism (Arts&Business, 2007).
Claire is a fellow of Wellington College, an executive board member of the Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction (IRDR), UCL and is involved at a board level in the international debate network, Time To Talk.
Links
http://instituteofideas.com/aboutus/per…
Joe Edelman
nxhx and Livable Media, USA
I’m a social scientist, but my experiments take the form of games, participatory performances, and software. So I don’t just do science—I design games and group activities, create performances, and publish code.
I study how social environments shape our agency and our relationships, and how our worldviews and values limit what we can design. I've created a little nonprofit that supports this work.
The fields I work in are the theory of reasons for action, the field of human computer interaction, and real world game design as a kind of experimental sociology. One of my abiding research questions: Why does the market fail to address people's deepest desires? How can we re-orient the economy towards what we really want?
My strongest influences are David Velleman, Ruth Chang, Amartya Sen, Augusto Boal, and Bret Victor. My closest collaborators include Albert Kong, Rob Ochshorn, and Tristan Harris.
Moderator
Harold Elletson
Editor / Senior Fellow, Communications Consultant and Senior Fellow, the Institute for Statecraft, UK
Dr Harold Elletson is an International Communications Consultant and Senior Fellow of the Institute for Statecraft.
He is a founding director of the Africa Forum on Business, Investment and Security, a member of the steering committee of OEB, a member of the Organising Committee of eLearning Africa and a consultant to ICWE GmbH. He is also the editor of The eLearning Africa Report.
Dr Elletson was previously Director of the NATO Forum on Business and Security, which he created with support from the NATO Science Programme.
A former Member of the United Kingdom Parliament (from 1992-1997), he served as Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in the early stages of the peace process and was also a member of the Select Committee on Environmental affairs. He served as a member of the Lancashire Education Authority (the Education Committee of Lancashire County Council) before being elected to Parliament where he represented the interests of schools and colleges in his constituency in discussions with Ministers and on the floor of the House of Commons. He is a Fellow of the Armed Forces Parliamentary Scheme and of the Industry and Parliament Trust.
As a communications and public affairs specialist, he has advised many leading companies on aspects of their business in challenging markets, including BP in Azerbaijan and Alstom in Siberia. He has written widely on political and historical subjects and his first book, The General Against the Kremlin, that was published by Little Brown. His journalism has been published in a variety of newspapers and magazines. Dr Elletson holds a PhD in Social Sciences from the University of Bradford.