The ‘three C’s generation’: are university academics ready?

The ‘three C’s generation’: are university academics ready?

An expert from Deakin University in Australia explored whether academics are embracing learning technologies to enhance their students’ learning, in a public lecture on 20 September 2016.

Professor Kim Watty, Deputy Dean, Faculty of Business and Law, Deakin University, spoke about whether academics are ready, willing and suitably equipped for the technological challenge facing them. 

In her presentation, The potential for technologies to disrupt and challenge traditional approaches to teaching and models of learning in Higher Education, Professor Watty posited the view that teachers have increasingly come to understand learning as experiential, socially constructed and interdisciplinary – and therefore cannot assume that learning is confined to a classroom or lecture theatre or that transmission of knowledge is the primary responsibility of academics.

Professor Kim Watty, Deputy Dean, Faculty of Business and Law, Deakin University Professor Kim Watty, Deputy Dean, Faculty of Business and Law, Deakin University

“The classroom is no longer the most significant learning environment for the ‘three Cs generation’ – learners who are always connected, communicating and clicking,” she said.

“Technology is the single most disruptive influence in the way that we engage with others and our multiple environments, both locally and internationally. The education environment is not immune from this disruption and we know that education changes lives.

“Together, technology and education become powerful allies.”

Hosted by RMIT Vietnam’s Centre of Digital Excellence (CODE), the public lecture attracted around 100 academics, students and leaders from the education sector.

Professor Watty has published widely in her area of specialisation of accounting education – nationally and internationally – and has been successful in securing in excess of $1 million in competitive research funding over the past decade.

She has taught undergraduate and postgraduate students in Melbourne, Singapore and Hong Kong and has received numerous awards for teaching excellence.

In addition Professor Watty chairs two key national accounting education committees in Australia: the Learning and Teaching Network for the Australian Business Deans Council (ABDC) and the Program Quality and Assurance Committee for CPA Australia.

She is also a Senior Editor of Accounting Education: an international journal.

Story: Sharon Webb

20 September 2016

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