Second keynote - Blackboard Inc "discover" education

This is a very odd keynote too. A member of Bb staff is telling a room full of very experienced educators that "in the old days the things everyone did in the room was about technology but now education has become important". Making me think of one of my favourite WW lines "let's set aside the fact you've come late to the party and just celebrate that you showed up at all".

Also a little odd - telling people in the room what senior managers in "our institutions" think, hmm interesting premise but I'm pretty sure I know what ours think. Obviously very proud of the bigwigs he's met.

Another "hey look" - apparently the OU senior managers are now prioritising and highlighting the importance of widening participation to HE (please note the use of the word "now" - remind me of the early 70s founding principle of the OU again)

I really wanted to like this whistlestop tour around the globe but really just getting crosser and crosser - we do this for real, you know, we are academic scholars, we're well read, we horizon scan, we research student experience, we predict trends and we have recognised the importance of education within the higher education context for way longer than the past couple of years.

OK, but seriously?? Bb are telling us how they have decided categorise HEIs, what they predict to be the challenges facing different sorts of institutions and what "our" (aka 30 old universities) senior staff think - do they really think we don't know? do they really think we need our eyes opening to the future of HE? - and setting aside the "are you the right people to do this?" aspect the content of this keynote is very simplistic not the "big thinking" that was being promoed