Tim Goddard

I'm not really a Luddite, I'd just prefer you to pay attention (2011)

Good educators have always used the latest media tools in order to enhance their pedagogy. It is only in recent years that these media have begun to undermine the social and humanistic goals of education. If the purpose of education is to develop citizens who will take our world forward into the 21^st century and beyond, what responsibility must educators take for flash mobs, texting while driving, and the Vancouver riots?

In this talk I shall contest some of the assumptions made by those who automatically integrate all new multimedia into their classrooms. In considering the effects of new media on the social fabric of our communities, I will take into account the fact that the isolating power of social media is not an unknown concept. I will argue that educators must take some responsibility for the outcomes of a connected world, and in their teaching must consider the effects of technologically supported isolation on community coherence and social cohesion.

Professor Goddard is Dean of the Faculty of Education and Lead Dean (International), at the University of Prince Edward Island, Canada.

Dr. Goddard has worked as a teacher, principal, superintendent of schools, university professor and education consultant. He has extensive international experience, including a six year period where he was the Team Leader of the Leadership component for a CIDA funded initiative to design and deliver an educational reform program in the Former Republic of Yugoslavia, where his focus was on the design and delivery of educational leadership training programs to school principals and regional education officers in post-conflict Kosovo.

Dr. Goddard’s primary area of research and teaching is educational leadership and administration, broadly defined, with a focus on the role and impact of cultural and demographic change on structural systems within schools, particularly those serving minority and marginalized populations.