Empowering and enabling: leveraging technology for a student-centred future.

Abstract

Notions of a digital future frame this chapter, and from this starting point the affordances of technology in a higher education environment are discussed. The tensions that limit or constrain technologies and their possible leverage for beneficial student outcomes are signposted through the lens of inequality, constraints, and the student voice. The vital role that Learning Developers (LD) have in influencing the actualisation of the affordances and negating or minimising the potential challenges by using their knowledge, skills, and behaviour forms the central tenet of the work. We argue that Learning Developers populate a hybridity of spaces in universities, and draw across professional and academic staff in developing emancipatory practice to inform and enhance the student experience. By drawing upon and sharing best practices, they can be termed third-space professionals and colonise these third spaces with fluidity and flexibility, and (co)-create new spaces and places to engage with students. Thus, LDs have a pivotal role to play in realising the affordances of technology.