Education (Digital and Social Change) MSc

**The information provided on this page was correct at the time of publication (November 2024). For complete and up-to-date information about this course, please visit the relevant University of Oxford course page via www.graduate.ox.ac.uk/ucas.**<br/><br/>The MSc Education (Digital and Social Change) is an exciting and innovative programme, in which you will develop a strong theoretical understanding of new technologies, education and society.<br/><br/>At the core of the programme is a strong commitment to digital inclusion and social justice that addresses contemporary issues regarding the impact of digital and social change in education. <br/><br/>At a time when many people are discussing significant moral questions regarding technology and its use in education, including for example, the ethics of Artificial Intelligence, there is a pressing need for a new generation of researchers and practitioners that can affect social change through stronger theoretically-informed practice, research, design and policy.<br/><br/>Examples of topics covered in the course are:<br/><br/><br/>- Key Concepts in Digital Education: What is technology and what is the purpose of Education? How might we theorise how people learn with technologies? How can we conceptualise and enable social change in education?<br/><br/><br/>- Social Justice and Technology: How can we make social justice an underpinning principle of technology design, development, implementation and evaluation? What are the controversies and debates regarding the role of technology in global contexts?<br/><br/><br/>- Education, the Internet and Society: How might we understand society in a digital era and what implications does this have for education? What kinds of educational futures do we wish to create?<br/><br/><br/>- Critical Digital Innovation: What are the potential benefits, emerging risks, and inevitable trade-offs involved in the design and development of educational technologies, particularly given advances in AI? How might we use inclusive design approaches to work with marginalised communities?<br/><br/><br/>The department welcomes students from a range of disciplinary backgrounds including but not limited to education, computer science, sociology, communications and international development. You will have a commitment to social justice in education, a questioning stance on technology and an interest in developing interdisciplinary knowledge.<br/><br/>**Aims of the course**<br/>- Critically assess and understand the role of technology in education across the lifecourse<br/><br/><br/>- Develop the expertise to address the challenges posed by digital inequality<br/><br/><br/>- Understand how to embed innovative learning technologies in practice<br/><br/><br/>- Cultivate research and design prototyping skills<br/><br/><br/>- Understand the relationship between social justice, technology and learning<br/><br/><br/>**Learning outcomes**<br/>By the end of the course you will develop:<br/><br/><br/>- The ability to integrate educational theory and practice<br/><br/><br/>- An in-depth and comparative understanding of learning theories and their appropriate use to develop informative research questions<br/><br/><br/>- The necessary research skills for progression to the next stage of your career, including doctoral study<br/><br/><br/>- Specialist technical and social knowledge, enabling the critical evaluation of technologies for digital and social change<br/><br/><br/>- An understanding of the ethics of technology when working with marginalised communities<br/><br/><br/>- Informed insights into state-of-the-art technical tools utilised in machine learning and critically evaluate their application to, and limitations for, digital and social change in education<br/><br/><br/>- The ability to develop and manage a research project, and work collaboratively and reflectively on contemporary research issues.<br/><br/><br/> **For the full description, please visit the relevant University of Oxford course page via www.graduate.ox.ac.uk/ucas**<br/>