An update to a provocative manifesto intended to serve as a platform
for debate and as a resource and inspiration for those teaching in
online environments.
In 2011, a group of scholars associated with the Centre for Research in
Digital Education at the University of Edinburgh released "The Manifesto
for Teaching Online," a series of provocative statements intended to
articulate their pedagogical philosophy. In the original manifesto and a
2016 update, the authors counter both the "impoverished" vision of
education being advanced by corporate and governmental edtech and higher
education's traditional view of online students and teachers as
second-class citizens. The two versions of the manifesto were much
discussed, shared, and debated. In this book, Siân Bayne, Peter Evans,
Rory Ewins, Jeremy Knox, James Lamb, Hamish Macleod, Clara O'Shea, Jen
Ross, Philippa Sheail and Christine Sinclair have expanded the text of
the 2016 manifesto, revealing the sources and larger arguments behind
the abbreviated provocations.
The book groups the twenty-one statements ("Openness is neither neutral
nor natural: it creates and depends on closures"; "Don't succumb to
campus envy: we are the campus") into five thematic sections examining
place and identity, politics and instrumentality, the primacy of text
and the ethics of remixing, the way algorithms and analytics "recode"
educational intent, and how surveillance culture can be resisted. Much
like the original manifestos, this book is intended as a platform for
debate, as a resource and inspiration for those teaching in online
environments, and as a challenge to the techno-instrumentalism of
current edtech approaches. In a teaching environment shaped by COVID-19,
individuals and institutions will need to do some bold thinking in
relation to resilience, access, teaching quality, and inclusion.
