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CiTE 2009

Just Announced: Michael Wesch to Keynote at CiTE 2009: The Pearson eCollege Users Conference

Perspective on Future of Higher Education Offered

Pearson eCollege continues to add exciting, relevant content to their upcoming users conference, CiTE 2009, with the incorporation of a keynote address from 2008 National Professor of the Year, Michael Wesch.

CiTE 2009 attendees can expect the tenth annual Pearson eCollege users conference to include entertaining and educational keynote speakers. In addition, the conference agenda includes breakout sessions featuring online teaching and administration best practices led by current faculty and administrators from institutions throughout the education landscape, as well as presentations regarding Pearson eCollege products and services.

Michael Wesch

Dubbed "the explainer" by “Wired” magazine, Michael Wesch is a cultural anthropologist exploring the impact of new media on society and culture. After two years studying the impact of writing on a remote indigenous culture in the rain forest of Papua New Guinea, he has turned his attention to the effects of social media and digital technology on global society. He has also won several teaching awards, including the 2008 CASE/Carnegie U.S. Professor of the Year for Doctoral and Research Universities. His videos on technology, education, and information have been viewed by millions, translated in over ten languages, and are frequently featured at international film festivals and major academic conferences worldwide. Wesch has won several major awards for his work, including a “Wired” Magazine Rave Award, the John Culkin Award for Outstanding Praxis in Media Ecology, and was recently named an Emerging Explorer by National Geographic.

Wesch will present his keynote address “The Crisis of Significance and the Future of Higher Education,” on the afternoon of Wednesday, April 15, 2009.

His keynote address will cover his theories on the most significant problem with education today - the problem of significance itself. Students, our most important critics, are struggling to find meaning and significance in their education. Of central importance to this crisis is the ever-changing mediascape in which our students live their lives. A Flickr here, a Twitter there and a new form of making meaning and significance is born. These new technologies have profound implications for education and force us to rethink how we teach, what we teach and who we think we are teaching.

In this presentation, Wesch will also explore the implications of these emerging technologies and how we can work with them and our students to solve the crisis of significance and create a more human future for education and technology.