Rebecca Oldfield attended the 2024 Association for Learning Technology (ALT) conference held in Manchester. ALT’s Annual Conference is the UK’s foremost conference for professionals working with Learning Technologies. This year, the conference was Co-Chaired by UoM’s own Diane Bennett, Manager for Distance Learning. Included in the delegation were several other university colleagues from the teaching & learning community.  

This was my first time attending an ALT conference, after being an Associate CMALT* member for the past three years. As an early-career professional, this was a fantastic opportunity to network! There were international delegates working across higher education, further education, Ed Tech, and government bodies; and of course, there were colleagues from UoM, representing all faculties, so it was great to put faces to names, especially during morning icebreakers and interactive workshops. Overall, it was a thought-provoking conference with a friendly atmosphere.   

sketch note by R. Oldfield, 2024

This year’s conference themes:  

• Cultivating collaboration, 

• Reviewing, reflecting, re-imagining, 

• Inviting improvement, 

• and emerging research. 

Keynote Highlights:  

A particularly impassioned opening keynote came from Chris Friend from the University of Kean, US. In his talk, he reflected on how “interfaces between people and their devices receive persistent attention and study”, and asked, “how often do learning technologists attend to the human-human interface? What if we applied the same attention and study to the ways in which our tools and devices facilitate genuine human connection?”. Friend introduced his concept of “humane technology”, which he describes as, “tech designed to empower people to develop their own agency. Such tools foreground and enrich people’s ability to connect, collaborate, and build community.”  

Following on nicely, it was fantastic to see a full panel of students for the keynote ‘Imagining the Future of Education and Technology’. All students who attended are engaged to some degree with the critical evaluation of learning and learning technologies and their insights echoed the calls humane action.  

Overall, something of a ‘humane curve’ appeared at this conference, which in many ways counters the mass adoption of AI and challenges us to consider the human experience of technology and question innovation for innovation’s sake. 

sketch note by R. Oldfield, 2024

Useful Links 

https://chrisfriend.us/humane-education/

*The CMALT Accreditation Framework provides pathways to peer-assessed accreditation for Learning Technology professionals in the UK and internationally. To learn more, visit https://www.alt.ac.uk/cmalt

Rebecca Oldfield
eLearning Assistant
School of Arts, Languages & Cultures  

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