Course summary

The information provided on this page was correct at the time of publication (November 2023). 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. 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. 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. 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. Examples of topics covered in the course are:

• 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?

• 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?

• 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?

• 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?

• Critically assess and understand the role of technology in education across the lifecourse

• Develop the expertise to address the challenges posed by digital inequality

• Understand how to embed innovative learning technologies in practice

• Cultivate research and design prototyping skills

• Understand the relationship between social justice, technology and learning

• The ability to integrate educational theory and practice

• An in-depth and comparative understanding of learning theories and their appropriate use to develop informative research questions

• The necessary research skills for progression to the next stage of your career, including doctoral study

• Specialist technical and social knowledge, enabling the critical evaluation of technologies for digital and social change

• An understanding of the ethics of technology when working with marginalised communities

• 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

• The ability to develop and manage a research project, and work collaboratively and reflectively on contemporary research issues.