Technologies for Learning, Creativity and Wellbeing
This international symposium raises a timely question: How can technological advances be used to enhance learning, creativity, and well-being in education, work, and society as a whole? This is a key interrogation with Possibility Studies, an emerging and transdisciplinary field of research concerned with how individuals and communities become aware of, explore, and enact possibilities in psychological, social, material, cultural, and political terms. Technology has a crucial role to play in these kinds of explorations. We need to be reminded, however, that technology use both opens and closes spheres of possibility and that, sometimes, it presents us with possibilities that are best avoided. This symposium, thus, is dedicated to examining how we can harness technological development ‘for good’, being mindful, at the same time, of the complexities and ethical dilemmas associated with this kind of progress.
The symposium features five speakers who, collectively, will explore a range of technologies, from digital games to virtual reality, their diverse applications, from media entertainment to designing ‘singing rooms’, and their impact on a range of populations, from students to older adults. While considerable focus will be placed on educational contexts, the lessons learnt can inform future interventions in other key areas such as health, work, arts, and society.
This event is co-organised by the School of Psychology at Dublin City University and the Centre for the Science of Learning and Technology (SLATE) at the University of Bergen, under the auspices of the Possibility Studies Network. It continues a series of successful symposia over the last years on topics related to creativity, learning, and technology. These past reunions led to the publication of two special issues, in Creativity Research Journal and Creativity: Theory – Research – Application, and a co-edited book published by Routledge in 2021, “Creative Learning in Digital and Virtual Environments: Opportunities and Challenges of Technology-Enabled Learning and Creativity”. We hope this year’s event will lead to fruitful dialogues and raise important questions about our technologically mediated engagement with the possible and its impact on key aspects of our lives such as learning, creating, and experiencing well-being.