Humanising Digital Education or Digitalising Human Education: That Is the Question

This chapter argues that, although technology is indispensable to contemporary education, educational leaders must not surrender human agency to digital systems. It first re-asserts the centrality of humanity to education and briefly reviews the changing, often inflated, expectations placed on technology. It then problematises the digitalisation of education by examining five issues of concern for leadership: hidden commercial and policy agendas, the deprofessionalisation of educators, the diminishing of humanity in education, the exacerbation of existing inequalities, and mounting ethical risks and harms. In response, the chapter proposes five desirable qualities of visionary educational leadership in the digital age: being professional, critical, technologically pessimistic, pragmatic, and proactive. Drawing on minimal computing, it outlines a sufficiency- and context-based approach to the use of digital technology. The chapter concludes by urging leaders to break the “eschatological spell” of latest-technology determinism and to humanise digital education.