In this smart and incisive work, Karen J. Head describes her experience teaching a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) and the attendant pressure on professors, especially those in the humanities, to embrace new technologies in the STEM era. And yet, as she argues, MOOCs are just the latest example of the near-religious faith that some universities have in the promise of technological advances. As a teacher of rhetoric, Head is well versed at sniffing out the sophistry embedded in the tech jargon increasingly rife in the academy. Disrupt This! is a broader-based critique of the promises of technological "disruption" and the impact of Silicon Valley thinking on an unsuspecting, ill-prepared, and often gullible university community grasping for relevance, while remaining in thrall to the technologists.

About the Author
Karen J. Head is director of the Communication Center at the Georgia Institute of Technology, and an associate professor in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication.

Reviews
By showing how a professor in a top-ranked, well-funded university equipped with state-of-the-start technology was exposed to personal and institutional struggles, Head's book asks as to the appeal for those with less financial and infrastructural privileges. Are MOOCs democratising or marginalising education? . . . Disrupt This! is a book that everyone interested in the subtleties of Higher Education and in the cost of technological changes should read. * LSE Review of Books *



Book Information
ISBN 9781512600506
Author Karen J. Head
Format Hardback
Page Count 208
Imprint Dartmouth College Press
Publisher Dartmouth College Press