Global is Mobile: Hungarian Higher Education and the Transition to Distance Learning

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Higher education in Hungary has recently undergone significant changes in how it reaches out beyond its traditional audiences. The Hungarian Higher Education Act (2011) mandates that universities prepare graduates for inclusive and connected workplaces. During my 2018 Fulbright fellowship at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, I researched how Hungarian colleges and universities are beginning to use technology to reach out to learners on their mobile devices: an area of great opportunity, since roughly 3.3 million Hungarians—more than two thirds—now own smartphones (Budapest Business Journal, 2016). More than 25% of the Hungarian population is under age 25 (Index Mundi, 2015), and many live in rural areas far from traditional campuses.

Colleges and universities across Hungary are only now beginning to move away from the “chalk and talk” in-person model of higher education, training students and faculty members in inclusive educational practices such as Universal Design for Learning (UDL), adult-learning theory, and distance-education design. This presentation will examine Hungary’s higher-education system as it joins wider technology-supported education networks, such as ERASMUS+ and EdiTE, through the lens of Hungarian identity, cultural norms, and shared values. Presentation attendees will be able to

• define core teaching and design opportunities and challenges as expressed in twelve Hungarian colleges, universities, and military academies;
• identify faculty-development and teaching-with-technology areas where U.S.-Hungarian scholarly collaboration would be welcomed; and
• apply their own scholarly expertise to the opportunity of distance- and technology-enhanced education throughout and beyond Hungary.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Thomas J. Tobin is the Faculty Associate / Conference Programming Chair at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, as well as an internationally-recognized speaker and author on quality in technology-enhanced education, especially copyright, evaluation of teaching practice, academic integrity, and accessibility/universal design for learning. He holds a Ph.D. in English literature, a second master’s degree in information science, and certifications in project management (PMP), as a master online teacher (MOT), for Quality Matters (QM), and as a Certified Professional in Accessibility Core Competencies (CPACC). Tom represented the United States on a 2018 Fulbright Scholar fellowship at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, Hungary.