It’s impossible to see the future of education from a single perspective. Many voices, many ideas, and many perspectives are required. While the future can’t be predicted, it can be somewhat anticipated by extrapolating current trends and innovations.
Dave Cormier and I are offering an open course on the Future(s) of Education, starting in April. Dave has an introduction based on a workshop he is running in Singapore next week. I’ve co-taught courses with Dave in the past and while we irritate each other, he has a keen, critical, and creative mind. Which means it’s always a great experience for me.
We need your help, according to the Levine/Norman playbook of getting others to do your work for you. Could you post a video/drawing/audio recording/dance routine/cave drawing/clay pot that represents your vision of the future of education?
Please tag your contribution with #edfuture and let Dave and I know via Twitter (Dave=@davecormier, George=@gsiemens) or drop a link in the comments here.
19 Comments
This video seems to have caught the attention of many…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VSymMbMYHA
If further clarification can be seen in my video responses to this video. The most interesting part of this video is the amount of discussion it has created.
Key point…schools cannot be silos from the rest of the world or the internet.
If I had to choose a single text for a course like this, I think it would be Rethinking Education In The Age Of Technology, by Allan Collins and Richard Halverson. It’s based heavily on research, at least touches on many of my favorite ideas, but most importantly, gives a broad overview of why we need a different kind of education now than we have in the past.
Here are also some links I think you may find useful:
EXAMPLES OF 21ST CENTURY SCHOOLS
http://bit.ly/bygdlF
http://bit.ly/dBKPh2
http://bit.ly/aMIHvW
THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS FOR THE FUTURE OF EDUCATION
http://bit.ly/b2mNfX
http://bit.ly/dox050
http://bit.ly/8Y8raw
I hope that helps! Good luck on your course.
Here my thoughts on a four-item recipe for looking at learning without schools:
http://www.masternewmedia.org/learning-without-schools-four-points-to-free/
Hi! Here is my brainstorming! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FI5l8zpk9M8
I’ve recently started blogging about the longer term future of Universities. A humble blog, but great ambitions.
The posting may or may not be of use, but I have been flagging material from various RSS feeds for some time now, so in the widget on the right is a fair collection of links to things I thought relevant to the general theme of the Future of the University.
First post (from late last year)
http://tertiary21.blogspot.com/2009/11/university-of-future.html
Nails colours to mast, as it were.
Regards,
Rob Cosgrave
The US National Education Technology Plan 2010 was released in draft form on 05-March-2010. It might be useful for the futures course. The url to a page of NETP resources, including the plan (pdf), is:
http://www.ed.gov/technology/netp-2010
I’m not sure if you have seen this, but I’d recommend the Beyond Current Horizons project and associated materials produced by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (here in the UK) together with Futurelab. There are a range of resources, including scenario planning tookits, and various materials to initiate discussions with different groups. All here: http://www.beyondcurrenthorizons.org.uk/
I am a 51 year old retired Army veteran that is now in a Masters of Teaching Program. I’m curious, how do you all feel about the older education law NCLB and what is going to happen now with the new policies being implemented on education. You know things like assessment, teaching to the standards, LD students, and teachers, administration, schools being on the hook for what the students do on the tests.
This is a shameless plug for a book I’m helping to promote (but trying to do so organically). It’s called DIY U: Edupunks, Edupreneurs, and the Coming Transformation of Higher Education by Anya Kamenetz. My name should link to it.
The author encourages students to take charge of their own education and gives a lot of resources (many of which I’m sure you’re familiar with) for this including lists of Universities that offer online classes and Open Course Materials. She outlines how the current forms of higher ed simply don’t help most students, and how technology opens many fascinating new doors.
Here is my response: http://suifaijohnmak.wordpress.com/2010/03/20/future-of-education/
Thanks George for your insights. I have also written numerous posts on the future of education on my blog. Hope I could share and contribute more.
John
One way of looking at the future is to focus on what looks like a major and ongoing shift in the way teaching and learning is resourced, and the way it happens.
In a response to a discussion on Clouds, I sketched out a rough trends analysis from 1990 to 2020, of six functions that are changing, and will continue to change in the next 10 years. The changes can be mapped out on a spectrum form 100% contribution by Formal Teaching and Publishing Institutions on the one hand, to 100% contribution by Networked Learning Communities on the other hand.
The six functions are described and mapped out in a diagram (see here:http://learning-affordances.wikispaces.com/Clouds%3F ).
No doubt you’ve already seen Tim O’Reilly’s talk about the future of higher education. But, just in case, the url is: http://www.dgree.org/dgree/video-tim-oreilly-on-education-as-an-open-system.html
Not sure, but something tells me that it will involve students using personal, wireless devices to answer questions or provide solutions on the fly, learning to prioritize workload, and research answers in a way that closely resembles the modern workplace.
I recommend you attend this webinar “Transforming Education through Disruptive Technologies” @ https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/740238105. That may help you out immensely.
http://twitter.com/edwebb/status/11224702992
This is a very interesting report on the emerging technologies for higher education: http://www.nmc.org/pdf/2010-Horizon-Report.pdf
I hope this helps!
Gabriel
I just made this video about the Future of Learning Management Systems.
http://educationstormfront.wordpress.com/2010/03/30/a-vision-of-future-learning-management-systems/
Would love to take this class. Please alert me when it is beign offered. Great links on this site.
after studying people like you for some time and people like anya kamenetz of late… and listening to students.. 30 students in a pilot class helped fashion this model to redefine school: http://flavors.me/savetheworld#_ (videos in tumblr link at top)
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