Recommendation of a Strategy

The Future of Learning (Yours)

Eric Grant, LDT 05Futurist, Edupreneur

email: egrant@stanfordalumni.orgtwitter: senatorgrant

Overview

Lecture: A Bit of Context for Today

Discussion: Education in the Flat World

Lecture: Tools Used by the Pros

Activity: Scenario Development

Lecture: Products of the Pros

Discussion: What's Next?

Suggested Reading

The World is Flat by Thomas FriedmanOptional: Education in the Flat World

Shift Happens 2.0

Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky

Wikinomics by Dan Tapscott

Disrupting Class by Clayton Christensen

A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink

Generations by Strauss and Howe

Context for Today
or: Explicit Learning Goals

Most likely, the Future is not that different from nowDemographics change, capacities increase, but humans still learn, work, play, love, and die

The Future is impossible to predict, and if you try, you will be wrong, and probably be ridiculedBut the future can be forecasted through a variety of fuzzy arts and rigorous methods

An unchanged Future is boring and uselessBut talking about the extreme possibilities is much more interesting and generates better strategies

Futurists, aka Futurismologists

Futures Studies, Foresight, or Futurology is the science, art and practice of postulating possible, probable, and preferable futures and the worldviews and myths that underlie them.

Futures Studies seeks to understand what is likely to continue, what is likely to change, and what is novel.

The discipline thus seeks a systematic and pattern-based understanding of past and present, and to determine the likelihood of future events and trends.

Some Fun Foresight Shapes

The future can often be depicted in terms of pendulum shifts

The future sometimes looks like a long tail

Source: Longtail.com

Source: Wikipedia

Some Fun Foresight Shapes

The S-Curve is popular for forecasting adoption of new technologies and products

But the Hype Cycle is usually more accurate

Source: Gartner via Wikipedia

Source: Wikipedia

Some Fun Foresight Shapes

The future can be depicted as a cone of uncertaintyIt becomes more uncertain the further out you try to lookTrends that seem obvious now become wilder and more unpredictable

TimeTime

Tools of the Pros: Trend Analysis

collecting information and attempting to spot a pattern, or trend, in the information

often coupled with data visualizations, such as maps

Tools of the Pros: the Delphi Method

systematic, interactive method which relies on a panel of independent experts

experts answer questionnaires in two or more rounds

after each round, a facilitator provides an anonymous summary of the experts forecasts from the previous round as well as the reasons they provided for their judgments

participants are encouraged to revise their earlier answers in light of the replies of other members of the group

it is believed that during this process the range of the answers will decrease and the group will converge towards the "correct" answer

Tools of the Pros: Scenario Planning
and our learning activity for today

(orginally) simulation games created by analysts for policy or military uses

(now) plausible, but unexpectedly important situations and problems that exist in some small form in the present day, combined with narratives about where those situations may lead

Tools of the Pros: Scenario Planning
Step 1: Choose a Focal Issue (and Timeframe)

example: How can we design learning environments for 2020 to ensure that all students succeed?

example: How can we support continuing / lifelong learning in 2020?

example: How can we ensure equity and access for all students in 2020?

example: How can organizations maximize the potential of workers in 2020?

Tools of the Pros: Scenario Planning
Step 2: Choose Your Critical Uncertainties

Make some basic assumptionsex: the Earth will still support life in 2020

ex: bandwidth, storage, and data will continue to increase over the next 10 years

Create a list of critical uncertainties that have identifiable possibile outcomes, and choose 2 that will work well togetherex: What will learning outcomes be? Fluid? Static?

ex. What will the purpose of education be? Citizens? Workers?

ex: How will teachers be trained in 10 years?

ex: Will the world become flatter or isolated?

ex: Where will learning happen?

Tip: Do not assign value judgements to critical uncertainties

Arrange your critical uncertainties in a Cartesian plane (aka 2x2)

Focal Issue: How can we design learning environments that ensure success for all learners in 2020?

Learning Outcomes

Where Learning Takes Place

Any Time, Any Place

In School

Static

Fluid

Tools of the Pros: Scenario Planning
Step 3: Imagine details of each quadrant

Focal Issue: How can we design learning environments that ensure success for all learners in 2020?

Learning Outcomes

Where Learning Takes Place

Any Time, Any Place

In School

Static

Fluid

Scenario B: Supply and Demand for Democracy

Scenario A: America Competes

Scenario C: Hot, Flat, and Crowded

Scenario D: Teacher-At-Large

Tools of the Pros: Scenario Planning
Other Steps

Step 4: Create scenarios (stories) explaining how each quadrant might happen

Step 5: Figure out how your (organization, institution, family, project, etc) could act most effectively in each situation

Step 6: Over the next year or two, watch for signs that one of these scenarios might be playing out

Step 7: Revise your scenarios every few years

Learning Activity

As a large group, brainstorm 4 - 5 focal issues (5 minutes)

Self-select into small groups to address one of the focal issues (20 minutes)Identify several critical uncertainties; narrow down to 2

Map to 2x2 and identify characteristics of each quadrant

Regroup to report out

Products of the Pros:
The Map of Future Forces

Trend Analysis and Visualization

First Version 2006 to 2016 (2006)

Second Version 2020 (March 2009)

Created by KnowledgeWorks Foundation and Institute for the Future

http://www.kwfdn.org/map

Products of the Pros:
Map of Future Forces 2020

Six Drivers of ChangeAltered Bodies

Amplified Organizations

The Maker Economy

Platforms for Resilience

A New Civic Discourse

Pattern Recognition

Products of the Pros:
Horizon Report

Trend Analaysis and Delphi Method, produced via Wiki

Annual; latest version January 2010

Produced by New Media Consortium and Educause Learning Intiative

http://horizon.nmc.org/wiki/Main_Page

Products of the Pros:
The 2009 Horizon Report

Increasing globalization continues to affect the way we work, collaborate, and communicate

The notion of collective intelligence is redefining how we think about ambiguity and imprecision

Experience with and affinity for games as learning tools is an increasingly universal characteristic among those entering higher education and the workforce

Visualization tools are making information more meaningful and insights more intuitive

As more than one billion phones are produced each year, mobile phones are benefiting from unprecedented innovation, driven by global competition

What's Next?

Do your scenarios fit with the forecasts of the pros?

How can all of this help us?

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