Creating
the Future
of Learning
2020 Forecast: A Radically Different World
This 2020 Forecast: Creating the Future of Learning
Creating the Future reveals how many of our fundamental relationships—
with ourselves; within our organizations; and with
of Learning systems, societies, and economies—are being re-
imagined and re-created in ways that will disrupt
the status quo and challenge our usual assumptions.
The following pages will help you explore how these
different dimensions of our world are changing
and how we all can shape the future of learning.
3
Opportunities for Creating the Future of Learning [CONTINUED]
4
Exploring Further
This 2020 Forecast outlines key
forces of change that will shape
the landscape of learning over
the next decade. Its goal is to
help everyone with a stake in
learning identify shared interests,
challenges, and strategies so that
we can create transformative
solutions for the future.
See www.futureofed.org for more information
about these additional resources:
What role
• Group presentations will you play
• Group workshops
• Scenario planning
in creating
• Youth voices workshop the future
• Policy briefs
• Tips for taking personal action of learning?
• Social network
Amplified Organization and innovation dispersed populations that share common roots
and identity), and frameworks for creating new
cus
incl
amid system failures commons (bottom-up means of managing shared
resources) set the stage for re-articulating identity
out
con
and community in a global society. Education will
Extended human System shocks and disruptions in the arenas of
energy, finance, climate, and health care are key find itself a contested resource in the crossroads
and
des
of these forces of change. It will become part
DRIVERS OF CHANGE
decade, enabling productive flexibility that will help health and environmental data. Together these tools
cushion against economic instability. New tools, will provide a robust, visible “data picture” of our and explicit stories, signals help make
including 3D printers (desktop printers that print lives as citizens, workers, and learners. Families, the future seem more concrete.
out objects, parts, and components), computer- learners, educators, and decision-makers will need
y
controlled machine tools (such as laser cutters), to become sophisticated at pattern recognition in
and online networking applications (that allow order to create effective and differentiated learning
designers, consumers, tinkerers, and artisans to experiences and environments. Furthermore, Learning Agents
share blueprints, solutions, and how-to knowledge) new skills in collective sensemaking will redefine New agents of learning will help shape the future
will enable local communities to “make” their own forms of knowledge, knowing, and assessment. of learning by contributing to the expansion
economic futures—to innovate, customize, design, and redefinition of the education profession and
• How do ubiquitous, visible data impact
and create solutions to meet local needs. Schools, its relationships to, and roles in, community life.
teaching, learning, and the assessment
community centers, and local businesses will of learning experiences?
become important hubs of design knowledge, rapid
• How can we use data to enhance human Learning Partner
prototyping, and problem-solving skills that will Students who test for compatible personalities
d decisions rather than automate them?
increase local interdependencies and resilience, but who have different cognitive strengths will
redefining relationships with the broader economy. be matched to support each other throughout
• What new skills are required for the maker the year, maintaining a constant thread
economy, and what industrial and knowledge amid shifting peer relationships.
economy skills remain important?
• What new models of education suggested by Personal Education Advisor
the maker economy transcend industrial-age, Assigned by certified local education
assembly-line models? agencies (such as schools, resource centers,
and libraries) or selected and contracted by
families, personal education advisors will help
families create, nurture, and maintain personal
learning ecologies.
TRENDS Edu-vator
Edu-vators will build platform prototypes,
experiment with new tools, evaluate new
PERSONAL METRICS
students. With their mission to educate all students,
these schools will become key sites for interventions
to overcome the various challenges of disability
and bio-distress and their impacts on learning.
• How can experimenting and designing for
“special” learners create innovations for all?
• How can school communities become
centers for protection and rejuvenation
in a bio-distressed world? PER
TRENDS Bet
mac
NEW CIVIC LITERACIES
TRENDS Participatory media and digital natives bring LIG
transparency and collective action to the civic sphere MA
SMART LOCALISM Ad h
TRENDS Smart networking, data transparency, and bottom-up LEARNING COMMONS and
monitoring enable responsive, open decision-making Educational stakeholders grow collective learning ass
TRANSLITERACY resources, creating an alternative to public
TRENDS Effective communication requires reading, LEARNING GRIDS and private NET
writing, and interacting across multiple media Smart-networked resource providers and Solo
BIO-DISTRESS and social platforms: learning agents create lightweight, modular DIASPORAS AS NEW MARKETS netw
Threats to our biological, ecological, and built • Broadcast • Virtual worlds • Wikis learning infrastructures Diverse movements of people create new identities
environments drain resources and demand • Digital video • Microblogs • Pandemics
and flows of learners CIT
coordinated responses: • Social networking • Tagging
AUTOIMMUNE RESPONSES Mak
• Climate change • Chronic illness • Food insecurity Brittle hierarchies continue to act in ways that seem PERSONAL LEARNING ECOLOGIES to id
• Toxic materials • Urbanization • Pandemics OPEN LEADERSHIP AND SOCIABILITY institutionally rational but which further destabilize Families look outside the traditional “system”
• Pollution
Open collaborative platforms enable networked weak, inflexible systems to create ecologies of learning experiences
teams to self-organize and support ad hoc leaders
COGNITIVE MODIFICATION SHADOW “SCHOOLS”
The brain becomes a site for alteration EDUCITIZENS
BETA BUILDING Super-empowered, networked learning agents Students and families affiliate around educational
and maintenance Transparency, collaboration, and rapid iteration leverage the growing learning economy to enable needs and claim rights as learners
create a beta culture displaying open critique provisional learning systems
ENABLED INNOVATION and reflective practice
Neurodiversity, physical enhancements,
and disability communities converge, COLLECTIVE SENSEMAKING
turning marginalized populations into SIGNALS
Diverse and abundant data streams increase the
mainstream innovators need for organizations to tap collective intelligence
FUTUREMELBOURNE
SIGNALS The city plan that anyone can edit,
ECO-SCHOOLS www.futuremelbourne.com.au/wiki/view/
Eco-schools become a nexus for health, FMPlan/WebHome
environment, community, and learning TRANSITION TOWNS
SIGNALS Community wikis for adaptive strategies,
DC VOICE
Community school audits help manage the
www.transitiontowns.org
learning commons, www.dcvoice.org
THE INSTITUTE OF CREATIVE
SIGNALS TECHNOLOGIES
THE OPEN UNIVERSITY
HURRICANE KATRINA SURVIVORS
The UK’s open-entry, distance learning
Pioneering research on transliteracy, 3.2 million citizens’ homes destroyed
university, www.open.ac.uk
www.ioct.dmu.ac.uk
SHARP BRAINS
TEACHERTUBE
Brain fitness, training, and exercise, NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND
Instructional videos online, MEETUP FOR YOUTH RIGHTS
www.sharpbrains.com NCLB highly controversial among educators,
www.teachertube.com Using Meetup to discuss youth rights,
www.ed.gov/nclb/landing.jhtml
www.nyra.meetup.com
PROVIGIL
PLAZES
Medication to improve wakefulness has AFTER SCHOOL FUNDING
Ad hoc collaboration through microblogs,
powerful off-label uses, www.provigil.com Funding increases in California,
www.plazes.com
www.afterschoolnetwork.org
OSCAR PISTORIUS
MOODLE
World-class sprinter Oscar Pistorius HOLE-IN-THE-WALL EDUCATION, LTD.
An open-source course management system,
redefined athletic “disabilities,” Hole-in-the-Wall Learning Stations provide
www.moodle.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Pistorius unrestricted computer access,
CENTER FOR ECOLITERACY www.hole-in-the-wall.com
FLAT CLASSROOMS
Education for sustainable living, HERE COMES EVERYBODY
Web 2.0 amplifies the flat classroom,
www.ecoliteracy.org Professor Clay Shirky writes about how
www.flatclassroomproject.wikispaces.com
Web 2.0 is revolutionizing the social order,
GREEN SCHOOLS INITIATIVE www.herecomeseverybody.org
DIGG
Ecological sustainability and health
Platform for collective input on what is hot
in K-12 schools, www.greenschools.net
on the Internet, www.digg.com
TRENDS Edu-vator
Edu-vators will build platform prototypes,
experiment with new tools, evaluate new
PERSONAL METRICS
TRENDS Personal data trails about preferences, attributes,
practices, and generally explore innovations
in the learning sphere. They will team with
and performance shape an evidence-based culture learners, who will get credit for being in
PERSONAL FABRICATION AND DESIGN “edu-vation workshops.”
Better desktop tools, 3D printers, and digital VISUAL LITERACY
machinery democratize the machine shop Vast data streams require visual tools to discern Community Intelligence Cartographer
underlying stories Community intelligence cartographers will
LIGHTWEIGHT COMMUNITY-BASED tap the collective intelligence of their local
ere communities. They will leverage social
TRENDS
MANUFACTURING OPEN-SOURCE ASSESSMENT networking strategies to develop swarms
Ad hoc factories and job shops enable flexible, fast, Data trails, participatory media, and visual and smart mobs in order to identify emerging
and customized production, unlike fabrication by tools create new bases for reputation, mastery, learning opportunities in the community,
assembly lines and dedicated factories and recognition organize community members, and locate
community resources.
NETWORKED ARTISANS GAMES AS PRACTICE
Solo inventors, tinkerers, and craftsmen form Gaming platforms become critical training areas Assessment Designer
networks to collaborate and celebrate their creations for work, problem-solving, and learning Using social networks and insights into
s cognitive functioning, assessment designers
CITIZEN R&D will create appropriate methods for evaluating
METAVERSE media literacy, learning discovery journeys,
Makers reach out to their markets and communities Blended digital-physical realities create new and other innovative forms of instruction.
to ideate, iterate, and solicit feedback learning geographies
Social Capital Platform Developer
Social capital platform developers will link
the social capital infrastructure to teaching
SIGNALS and learning practices and outcomes.
They will use tracking programs to provide
an accounting of people’s contributions
THE QUANTIFIED SELF to open education resources and
SIGNALS Blog tracking personal sensors and metrics,
collaborative processes.
www.kk.org/quantifiedself
SIGNALS
process transparent and will stimulate public
MIT’S FAB LAB
METAVERSE ROADMAP discussion around it. Through mechanisms
Get access to modern means for invention,
Pathways to the 3D Web, such as blog posts, pictures, podcasts,
www.ssbxfab.org/about
www.metaverseroadmap.org and videos, they will keep learning on
INSTRUCTABLES the forefront of stakeholders’ minds.
Post your own how-to guide,
www.instructables.com
www.iftf.org
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