Continually increasing evidence that future thinking is being taken, or should be taken, seriously.
Interesting free publication from Creative & Cultural Skills and A New Direction in the UK.
We asked over 40 artists, practitioners and thinkers to address issues around how the education system needs to respond to the needs of the creative and cultural industries. Go to the think pieces section to read contributions, watch videos and join the debate through your own contribution.
Dr. Arthur Harkins and I will be participating in a symposium on the future of education in Iceland on March 20, 2012. The symposium is hosted by the University of Iceland’s School of Education. Dr. Harkins will present on some critical issues for the future of education. I will be joined by Dr. Jón Torfi Jónasson, Dean of the School of Education, and Svanborg R. Jónsdóttir on a panel that will reflect on Dr. Harkins’ presentation. More info:
“Tuesday the 20th of March 15-17 The School of Education in collaboration with the Department of Organizational Leadership, Policy and Development, College of Education and Human Development, University of Minnesota, will host a seminar on issues related to the future of education. This will be in H-101 in the School of Education.
Professor Arthur M. Harkins from the University of Minnesota will review some of the important issues in an opening presentation and answer questions on the issues he discusses.
In a discussion seminar Tryggvi Thayer from the University of Minnesota and Svanborg R. Jónsdóttir and Jón Torfi Jónasson from the School of Education, with other participants, will reflect on the presentation and speculate with professor Harkins on where we go from here.
The seminar is open to all interested in the issues.”
Design Jams are coordinated events meant to bring together a range of skills and expertise to apply “design thinking” to specific issues. All participants are required to pre-register for events and to indicate their skills and expertise so that design teams can be formed to make effective use of the range of skills available. Participants are introduced to design thinking principles and presented with critical views on the issue to be addressed. Then they split off into groups and go at it.
This is a very interesting method for applying design thinking principles to a range of topics.
Below is a link to the informative Design Jam Handbook and others that show how design jams have been applied to educational issues.
Design jam on educational games
“Learniverse” – Outcome of a design jam
‘Textbook’ of the Future – Outcome of an Open.Michigan design jam
Click image for the full infographic.
We tend to ooh and ahh over modern youth’s remarkable ability to adapt to rapidly changing technology, but, as I’m sure anyone involved in educating young people in whatever way shape or form can attest to, a lot of them kinda suck at using technology for meaningful learning. One of the things that often surprises me is that, even at the college level that I teach, students can be woefully ill-informed about the basics of using Google to search for useful resources. I came across this great infographic that illustrates some of the more useful techniques wonderfully. I think every student should have this permanently mounted on the main screen of whatever ICT devices they use for learning.
My one qualm about this infographic is what it says about citing Wikipedia. Yes, we should always be wary about citing Wikipedia but not because it’s Wikipedia; rather because we should be wary about citing any encyclopedic resource. Encyclopedias, like Wikipedia, are secondary sources that should clearly reference their primary resources. When using these for learning purposes we should always go to the primary resources; and, if we’re using a good encyclopedia, it should be easy to do this.
I love infographics and am fascinated by how this medium has developed and been popularized in recent years. When done right, it’s a great way to present useful information in a clear and concise manner. Educators should make more use of these, especially to encourage their learners to create infographics. It’s a wonderful way to learn.
Another quote for my non-existent Quote of the Day feature (underline is mine):
“To date, I am not convinced that educational technology has made much of a difference in the classroom. What has made a difference is technology used by students to investigate, analyze, interpret data.“
Source: Some redditor’s teacher
Apple promised a major announcement yesterday having to do with textbooks. Turns out that what they were so excited about was their new version of the iBooks application for the iPad and a new Mac application for creating “interactive textbooks”. No surprise there; this was what the rumor mills had figured out long ago. The intention of all this is to make the iPad a viable, and even preferred, platform for a whole new type of textbook – the textbook that is a tool and engages the student in a range of activities etc. etc. And it all sounds so very exciting! I’ve had a chance now to play around with Apple’s new iBooks app and the iBook Author application and am sadly underwhelmed. I’m not the only one. The education blogs, op-eds, etc., are ablaze today with reactions to Apple’s “bold” move. Most of the complaints that I’ve seen focus on the iPad requirement and general economic implications; i.e. the kids who really need iPads can’t afford them, ties with big textbook publishing firms, etc. – all hurdles that are easily overcome where there’s a real will to do something. I’ll leave that discussion to others. The bigger problem that I see here is that what Apple has served up (I’m mostly talking about the iBook Author app) is didactically and pedagogically uninteresting and ill-suited to learners’ educational needs in contemporary and future society.
The exciting thing about using highly mobile information and communication (ICT) devices, like smartphones, tablets, etc., for education is that it obviates the concept of the “classroom”. Mobile devices suggest an experiential approach to learning because there’s nothing to stop learners from taking their resources (i.e. their device) and situating themselves in contexts that relate to what they are learning. A truly interactive textbook that relies on a mobile device would seize on that opportunity, right? So, does the iPad, as a platform for interactive textbooks, achieve that? To tell the truth, it could (creative minds can always make technology do what they want it to do); but, as is, it doesn’t nearly as well as it could or should.
One of the immediate things that I noticed when exploring the iBook Author app is that the interactive features that it allows are very limited. You can put links in the text, use various sorts of media, and questions that users respond to. But, here are some serious limitations:
All I see in Apple’s new offering is, basically, the ability to create textbooks with buttons to push. So I’ll say again, I am seriously underwhelmed. What I would’ve liked to see is the ability to generate experiential activities that integrate with the textbook, the ability to embed and center social interaction in and around the textbook, the ability for learners to create a personalized resource that documents and maps their learning through interaction with the textbook. These are critical aspects of contemporary informal learning environments that formal education can benefit from greatly. I don’t think that it would’ve been overly problematic to enable such features in the iBook Author application. With those kinds of features the announcement could’ve heralded a seriously disruptive technology. Perhaps we’ll see them in future versions but will it be too late for Apple by then?
Qualcomm and Peter Diamandis’ X Prize Foundation have announced a new X Prize for a functioning device akin to the medical Tricorder featured on the science fiction television series Star Trek. At stake is a $10 million prize for the first device that meets the requirements as described by the coordinators. X Prize initiatives are long-term initiatives meant to spur creative thinking around a somewhat specific set of issues. As such, the X Prizes provide an interesting opportunity to explore future possibilities with students, researchers, etc. This particular X Prize, with its links to science fiction is an especially good opportunity to also consider the impact of the imaginative arts on constructions of the future; a topic that I discussed in this previous post (also see Cory Doctorow’s article on the same topic).
One of the interesting things with this prize is that, on Star Trek, the “tricorder” has always been a somewhat mystical device capable of many things. Essentially, it is a device with many sensors that is able to gather and process vast amounts of data to inform the users about “stuff”. The “tri-” in its name refers to the three basic functions of a tricorder; geological functions, meteorological functions, and biological functions. That’s a pretty awesome range of capabilities for one device (albeit that some of the functions required an add-on device).
The X Prize version of the tricorder is expected to be considerably more specific in terms of its capabilities than the Star Trek tricorder ever has been. The X Prize is specifically looking for a medical tricorder (i.e. the Star Trek tricorder’s biological functions), that is described as:
… a tool capable of capturing key health metrics and diagnosing a set of 15 diseases. Metrics for health could include such elements as blood pressure, respiratory rate, and temperature. Ultimately, this tool will collect large volumes of data from ongoing measurement of health states through a combination of wireless sensors, imaging technologies, and portable, non-invasive laboratory replacements.
This is certainly not the first time that we look to Star Trek for visions of preferred futures. The original cell phone was inspired by the Star Trek “communicator”, as has been fairly well documented. A range of other Star Trek technologies have influenced scientists and researchers, such as the “transporter”, capable of moving matter over vast distances almost instantaneously.
The authors of the Star Trek television series had the luxury of being able to come up with fantastic technology without being burdened with the task of having to figure out how to make it work. But, in the process, they continue to inspire scientists and researchers to push the limits of their fields to make these things real. It’s an excellent reminder that innovation is a collaborative process that requires a combination of imagination, creativity, and knowledge. There’s a place for everyone in this complex process and we never really know where the breakthrough, that will move an idea significantly closer to realization, will come from. So, gather all the minds; young and old, learned and learning, etc., and let’s get cracking on this thing. I, for one, can’t wait to be diagnosed by a tricorder.
If I had a “quote of the day” feature, this would be on it somewhere (italics are mine):
“Our charge was to accept the challenge of an Information Age and acknowledge, at the conceptual as well as at the methodological level, the responsibilities of learning at an epistemic moment when learning itself is the most dramatic medium of that change. Technology, we insist, is not what constitutes the revolutionary nature of this exciting moment. It is, rather, the potential for shared and interactive learning that Tim Berners-Lee and other pioneers of the Internet built into its structure, its organization, its model of governance and sustainability.” (Davidson & Goldberg, 2009, p. 1)
Learning is not an after-market feature of these technologies; it is built in from the start! I think the authors are correct about this. Therefore, calling these technologies “learning technologies” is redundant.
From: Davidson, C. N. & Goldberg, D. T. (2009). The future of learning institutions in a digital age. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
The New York Times is crowd-sourcing the projection of futures for computing. The NYT has set up an interactive timeline that allows readers to take part in a futuring activity on the computer technologies. The feature was published early in December, 2011, and the ability to add new predictions and vote on predictions is now closed. Readers can, however, still project the times that they think the technologies and developments being projected will be realized. This could be an indication of the emergence of some interesting new methods for futuring.
Wow – a very popular post, this one!
Just to be clear, the original story is a joke.
If you’re looking for the actual song, you’re not going to find it.
Almost 30 years ago, Bob Geldof and friends famously posed the provocative question, “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” Now, according to the joke news site Hayibo, they finally have a response. A group of African musicians, calling themselves Plaster Cast, have released their single, “Yes, We Do!” The proceeds will be donated to the UK to fund instruction in discipline, literacy and contraception at British schools.
In the past, I’ve written a fair amount about international development and, at times, been especially critical of the way celebrities, like Bono, Madonna, etc., have injected themselves into development matters, plowing ahead with nothing but their limited understanding of complex issues and overcharged emotion for navigation; for example, Bono’s calls for a “Marshall Plan” for African countries with nary a clue of what the Marshall Plan actually entailed and how it sucked innovation from Europe to the US. So, I think this article is not out of place here.
I cannot hope to top the hilarity of the original article, so let suffice a few choice quotes to entice readers to follow the link below:
“… was [Geldof] just saying that Africans were stupid? Of course we knew it was Christmas.”
“Just because we don’t have Boney M or Christmas advertising in September doesn’t mean we are oblivious to it.”
“… it had taken a while for [Africans] to realise that it wasn’t actually an elaborate joke. ‘We kept waiting for them to laugh,’ [singer Boomtown Gundane] said, ‘But the punch-line never arrived.’”
“Gundane said he hoped that his involvement with the song would turn him into an expert on British politics and economics in the same way ‘Do they know it’s Christmas’ had turned Geldof and Bono into the world’s leading experts on Africa.”
See the full article here on hayibo.com
