New Futures for Education: Beyond the Information Age

New Futures for Education:Beyond the information age.

WFS México, 7 November 2003Dr. Wendy L. Schultz

Infinite Futureshttp://www.infinitefutures.com/

7/11/2003 © Infinite Futures 2003 2

Current pressures

• Infrastructure inadequate• Infrastructure decay• Infrastructure lag• Teacher shortage• Budget crises


Education foresight projects• Country foresight reports on

education: UK, Denmark, Hong Kong, USA (California, New England, Hawai’I)

• Regional reports: European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training; OECD Programme on Educational Building.


NEA higher ed futuresMarket driven:

• MacUniversity

• Educational

Maintenance Org.

• Outsourced

• Warehouse

• Wired

Quality driven:

• Access

Community

College

• Community U.

• Global Tech

• Cutting Edge U.NEA, online at http://www.nea.org/he/future/index.html







“New” delivery systems…On-line classes hailed as:• Flexible, asynchronous• “Information-age” media• More accessible … the finest minds,

from the world to your laptop


…or old models re-clothed?

• On-line classes often structured in lock-step: sequential daily input

• Simply a transfer of print-based curricula to the internet

• Teaching often outsourced to “gypsy scholars” -- cheaper in budget crises

• Commercial: commodification of knowledge transfer.


Industrial edis dead. Next?• We no longer need

to create the standardized factory worker;

• We do need an adaptable work force that can acquire new skills quickly and continuously.

Vos and Dryden, The Learning Revolution, 2001; http://www.thelearningweb/education-future.html


A myriad of models:• Centralized

(Singapore)• Decentralized

(New Zealand)• Computers and

chicks (Sweden)• Certification• Corporate

• Give it away (MIT)• Internet sales (U.

of Phoenix)• Foundation

(ACoT)• Learning

organization• Neo-Confucian

Vos and Dryden, The Learning Revolution, 2001: http://www.thelearningweb/education-future.html


MIT gives it away free.


Get me out of the factory...


…and into a community.


Students in 2020…• They layer identities -- multiple

cultures, many interests, nomadic careers, etc.

• Post-millennial career women shatter the glass ceiling by getting more education than their brothers.

• A “Participation Generation” -- tailoring products for themselves, collaborating on services they expect.


How do they play?• Mass customization: their toys,

consumer goods, clothes tailored to their exact desires.

• Immersive media -- virtual reality and role-playing.

• Participatory: networked games, synchronous and asynchronous.

• Make their own movies/fiction/games.

• Not team but extreme sports (catching big air).


New media, new languages• Texting… like many pidgins:

– Explosively deconstructs formal rules– Accelerates -- but simplifies.

• Gaming:– Promotes situational awareness: immediate

apprehension of the gestalt of a situation;– Accelerates observe-and-respond reflexes --

but degrades emotional depth.

In 2048, the last literate person dies.


It begins withhypertext & hypermedia...• Enables in-depth annotation;• Mixes print and other media;• Allows multidimensional

structuring of narratives and logical arguments….

e.g., Earth by David Brin


It builds withsmart ink & infinite books

• MIT’s Media Lab: “smart ink” embedded in the paper and electronically activated; the resulting“infinite books” would also be infinitely interactive;

e.g., The Diamond Ageby Neal Stephenson


It expands withman-machine interfaces

• Current research on neuron-chip connections and thought-activated computers, means future wireless access at the speed of thought,

e.g., Oath of Fealtyby Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle


And grows exponentially withambient intelligence• Ubiquitous microprocessors,

embedded throughout the built environment, communicating wirelessly:

“ambient intelligence”

e.g., Star Trek’s computer access...


Until achievingnon-linear rationality• Shattering the linearity of print-based

information presentation:– Stringer’s “navihedrons”– PersonalBrain– ThinkMap:

The Visual Thesaurus

• …what happens when an entire generation grows up in layered, multidimensional, multi-directional info environments?


u kood3000 In

year thethis. red

u kood2100 In

year thethis. red

--a navihedron poster.

In 2048, the last literate person dies.

linear

thinker

Mental structures change...

Can we extrapolatethe mind of tomorrow

-- and its education

needs?


From Ravenclaw to Gryffindor• From pre-defined, structured print

to build-your-own multi-media– from hot to cool, from left / logical to right / intuitive

• From memory to experience– read the instructions, or – test to destruction?

• From industrial to organic


“Geodesic” thinking….• Not the end of literacy --

the end of linearity:– The rise in systems thinking, and

chaos and complexity as scientific paradigms, as well as…

– Emergence of new oral culture on the foundation of voice input, and…

– Immersive media/ambient intelligence, and…

– Hypermedia organized by navihedrons, leads to…

• Point-to-multipoint thinking, rather than linear cause-and-effect thinking.


The next generation of students:“homo gestalt”? • systems thinkers --

stress linkages;• “post-cultural” --

no fixed cultural view;

• expanded senses;• techno-telepathy;• void consciousness;• fluid, mutable social

structures.


What will the newdelivery systems be?• Reading, writing, and

repeating

• Online commercial classes

• Lifelong, adaptive, self-organized, open source

• Education by infection? by meditation?

• Expired

• Tired

• Wired

• Biopsychologically

inspired?



We educateto create our futures.

Our challenge: not merely anticipating the needs,

but anticipating the minds of the childrenwho will create the 22nd century.

Thank you.

WFS México, 7 November 2003Dr. Wendy L. Schultz

Oxford, EnglandInfinite Futures

http://www.infinitefutures.com/