Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change

Douglas Thomas

USC, Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism

A World of Constant Change

• Why do our classrooms in the 21st century look like they did in the 19th century?

• Resisting, Managing, Adapting and Embracing Change

• Change is endemic

The Problem of Transfer

• Efficiency of knowledge transfer

• Explicit vs. Tacit• Content vs. Context• The differences between

teaching and learning

Harry Potter and the New Culture of Learning

• 4500 pages over 10 years• 150,000 stories written on

one fan site alone• > 1,500 stories are

100,000 words or longer

Innovation and Creativity

• What are the differences?• Why do they matter?• From what to where and

from where to how…• The power of “what if?”

and world building

Communities and Collectives

• Institution and agency• Community and the

problem of scale• Learning in the collective• Robust peer-to-peer

learning amplified by the power of the collective

A New Culture of Learning

• Inquiry• Questions• Two cultures• Bounded learning

environments• Questing disposition

Learning Around the Game

• 14 million players• Processing 15,000 pieces

of information daily• Knowledge economies• 360 degree peer

evaluations• Organic learning

structures

Thanks!

• Special thanks to John Seely Brown and the Annenberg Innovation Lab

• Douglast@usc.edu• http://www.douglasthomas.com