Future Learning: Desire or Fate? Professor Gilly Salmon, University of Leicester Are we educating students well enough: those who will need to solve the challenges of the 21 st Century? but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me." Isaac Newton ( ) In Brewster, Memoirs of Newton (1855), vol II, Ch. 27 Gilly Salmon, July 2008 The future is not to be forecast but created. What we do today will decide the shape of things tomorrow Ervin Laszlo, Founder of the Club of Budapest There are so many variables that you dont know what the hell is going to happen. Thats when a leader or a group comes in and says what they want to see happen. (Hank Lederer of the Minnesota Futurists) Ernest Rutherford (Founder of nuclear physics, Nobel Prize winner) once declared talk of nuclear power is moonshine British Astronomer Royal, Sir Harald Spencer Jones, 1957 space flight is bunk (Russian Sputnik launched 2 weeks later) Thomas J. Watson CEO of IBM, there is a world market for five computers Gilly Salmon, July 2008 Heavier than air flying machines are impossible Lord Kelvin, President of the Royal Society Gilly Salmon, July 2008 Big trends (looking backwards for looking forwards) Gilly Salmon, July 2008 1,000 Horse power 1 horse powerLaszlo ( 2006 p. 106) Motive power: industrial revolution Computing power Performance =10 increase Costs = 10 decrease 5 3 Computing power Performance = 10 increase Costs = 10 decrease 4 2 2008 UCISA/JISC Survey of Technology Enhanced Learning Browne, Hewitt, Jenkins & Walker E-assess Blog Podcasts E-portfolio Wikis Social bookmarks Technology Enhanced Learning in Higher Education Drivers Constraints/ challenges Enhancing L & T Committed local champions E-learning strategies Central support/funding Lack of time Staff skills 2008 UCISA/JISC Survey of Technology Enhanced Learning Browne, Hewitt, Jenkins & Walker Support for Web 2.0 technologies Career Development Opportunities Meeting students expectations Grassroots video (capture, edit, share) Collaboration webs (personal, flexible, free) Mobile /devices & broadband (affordable, portable, deliverable) Data mash-ups (converge, re- represent) Collective intelligence (large numbers, explicit & implicit collection) Social operating Systems (organisation of knowledge round people rather than content) Technologies to campus watch Adoption Horizons (in years) Communications Between human & machines 7 Metatrends over 5 years Collective sharing & knowledge generation Games as pedagogical tools Users as content producers 3 dimensions of computing People connecting via the network Ubiquitous platforms Lord Dearing Lord Robbins Gilly Salmon, July 2008 Micro trends (making a difference) Never doubt the power of a small group of people to change the world. Nothing else ever has. Margaret Mead Be the change you want to see in the world Mahatma Ghandi Microtrends on Facebook. Gilly Salmon, July 2008 Visioning To them that come after us, it may be as ordinary to buy a pair of wings to fly to the remotest regions, as now a pair of boots to ride a journey, and to confer at the distance of the Indies by sympathetic conveyances, may be as usual in the future as literary conveyances Joseph Glanvill, philosopher, clergyman and chaplain to Charles II of England 1661 Gilly Salmon, July 2008 Some men see things as they are and say, why? I dream things that never were and say why not? Robert Kennedy Change comes most of all from the unvisited no mans land between the disciplines Norbert Wiener Gilly Salmon, July 2008 Pictures from Flickr: Avi- Abrams, hornsrev.dk/Engelsk/default_ie.htm,enchgallery.com/fractals/fractalpages/suspension.htm, A word about resistance Creating the future through curriculum Pedagogical Challenge Choice of learning technology/ enhancement Design Development Delivery New books & Learning Futures Festival Thanks for listening Please carry on the discussion online Additional refs/bibiography Stille, A. (2003) The Future of the Past, Picador, London. Long term views of trends. Laszlo, E. (2006) The Chaos Point: the world at a crossroads, Hampton, London. See the nice foreward by the (now late) Arthur C. Clarke & the brief excursion into chaos theory. Dregni, E. & Dregni, J. Follies of Science, 20 th Century visions of our Fantastic Future SpeckPress, Denver Colorado. Fabulous & easy read, and loads of pictures, good mix of science and fiction, also attempts to look well at 21 st Century science.The UCISA surveys Horizon Report Johnson, Laurence F., Levine, Alan, and Smith, Rachel S Horizon Report. Austin, TX: The New Media Consortium, Like the hype cycles models?reasonably good, free summary. The Garnter paper usually have to be paid for. Their new book is Mastering the hype cycle: how to choose the right innovation at the right time. Fenn & Raskino.