Hello again from KnowledgeWorks Foundation. We are pleased to have you along as we rapidly approach the launch of 2009: Remaking Learning in a Global Society.

This month, with a national election in just 19 days and with tonight’s final presidential debate, we focus our attention on new forms of civic discourse, and the potential impact of “educitizens,” a newly engaged political force poised to energize education reform by their demands. Are we prepared for a transformation of the politics of education through citizen participation? Should participation be limited to people directly involved in the school system, or anyone with enough interest? How will teachers and administrators react when parents and students openly critique the system? Will they welcome the discussion, or resist outside influence? Should we protect the system and curricula created by policy experts and instructional designers from influence by anyone that has an opinion?

Imagine a world in which every member of a learning ecology can exert influence on the way its schools are run. Not all do, but many are eager to step up. Perhaps recent retirees prefer to teach civics, or a school janitor proposes that students hone their skills by helping install solar panels. Maybe parents now review each and every assessment and then besiege the teachers with questions and suggestions, or small business owners push for more sales and accounting courses. A factory foreman voices concern that the shop teacher is negligent. Students themselves protest the lack of coursework for innovation and creativity. And, politicians in the state capital receive instant feedback from principals, as legislators in Washington drop in on classes via satellite as guests and observers. Does this scenario make you jump for joy, or cringe in fear?

On the other hand, are we getting ahead of ourselves in depicting such a scenario? The EDin08 campaign just ended 5 months early, and education is not a central campaign issue this year. Contrary to the world envisioned above, do we, as a society, lack interest in remaking learning?

If you were excited and energized by the presidential and vice presidential debates, you’ll love this one! Please comment below.

Highlights From Last Month:

Did you read the guest post by Alvaro Fernandez? The brain is like any other body part: it needs care and exercise to grow strong. Read how we should train our brains to make us better learners in the future.

Did you see KnowledgeWorks’ appearance on Canadian television? TVOntario spent an entire week examining the future of education, and we contributed the knowledge you have helped us create.

This is the second in a monthly series of open dialogs with education innovators.

What successes have we achieved with the 2006 Map of Future Forces Affecting Education? What have you been able to accomplish with it? What have we offered that has been most useful to you and other innovators? There’s always room for improvement - what suggestions do you have for how we could do more to support you and other education innovators? What ideas do you have for us as we set new goals for the upcoming map, as outlined below?

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Since the 2006 Map debuted publicly in October 2006, we have presented it to many organizations to provoke deep discussion of the future of learning and teaching, if not change the national conversation about teaching and learning. A small sampling of presentations includes:

- the leadership of the National Education Association (NEA,) which loved the Map and asked for several additional presentations to subgroups,
- the Annual Conference of the National Commission on Teaching & America’s Future (NCTAF,) which has since worked closely with KnowledgeWorks to advise several states in the design of future schools,
- the Ohio 8, a council of the eight largest school districts in Ohio, which is partnering with KnowledgeWorks to discuss future development of district policies and facilities,
- 1500 members of the Delta Kappa Gamma International Sorority, a professional organization of women educators

We’ve also received some mentions in traditional and online media publications:

- Education Week listed the Map at the top of its Top Picks: Go To Sites for Educators in June 2007, with an article advising technology leaders to consult it before deciding upon strategy for districts
- Cable in the Classroom’s Threshold magazine devoted the entire Spring 2008 issue to the Map, with a beautiful fold-out reproduction of the print version
- Edutopia mentioned the Map in June of 2007

Some goals that we’ve accomplished include:

- generate plenty of discussion and debate
- inspire many people and organizations to think more broadly and more long-term about education systems and practices
- motivate administrators and teachers to experiment based upon the needs of 21st Century learners
- find existing examples of innovation and experimentation and successes that fit the vision of the Map
- offer multiple ways for audience members to engage, including a website, a blog, and a youtube channel

Some goals that we haven’t accomplished include:

- generate massive grassroots or top-down demand for change
- create a cohesive community of champions of change
- change the national conversation about education to one of innovation and entrepreneurship

If you’re reading this post, it’s most likely because you’re one of the people that believes in the future as forecasted by the Map. As we move towards the 2009 Map, we need your input and ideas. So please help us understand if our goals are good ones, why we have accomplished some and not others, and how we can all be agents of change! Leave your comments below.

It’s that familiar time of year – throughout America, and many other parts of the world, youth are buying supplies, checking schedules, comparing classes, and otherwise doing what students do in the Fall – returning to school.

The schools are the same, but the students are different. Today’s students are growing up in a world of instant search, fluid social networks, engaging digital media, and mobile communications. And they like to share and collaborate just as much as they like to compete. By virtue of the technologies and social norms of today’s world, including the education landscape, these students will be amplified:

• they will be transliterate – familiar with multiple media and platforms, able to communicate across all, and therefore able to communicate across populations and disciplines
• they will be collaborative problem-solvers - always able to find numerous solutions because they will be connected to many other minds and relevant data sources
• they will be comfortable with ambiguity and evolving challenges – always able to find and analyze similar problems, create simulations or prototypes of their solutions, and iterate rapidly

As of result of this considerable amplification of their abilities, these digital natives will in effect become superhuman – at least in the eyes of those stuck in the dark ages of personal computers and email. Many of these superheroes will emerge to become the future teachers, educators, administrators, and instructional designers that shape our education system.

How will these superheroes transform the system? How will their amplified abilities be reflected in the “back to schools” of the next decade?

Will they replace standardized education with a personalized learning plan for every learner, or will they collaborate on a global set of educational standards?

Will they inject flexibility, transparency, and open critique. Will they turn our industrial assembly-line model into a superefficient and intelligent machine?

Will they prototype new forms of learning and conduct grand experiments, or will they return to tried-and-true methods?

The future of education is in their hands, but, even in this “ancient” present day 2008, we have a pretty good idea of what’s to come. All will be revealed in January!

Greetings from KnowledgeWorks Foundation. Thanks for continuing with us on our journey to the future of education!

In August, we began to offer sneak previews of the content of the upcoming 2009 Map, starting with the ways in which our minds and bodies, through the lens of the Olympic games, may be changed through our own efforts and/or by the environment. A perspective from Alvaro Fernandez, founder of SharpBrains.com, is coming soon to wrap up this topic.

We also began a series of open dialogues with you, our community members, about the design and content of the 2006 Map. Our intent is to listen to your needs and ideas so that the 2009 Map fulfills its true potential.

This month, as students say goodbye to summer vacation and hello to classes and homework, we examine the changing nature of organizations, particularly schools, in this age of increasingly expanding and evolving information technology resulting in new models of unprecedented sharing and collaboration. What changes will occur as digital natives enter the workforce to become teachers and administrators? How will educators and students interact with each other? How will educators and the schools they represent interact with the broader community?

Join us as we explore these questions, and help us shape the world!

This is the first in a monthly series of open dialogs with education innovators.

What did you find in the Map of Future Forces Affecting Education that validated your own efforts to improve education? What did you learn that caused you to change your ideas and practices? Are there any terms in the Map that you now use? Do recommend it to others? What challenges did you face in applying it to real-world issues? Please tell us what you learned and how you feel!

We originally intended the Map of Future Forces Affecting Education as an internal strategy piece. But when we finished working with the Institute for the Future to create it, we knew that we had to share it with others interested in innovation in education.

We had two major aspirations for the Map. The first was that it would become a useful resource for educators and education decision-makers. To increase its utility, we:
- distributed, upon request, tens of thousands of print versions,
- produced an online version,
- collected supporting evidence and tagged it with the relevant trends from the Map,
- created a YouTube channel with videos of various presentations,
- and created videos to explain each of the major drivers of change.

Our second hope for the Map was that it would shape the ongoing conversation about American education. We tried to use the Map to show the direction in which the world is moving and how education must change to support learning and teaching in the 21st Century. To
support these conversations, we:
- presented the Map to many organizations,
- conducted four convenings of education innovators and produced four whitepapers,
- started a blog to foster conversations about projects and events that fit with the Map’s forecasts,
- and reached out to online social media, such as blogs, forums, microblogs, and news sites.

We want to know if our intentions were successful. Please comment on this post!

In next month’s post, we’ll discuss some of the areas in which we believe we helped our audience with the 2006 Map, and in October, we’ll offer some areas we’ll try to improve upon for the 2009 Map.

Have you ever been asked, “How are you tomorrow?” Probably not. However, as an education innovator, have you ever wondered, “Are today’s youth being prepared to understand and design solutions to the world’s ever-changing problems – creatively? Is my organization well-equipped to leverage the energy and collaborative talents the Millennials bring? What are the new roles that will emerge in teaching and learning?” Because you are an integral part of the education landscape, we want to help you prepare for these and other concerns of the future.

In 2006, we released the Map of Future Forces Affecting Education. The broad theme of that map was the impact on learning of new forms of participation. It spurred many discussions, presentations, and connections for you. In January, we are releasing a new forecast map that reflects evolving trends in the world of education. Participation has advanced to such a level that the focus of the 2009 Map is on remaking learning to meet the needs of local and global communities.

Because you’re a subscriber or visitor to our blog, we’d like to offer you a sneak preview of what’s coming. Each month, we will share some of the new impact areas and trends with you, and each month, we will ask for your feedback. We hope you’ll tell us what you really think and feel about the Future of Education!

From all of us here at the KnowledgeWorks Foundation, happy holidays! And to all of you parents, teachers, students, administrators, and other happy travelers on the road to educational wisdom, enjoy your vacation.

KnowledgeWorks is pleased to announce that our entire Map site is now available under the Creative Commons “Attribution Non-Commercial” license. This means that anyone can use anything they find here, and do anything desired to it, without asking permission, as long as they give us credit for the original work and don’t try to profit off of it. This includes the Map, this blog, and any presentations or other materials we publish.

It is our hope that this license allows further spread of the ideas contained in the Map. If you create something that uses this content, please let us know here. We’d love to see what you can do with it.

Eric Grant is the community consultant and evangelist for the KnowledgeWorks Foundation’s Map of Future Forces Affecting Education; in that role he attempts to build a community of practice around the Map and inspire the community to take positive social action.

Eric is a techie, an educator, and a futurist. He holds degrees in Information & Decision Systems and Political Science from Carnegie Mellon, and a Masters in Learning, Design, and Technology from Stanford. Eric’s career began in enterprise software, moved to new media, and then drifted into education; he spent the past few years as a researcher and instructional designer at the Stanford Center for Innovations in Learning. His areas of academic interest include learning and working spaces, distributed and co-located collaboration, cross-cultural education, foresight strategy, and just about anything to do with the intersection of humans and technology. Eric lives in the SF Bay Area.

Those of you following along with our efforts to promote and use the Map of Future Forces Affecting Education [map] know that we‘ve been hard at work. We’ve sent out thousands of print copies. We’ve met with hundreds of experts in tens of meetings. And we’ve kept one goal in mind… solving national education problems innovatively and with others [mission].

KnowledgeWorks is pleased to announce the launch of a new service for its community… our blog, The Future of Education is Here.

We’ll post relevant stories, events, resources, and other content, and we’ll roll out other features as they become appropriate. We invite you to subscribe to our blog if you find it interesting, comment if something inspires or disturbs you, and see who else is interested and involved.

The future is already here - it is just unevenly distributed. — [William Gibson]

Learn what you can do to bring about the future you want.