Future Learning: Desire or Fate? Professor Gilly Salmon, University of Leicester

http://www.futures.hawaii.eduhttp://www.le.ac.uk/beyonddistance/calf/Are we educating students well enough:those who will need to solve the challenges of the 21st 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 (1642-1727) 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 declaredtalk 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 2008Heavier than air flying machines are impossibleLord Kelvin, President of the Royal Society

Gilly Salmon, July 2008Big trends(looking backwards for looking forwards)

Gilly Salmon, July 2008

1,000Horse power1 horse power

http://www.computerhistory.org, http://www.informationeconomy.sa.gov.au/digital_engagement/jargonbuster/optical_fibre, http://www.applebytes.info/apbC.html,Laszlo ( 2006 p. 106)

3

2008 UCISA/JISC Survey of Technology Enhanced LearningBrowne, Hewitt, Jenkins & WalkerE-assessBlogPodcastsE-portfolioWikisSocialbookmarks

TechnologyEnhanced Learning in HigherEducationDriversConstraints/challenges Enhancing L & TCommitted local championsE-learning strategiesCentral support/fundingLack of timeStaff skills2008 UCISA/JISC Survey of Technology Enhanced LearningBrowne, Hewitt, Jenkins & WalkerSupport for Web 2.0 technologiesCareer Development OpportunitiesMeeting students expectations

Technologies to campus watchAdoption Horizons (in years)

7 Metatrends over 5 yearshttp://www.nmc.org/horizon/

http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/ncihe/, http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11463

Lord DearingLord Robbins

Gilly Salmon, July 2008Micro trends(making a difference)

Never doubt the power of a small group of people to change the world. Nothing else ever has.Margaret MeadBe the change you want to see in the worldMahatma Ghandi

Microtrends on Facebook. http://apps.new.facebook.com/microtrends

Gilly Salmon, July 2008Visioning

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 IIof England 1661Gilly 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 landbetween the disciplines

Norbert Wiener

Gilly Salmon, July 2008

Pictures from Flickr: Avi- Abrams, hornsrev.dk/Engelsk/default_ie.htm, www.darkroastedblend.com/2007/10/cool-road-rail-vehicles.html enchgallery.com/fractals/fractalpages/suspension.htm,

A word about resistance

Creating the future through curriculum

PedagogicalChallenge Choiceof learningtechnology/ enhancement Design Development Delivery

New books & Learning Futures Festivalwww.podcastingforlearning.comwww.le.ac.uk/beyonddistance/festival

Thanks for listeningPlease carry on the discussion online

Additional refs/bibiographyStille, 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, 20th 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 21st Century science.

http://www.ucisa.ac.uk/groups/tlig/surveys.aspxThe UCISA surveys- 2001-8.

2008 Horizon Report Johnson, Laurence F., Levine, Alan, and Smith, Rachel S. 2008 Horizon Report. Austin, TX: The New Media Consortium, 2008.http://www.nmc.org/horizon/

Like the hype cycles models?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_cycle, 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.