Tag Archives: education

My future of education

Posted on by
Reply

Dave Cormier and George Siemens requested help in determining the future of education. In my vision brainstorm I produced the following video response.

YouTube Preview Image

[HD quality available on the YouTube page]

I used the song “Learn to Fly” by Josh Woodward. It is one of my favorite songs, and I think it fits quite nicely in this context because Katie spreads her wings, looks to the future, and does not give up. The same can be said about people who want to bring about change in education or any other area. You need to be determined and not be discouraged by setbacks.

The video is licensed under Creative Commons BY-NC-ND because some photos had the stipulation to not change them while others required the “Share alike”. The license I chose was a compromise.

Transcript

The education in the future should not be a monotonous learning space, but filled with an abundance of diversely colored learning scenarios ranging from more receptive modes, e.g. the classic lecture, to highly interactive ones. Interactivity is not measured in the amount of technology used, but in the way people connect.

By then traditional forms of learning like face-to-face classrooms, blended learning courses with a teacher and tutor, online courses like Connectivism and Connective Knowledge where the lines between “teachers” and “learners” blur, or streamed presentations with a backchannel will be complemented, if not surpassed – depending on the near or distant future – by learning scenarios that are more immersive, e.g. with the help of augmented reality. And these are just formal and non-formal learning scenarios.

But, advancing technologies that I cannot even fathom now, are not the determining factor in the future of education. Much more important is the change in attitude that is needed.

I want to learn together with people inside my institution as well as outside freely. Many colleagues still work on their own and do not embrace sharing and exploring beyond their chosen field of research.

As we are engaged in lifelong learning, we should welcome the multiple faces of learning, use them plenty and not stick to a comfortable 2 or 3.

The future does not happen in the future, but it starts now with us taking small steps into the direction of the future that we envision currently to see it changed at every step.

When will you start to fly to the future?

Photo credits

(in order of appearance and on the faces scene from left to right and top to bottom)

me, OliBac, asparagus_hunter, PhotoGraham, janusz_l, nic0, Lynn (Gracie’s mom), Martin_Heigan, gilderic, onkel_wart, jazamarripae, [ piXo ], RuSt, estherase, me

Other contributions

So far I know of responses from Andreas Auwärter, Tony Hirst, Alan Levine, D’Arcy Norman, Martin Weller, David Wiley.

How to improve a product effectively

Posted on by
Reply

Clayton M. Christensen brings product improvement down to a simple statement in his presentation at the ECS National Forum on Education Policy: “Understanding the job rather than understanding the customer is the critical insight” (at about 8:30 min in the video).

His example is the buying of milk shakes. Collecting data on who buys milk shakes is not enough. A company also needs to understand why the people buy milk shakes at that particular time. In his example, people buy milk shakes before starting their long commute to have something to do while driving. Thus, the company would do good to bring the shake dispenser to the counter and equip it with a pre-paid swipe card system so that customers – who are in a hurry in the morning – can get their milk shake without having to wait in line. Customers who buy milk shakes in the afternoon will most likely have very different needs and thus the company needs to think about a different strategy to get them to buy more milk shakes.

via @ctscho

Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Blip.tv video.