1. Beyond Current Horizons:
Educational Futures,
Challenges and Opportunities
Jen Groff
jen.groff@futurelab.org.uk
@jsgroff

2. Mobi Missions Astroversity Moovl
Exploratree Enquiring Minds
My-E
Space Signpost Ecolibrium Fizzees

3. SCHOOLS,
KNOWLEDGE&&
EDUCATIONAL
CHANGE
John Morgan and Ben Williamson

4. www.futurelab.org.uk
Gaming in families
A literature review
Mary Ulicsak, Martha Wright, Sue Cranmer, Futurelab
August 2009

5. FUTURELAB SERIES
REPORT 8:
Literature Review in
Games and Learning
John Kirriemuir, Ceangal
Angela McFarlane, Graduate School of Education, University of Bristol

7. games and learning
a handbook from Futurelab 2005

8. FUTURELAB SERIES
REPORT 11:
Literature Review in Mobile
Technologies and Learning
Laura Naismith, Peter Lonsdale, Giasemi Vavoula, Mike Sharples
University of Birmingham

9. www.beyondcurrenthorizons.org.uk

10. AIMS:
build a challenging and long term VISION for education in
the context of socio-technological change 2025 and beyond
Long term futures programme intended to:
•Enhance the ‘futures thinking’ capacity of the education policy makers
•Inform current strategy, decision making and planning

11. Section title goes here
Socio-technological Trends
what are the sorts of trends we need to be aware of?
5 review areas
Keri Facer, 2009, BCH Final Report

12. Generations and Lifecourse
Trend 1
• declining fertility rate
• decreasing mortality rate
• shifting family structures
• increased global migration
Keri Facer, 2009, BCH Final Report

13. Identities, Citizenship,
Trend 2
Communities
• expanded boundaries of identity
• changing nature of community
• changing civic participation
Keri Facer, 2009, BCH Final Report

14. Knowledge, Creativity,
Trend 3
Communication
• increasing amounts and access to
information and knowledge
• increasing connection and networking
resulting in the increasing potential for
collaboration and creativity
• increasing personalisation and
customization of experiences
• changing nature of literacy
Keri Facer, 2009, BCH Final Report

15. Trend 3
Work and Employment
• restructuring of work
• increasing career changes
• increasing job polarisation
Keri Facer, 2009, BCH Final Report

16. Trend 3
State/Market/Third Sector
• increasing diversity of the education market
• new learning practices facilitated by
changes in digital technology
• increasing global branding of some
education institutions
• third sector provision of specialist services
• increased diversity of locations associated
with learning
Keri Facer, 2009, BCH Final Report

17. Trend 3
Other Trends...
• advancement in learning sciences
Keri Facer, 2009, BCH Final Report

18. Creating the personal ‘cloud’
The capacity to connect to a network and be constantly
connected to knowledge, resources, people and tools
The ability to be ‘wrapped’ in an information landscape
rather than managing it through institutions
• Recognising the rise of the ‘mobile learner’
• ‘Pulsating networks of learning’
• New ways of connecting and accessing ‘educational offerings’
What does this mean for how we access formal and non-formal learning offerings?

19. Information landscape
Denser, deeper, more diverse – “know more stuff about
more stuff”
Gather, store, use, share more data about more of our
world than at present
• Social movements towards accountability & transparency
• Increased availability of data storage
• Digitally tag entities in extended world
• New forms of bio/genetic information
What does this mean for what we teach and when we teach it?

20. Institutional boundaries
•Weakened & porous
• Information not tied to institution
• Greater number of ‘suppliers’ of education
•Blurring ‘work’ & ‘leisure’
• Personal networks/expertise/brand
•Education/work/retirement no longer differentiated
• Working life longer/education as leisure, lifelong etc
•Public/private roles merging
• Disaggregation of learning/resources from the institution
What does this mean for where learning takes place – and when people access it?

21. ‘Silver bullets’ not expected for
complex educational problems
•Quick-fixes won’t emerge
• Neuroscience, computing and biosciences are not expected to
produce ‘easy solutions’ over coming two decades
• Targeted progress made in relation to specific disabilities, including
‘smart’ prosthetics, new learning methods or targeted
pharmacological enhancements
What does this mean for how we develop the education systems that we need?

22. Scientific-technological trends
Profs Dave Cliff, Josie Fraser, Claire O’Malley
•Moore’s law continues
• Gordon Moore’s observation that the number of transistors on a
chip doubles approximately every two years
• £1000 today = £31.50 in 2020 and £1 by 2030
• Device today = 32 times more powerful in 2020 and x1000 in 2030
•Once per decade disruptions
• Joel Birnbaum’s observation (1982) expected to hold true:
mainframe – minicomputers – PC – internet – (cloud computing) - ?
• Cloud computing; ubiquitous computing; digital display
technologies; tangible and haptic technologies
What does this mean for how we remake our vision for education?

23. Questions to consider?
•What does a curriculum for a networked learner look like?
•What does it mean to digitally participate?
•What does it mean for teachers and teaching?
What does this mean for our vision of education
development:
....how do we achieve our potential?

24. Section title goes here
Responding to the challenges
– ways of achieving learning potential

25. Exciting things (1)
•Personal Learning Networks (PLNs)
• Finding access to the people, resources, ideas
appropriate to you
• Inherently personal (and therefore different to other
people’s)
• Developing our individual expertise whilst developing the
workforce as a whole
Asset Mapping
Where do you get your information from?
What sources do you use regularly/rarely?
Who do you share ideas with?
Who do you trust?
How do you access this and how often?
www.exploratree.org.uk www.bubbl.us

26. End-user innovation
… a source of innovation, only now becoming widely
recognized, is end-user innovation. This is where an agent
(person or company) develops an innovation for their own
(personal or in-house) use because existing products do
not meet their needs
“end-user innovation [is], by far, the most important and critical”
Eric Von Hippell Sources of Innovation

27. Exciting things (2)
•New resources in learning

30. • http://www.educationeye.org.uk

31. Exciting things (3)
•Teachers’ and Learners’ voice
• Development (and recognition) of PLNs
• Range of tools to support Learner Voice, policy
imperatives to increase teacher freedom
• Rise of Teachmeets, unconferences etc
• Introduction of ‘Conflab’

33. www.futurelab.org.uk
dan.sutch@futurelab.org.uk
@Dannno