Shift to the Future

Joel soaks up the sun this fine day on May 19, 2021 as he walks to school.  He’s excited ‘cause today his middle school is finally allowing him and his fellow students to engage with the new “textbook”.  He’s a little puzzled why it’s called a textbook .  It’s really a place to enter in and experience – it’s not a book.  Joel rarely actually uses “books” as in the paper kind, these days.  The students have learned that the new textbook requires them to wear a special headset with glasses and ear buds.  They can choose from a multitude of colors, shapes, and sizes that the school provides or they can purchase and bring their own along with their other school supplies.  These headsets or “Portal Sets” as their teachers referred to them as, work anywhere and anytime. Joel arrives at school and sees his friend Carrie – he runs up to meet her at the door.  Joel and Carrie catch up on what they did on the weekend as they walk to the great hall of lea...

It seems that more people are increasingly thinking and worrying about, or at least pondering the future.  I watched a show the other night, well as much as I could handle, on CBC Doc Zone called Apocalypse 2012 .  They covered the various doomsday, conspiracy theory, and scientific perspectives on 2012, the Mayan calendar running out in Dec/2012 and the end of the world, etc.  Personally, I don’t buy into this view of the future.  But, I do believe it’s more important in our day than previously to be considering the future, particularly since the pace of change is on the tail end of an exponential trajectory.  Those of us involved in formal leadership positions in educational settings have a responsibility to do our part to prepare the people we work with, for the future.  Leaders in education aught to be students of the future and being ready to lead others in new directions before the future happens “to us”. As a technology leader in a school district,...

Noun 1 . futuristics - the study or prediction of future developments on the basis of existing conditions – or see futurology (wikipedia) for an in-depth description… President Barack Obama’s Sep. 8, 2009 speech had some profound insights for K12 ( note, I’m not supporting any particular political view by using this quote ): “And this isn't just important for your own life and your own future. What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country. What you're learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future.” I think that Obama is right in saying this.  Public education over the past 100 years or so has served its original purpose well – preparing students to follow rules, be on time, read, write, and calculate (I know, learning today is much broader).  But, does current curriculum which is more about today and yesterday effectively support students in leading us into our fut...

A few months ago I read an article “Roadmap to the Electric Car Economy” (by Michael Horn) in March-April 2010 issue of The Futurist .  Essentially the writer advocates for shifting to an electric vehicle (EV) economy away from one powered by gas (and oil).  He lays out a roadmap and suggests how it might be accomplished.  If you believe the writing about peak oil (2020-2030) and think about how much money is invested in obtaining oil, processing it, protecting it (wars), dealing with the environmental fallout, it runs in the trillions of dollars.  Our education system had better be ready to prepare millions of young people to tackle problems like this – our future success as a society depends on it.  In the July-August 2010 issue of The Futurist, I read an article “Sustaining Urban Mobility in 2010” (by Ryan Chin, PhD student in Smart Cities group at MIT Media Lab) that talks about how cities and cars should be redesigned to minimize the impact of transporta...