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Whitewater Learning: Designing the future of education in society 3.0

Education Futures has partnered with Whitewater Learning to create an online module of John Moravec‘s popular talk around “designing the future of education in society 3.0.” Now, teachers, administrators, and other licensed school professionals may earn continuing education units by participating in an online learning experience around the topic.

Click here to get started and learn about:

  • The relationship between technological change and social change.
  • How to create a personalized pathway for managing/attending to personal and professional growth in new technology-driven social contexts.
  • The frameworks of Societies 1.0 – 3.0.
  • How you will lead personnel and innovation capital in the Society 3.0 context.
  • How you will build a vision of your responsibilities as a leader for creating opportunities for learners within each techno-social paradigm explored in this module.

Whitewater Learning provides affordable, quality, online professional development created by educators, for educators. The topics are uniquely packaged as modules featuring a multi-layered narrated presentation, annotated suggested readings, a study sheet, glossary, assessment for learning, and practice sets for real-world application. The content aligns with state and national competencies and the flexible format allows year-long access for individuals or groups to use in coaching, relicensure, team initiatives, workshops, small learning communities, flipped classroom approach, and more.

More information: www.whitewaterlearning.org

Invisible Learning in Buenos Aires

I recently gave the opening keynote at the Telefónica Foundation’s VII Encuentro Internacional de Educación 2012-2013 in Buenos Aires, which has taken on relationships between education, society, and work as its first theme. I shared my thoughts on Knowmad Society as it relates to the Invisible Learning paradigm. Telefónica filmed the talk, and is graciously sharing it on YouTube (note: with Spanish voice-over).

Spanish and Portugese speakers will enjoy the ongoing conversation at the Telefónica Foundation’s social network: http://encuentro.educared.org/

Rethinking human capital development in Knowmad Society

Note: This text is adapted from the original Spanish-language text that I wrote for the first Chapter 1 in Invisible Learning (a book co-written with Cristóbal Cobo). An updated and expanded version of this text will also appear in the next volume, Knowmad Society, due for release later in 2012, and is being shared early to ignite discussion for the upcoming On the Horizon special issue on “Borderless Society.” (The call for papers is still open.)

This working paper presents a framework for conceptualizing changes in society, driven by the forces of globalization, transformations of knowledge society, and accelerating change. The framework is centered on three social paradigms, which Moravec (2008c) labels “Society 1.0,” “Society 2.0,” and “Society 3.0” — expressed as Industrial Society, Knowledge Society, and Knowmad Society. Society 1.0 reflects the norms and practices of pre-industrial to industrial civilization. Society 2.0 refers to the radical social transformations that we are experiencing today, largely due to technological change. The 3.0 or Knowmad Society points to a state of society that is in our near future, where accelerating technological change is projected to have huge transformative consequences. This text considers the human capital development consequences and necessary transformations in education to meet the needs of a rapidly transforming society, and looks into some of the challenges facing Knowmad Society in an era of accelerating change.

The paradoxical co-existence of “Education 1.0” in “Society 3.0”

Society 1.0

Society 1.0 refers to the agricultural to industrial-based society that was largely present through the 18th century through the end of the 20th century. In the early portion of this period, economic activity was centered on family-based enterprises. Children learned at home, and children worked at home. Kids and adults were engaged cross-generationally. Not only were children valuable contributors to the economy at all levels, but adults and kids learned from each other. This paradigm facilitated “learning by doing,” which was formally adopted by organizations such as 4-H, which embraced the principle that if you teach youth ideas and skills, they would, in turn, teach their parents (4-H, 2010).

The rise of the industrial economy saw growth in wage and salary-based enterprises. Kids began to work at low-level, and often dangerous jobs, until they were segregated from the workplace to maintain their welfare. Thus also began the industrialization of education, where, separated from the primary production economy, children were placed into an institutional mechanism where kids learned skills from adults (and not vice-versa), and eventually emerged from the system as “educated,” young adults, immediately employable for the industrial economy.

In Society 1.0, we interpreted data – leading to the information age. By and large, our relationships were hierarchical. That is, was easy to tell how we related with each other. Companies had reporting structures that were easy to decipher. And, we had siloed jobs and roles within organizations and communities. Moreover, we did everything we could to avoid chaos and ambiguity.Leading toward the end of the 20th century, this model worked fine. It was easy to understand. It was easily operationalized. And, it benefitted from an education system that produced workers for the industrial-modeled economy.

By the end of the 20th century, the industrialization of education and proliferation of meritocratic academic structures in the 1.0 paradigm all but eliminated the recognition of “learning by doing.” Moreover, this evolved norm generally provided socioeconomic advantages for those that successfully navigated the industrialized meritocracy (better jobs, better pay) than those who avoided it or did not survive the system .

Society 2.0

The appearance of Society 2.0 is associated with the emergence of the knowledge society that materialized in the 20th century (see esp. Drucker, 1969, 1985). Information needed to be interpreted, necessitating the creation of knowledge workers. However, as Polyani (1968) explains, the nature of knowledge, itself, is personal and is composed of tacit and explicit components. They combine in the creation of personally-constructed meanings that defy the absolute objectivity of Society 1.0’s industrial information model. Moreover, as social animals, humans engage in social networking activities and share their personal knowledge across ever complex systems. This growing ecosystem of personally-constructed meanings and values facilitated the creation of the field of knowledge management in the latter half of the 20th century, which attempted to manage the new elements of chaos and ambiguity related to personal knowledge that were inputted into organizational systems.

Advances in information and communications technologies (ICTs) facilitated the broadened production of socially-constructed meanings. Many of these advancements are made possible through the convergence of the Internet (which has become the symbol for all things networking – personal and technological) and globalization, opening potentials for globally-aware and globally-present social networks. Tools that harness ICTs are being used not only to share ideas, but also to create new interpretations. A few scholars (see, for example, Mahiri, 2004) recognize this a “cut-and-paste” culture. One potent example of this cultural shift is hip-hop, which remixes and reuses sounds, lyrics, and imagery to create new meanings that are as much unique and individual to the hip-hop artist as the creator and the original source works. Other examples include the products of “Web 2.0” tools (see esp. Cobo Romaní & Pardo Kuklinski, 2007, for a detailed list and discussion) that allow individuals to harness new social networks to remix and share ideas and media (e.g., blogs, wikis, and YouTube).

The mass availability of these tools also allows everyday people to participate in an expanded array of vocations and citizen engagement. For example, tools such as blogs, Twitter and YouTube allow for the formation of citizen journalists, who are able to directly compete with mainstream media at a miniscule fraction of the cost that mainstream media needs to develop and deliver content . The technologies also allow for the formation of citizen scientists. By donating computing processing time, non-scientifically trained individuals can search for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI@Home project), search for a cure for cancer (Folding@Home), and examine stellar particles retrieved from space (Stardust@Home). Likewise, the Audubon Society has long relied on its social network of professional and amateur birdwatchers to generate a statistically accurate estimate of birds within a given area. Furthermore, technologies allow for the greater democratization of markets, creating citizen capitalists that invest in a global market for ideas, talent, products, and other capital.

Social-orient ICTs carry constraints and limitations that forces individuals to transform how they think and act. For example, Twitter and mobile telephone short message services limit message sizes to 140 characters or less, forcing content producers to deliver clear, concise messages in limited space.

These transformations are leading to new questions for social and educational theorists that are still being debated – and research suggests that these changes are impacting the fundamental organization of the human brain (see esp. Small & Vorgan, 2008). Some key questions arising are: Does Society 2.0 dumb people down, or are we creating a new, hyper-connected, social super-intelligence? If technologically-savvy youth are composing their thoughts in 140 characters or less, are we facing a loss of literacy? In a world of Twitter, do we have any capacity for full-length novels? In a world with YouTube, can we sit through feature length films? Is technological change, paired with globalization, leading to a loss of our cultural heritages? And, finally, what is needed from education to remain relevant in a cut-and-paste society where information flows freely?

Society 3.0

“The future is already here – it’s just not evenly distributed.” – William Gibson (interviewed in Gladstone, 1999)

For most of us, Society 3.0 is in the future – possibly in the distant future. But, for a few people leading the change toward this proto-paradigm, it is very real. Three drivers are leading us to the formation of Society 3.0, which describes a world that is somewhere between “just around the corner” and “just beyond the horizon” of today’s state-of-the-art:

  1. Accelerating technological and social change;
  2. Continuing globalization and horizontalization of knowledge and relationships; and,
  3. Innovation society fueled by knowmads.

Kurzweil (1999) postulates a theory he labels the Law of Accelerating Returns to describe the evolutionary process that leads to accelerating technological and social change:

As order exponentially increases, time exponentially speeds up (that is, the time interval between salient events grows shorter as time passes). (Kurzweil, 1999, p. 30)

Figure 1. Accelerating Technological Change

[Note. The J-curve of accelerating change illustrates the exponential development and exponentially reduced costs of technologies. One example is evident in the evolution of microprocessors, which follow Moore’s (1965) Law of doubling the number of transistors on integrated circuits every two years, while also reducing the costs of associated processing speed, memory capacities, etc. The inflection point on the graph is the approximate location of the Technological Singularity, at which point change occurs so rapidly that the human mind cannot imagine what will happen next. One way of thinking of the magnitude of accelerating change is that if Moore’s Law is followed for the next 600 years, a single microprocessor would have the computational equivalency of the known Universe (Krauss & Starkman, 2004).]

In other words, change is occurring rapidly, and the pace of change is increasing. Kurzweil’s idea is founded on the proposal that as technologies evolve, the technologies improve, costs decrease; and, in turn, the process of technological evolution advances and speeds itself up, creating a J-curve of exponential, accelerating change (see Figure 1, above). As technologies evolve, so will society (Morgan, 1877). This acceleration of change, however, is also expected to impact human imagination and foresight. Vinge (1993) terms the theoretical limit of human foresight and imagination (illustrated as the inflection point on the above graphic) as the Technological Singularity. As the rate of technological advancement increases, it will become more difficult for a human observer to predict or understand future technological advancements.

Given the rate of exponential advancement illustrated by Kurzweil (2005), the rate of technological advancements in the future may seem nearly simultaneous. At this point, Vinge and Kurzweil hypothesize society will reach a point labeled the Technological Singularity. Kurzweil further believes the Singularity will emerge as the complex, seemingly chaotic outcome of converging technologies (esp. nanotechnology, robots, computing, and the human integration of these technologies).

As previously noted, technological change facilitates social change. Near future technological advancements are therefore expected to ignite periods of social transformation that defies human imagination today.

The impacts of accelerating technological and social changes on education are enormous. Today’s stakeholders in our youths’ future must prepare them for futures that none of us can even dream are possible.

Continuing globalization is leading to a horizontalized diffusion of knowledge in domains that were previously siloed, creating heterarchical relationships, and providing new opportunities for knowledge to be applied contextually in innovative contexts. In learning contexts, this means that we are becoming not only co-learners, but also co-teachers as we co-constructively produce new knowledge and its applications.

Table 1 summarizes key differences between the three social paradigms that we explore in this book. In the shift from Society 1.0 to Society 3.0, basic relationships transform from linear, mechanistic and deterministic order to a new order that is highly non-linear, synergetic and design-oriented. The effects of accelerating change suggest that causality, itself, may seem to express anticausal characteristics, due to the near instantaneousness of events experienced by a society in a period of continuous, accelerating change. Therefore, how reality is contextualized (and contextually responded to) becomes much more important to citizens in Society 3.0 than it was in previous paradigms.

Table 1: Societies 1.0 through 3.0 across various domains

Knowmads in Society 3.0

A knowmad is what Moravec (2008a) terms a nomadic knowledge and innovation worker – that is, a creative, imaginative, and innovative person who can work with almost anybody, anytime, and anywhere. Moreover, knowmads are valued for the personal knowledge that they possess, and this knowledge gives them a competitive advantage. Industrial society is giving way to knowledge and innovation work. Whereas the industrialization of Society 1.0 required people to settle in one place to perform a very specific role or function, the jobs associated with knowledge and information workers have become much less specific in regard to task and place. Moreover, technologies allow for these new paradigm workers to work either at a specific place, virtually, or any blended combination. Knowmads can instantly reconfigure and recontextualize their work environments, and greater mobility is creating new opportunities. Consider, for example, coffee shops. These environments have become the workplace of choice for many knowmads. What happens when the investment banker sitting next to the architect have a conversation? What new ideas, products, and services might be created?

The remixing of places and social relationships is also impacting education. Students in Knowmad Society should learn, work, play, and share in almost any configuration. But there is little evidence to support any claim that education is moving to the 3.0 paradigm.

Knowmads:

  1. Are not restricted to a specific age.
  2. Build their personal knowledge through explicit information gathering and tacit experiences, and leverage their personal knowledge to produce new ideas.
  3. Are able to contextually apply their ideas and expertise in various social and organizational configurations.
  4. Are highly motivated to collaborate, and are natural networkers, navigating new organizations, cultures, and societies.
  5. Purposively use new technologies to help them solve problems and transcend geographical limitations.
  6. Are open to sharing what they know, and invite the open access to information, knowledge and expertise from others.
  7. Can unlearn as quickly as they learn, adopting new ideas and practices as necessary.
  8. Thrive in non-hierarchical networks and organizations.
  9. Develop habits of mind and practice to learn continuously.
  10. Are not afraid of failure.

(Note: List inspired by Cobo, 2008)

When we compare the list of skills required of knowmads to the outcomes of mainstream education, we wonder: What are we educating for? Are we educating to create factory workers and bureaucrats? Or, are we educating to create innovators, capable of leveraging their imagination and creativity?

Sidebar

Invisible learning a new expressions of human capital development in Knowmad Society

Knowmad Society necessitates the transformation from industrial paradigm, “banking” pedagogies (see esp. Freire, 1968) that transmit “just in case” information and knowledge (i.e., memorization of the world’s capitals) toward modes that utilize the invisible spaces to develop personally- and socially- meaningful, actionable knowledge. There is growing recognition that people with unique, key knowledge and skills (i.e., knowmads) are critical for the success of modern organizations. Godin (2010) argues successful people in today’s organizations serve as “linchpins.” From an interview with Goden by Hyatt (2010), Godin states:

The linchpin insists on making a difference, on leading, on connecting with others and doing something I call art. The linchpin is the indispensable one, the one the company can’t live without. This is about humanity, not compliance.

In their book, The Element, Robinson & Aronica (2009) interview many people who have experienced success in their careers, and identified that the people they spoke with found their “element” – that is, their success was largely due to the fact that they did something they enjoyed in addition to being good at it. This runs contrary to the “just in case” industrial model of education, and suggests that if we enable more people to pursue their passions and support them, they can achieve success.

In the 3.0 proto-paradigm, the inherent chaos and ambiguity related to tremendous technological and social changes call for a resurgence of “learning by doing.” In a sense, we are creating the future as we go along. As co-learners and co-teachers, we are co-responsible for helping each other find our own elements along our pathways of personal, knowmadic development.

How do we measure learning in the invisible spaces?

The cult of educational measurement

A key concern for policymakers and other stakeholders in education is, what is being learned? In an education system focused on industrial production, this is an important quality control issue.

The linearity of the industrial paradigm thrives on mechanical processes. For example, groups of learners are expected to read books progressively, chapter-by-chapter, and recite the information and “facts” they acquired linearly through memorization. In this paradigm, the use of summative evaluation (i.e., tests) is de rigueur.

Throughout the world, we have adopted this culture of industrial learning and evaluation en masse, and created a cult of educational measurement to support it. In the United States, this is manifested through the testing requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act. In Spain, the cult is evident in the filtering processes that lead to the Prueba de Acceso. In the United Kingdom, it is expressed within the National Curriculum (Education Reform Act of 1988). And so on.

With policies with names like “No Child Left Behind,” it is hard to disagree: is the alternative to leave children behind? The unfortunate reality, however, is that in these industrial policies we tend to leave many children behind. These industrial-modeled, testing-centric regimes produce exactly the wrong products for the 21st Century, but is appropriate for what the world needed between the 19th century through 1950. As Robinson (2001) and others have argued, these fractured memorization models oppose the creative, synthetic thinking required for work in the new economy and effective citizenship.

Leapfrogging beyond the cult of educational measurement

Focus on how to learn, not what to learn.

In the Invisible Learning proto-paradigm, rote, “just in case” memorization is replaced with learning that is intended to be personally meaningful for all participants in the learning experience. Moreover, the application of knowledge toward innovative problem solving takes primacy over the regurgitation of previous knowledge or “facts.” In essence, as discussed in the previous chapter, students very much become knowledge brokers (Meyer, 2010).

Moreover, the Invisible Learning paradigm enables students to act on their knowledge, applying what they know to solve problems –including problems that have not been solved before. This contextual, purposive application of personal knowledge to create innovative solutions negates the value of non-innovation-producing standardized testing.

The “learning by doing” aspect of Invisible Learning that focuses on how to learn rather than what to learn suggests that measurement or evaluation needs to be outcomes-based in the same way that we evaluate innovations:

  • What happened?
  • Did something new happen? Something unexpected?
  • Was there a positive benefit?
  • What can others learn from the experience?

Although there is a large body of literature supporting the need for formative assessments in education (see, for example, Armstrong, 1985; Marzano, 2003; Stiggins, 2008; Stiggins, Arter, Chappuis, & Chappuis, 2007), as well as a rich educational literature theory base that suggests we need to move toward learner-centered learning (perhaps the most vocal being Dewey, 1915; Freire, 2000), summative evaluations still persist in formal learning environments that present little value to the learner. Strategies to bring the informal into the formal are already present and widely adopted in business, industry, and, ironically, within some teacher education programs.

For example, Pekka Ihanainen (2010) explains that Finnish vocational teacher education, for example, is built on a dialogical professional development model. Knowledge and expertise areas of the teachers in training are identified and compared with their occupational competency requirements and goals. Following this assessment, career development trajectories and educational pathways are developed. The system is not designed to determine only how teachers in training meet state requirements, but also relates to their individual interests and professional development goals.

Finally, releasing ourselves from the cult of measurement requires faith and confidence that we are always learning. As we will discuss in the following chapters, as human beings, we are always engaged in learning– it is one of our most natural activities.

Implementing Invisible Learning: Making the invisible visible

The difficulties in mainstreaming Invisible Learning in Western education are daunting. Formal systems are deeply entrenched. Governments believe in the formal approach (it looks good on paper and within state and national budgets). Entire industries (i.e., textbooks, educational measurement) are built around it. And, the scale of the industrialization of education leaves many people wondering if it’s worth fighting against.

The system is further reinforced, by design, to change at a glacial pace. While markets can transform and reinvent themselves virtually overnight, governments cannot. They are designed to be slow and deliberative. As a result, they tend to lag significantly and react to change more often than they proactively design orpreact to beneficial changes.

Paradoxically, despite being key components of systems most responsible for developing human capital and human development futures, education is designed to change even slower. Educational institutions and systems report to governments, respond to governmental policies, and align their programs to satisfy requirements and funding formulae established by legislative bodies. Moreover, these criteria, including establishing what to teach, depends on who sits on what committee at any given time. By relying on personalities, political gamesmanship, and feedback-looped special interests from the formal educational industrial complex, many question if the system has perhaps become too large, too slow, and unfocused.

The problem is, the emerging pressures of Society 3.0 require educational transformation today. Schools need to develop students that can design future jobs, industries and knowledge fields that we have not dreamed of. Schools need to operate as futurists, not laggards.

Is educational reform worth fighting for?

No.

Rather, it’s time to start anew. As Sir Ken Robinson eloquently states, we need a revolution, not reform (TED, 2010).

Revolutions are difficult to ignite. An entire genre of literature that Carmen Tschofen terms “change manifestos” has emerged in education that is rich in calls for change, but falls flat on actually creating the change it calls for (Moravec, 2010). The system, perhaps, has too much inertia. As Harkins and Moravec (2006) suggest in their “Leapfrog University” memo series to the University of Minnesota, perhaps a parallel approach is necessary.

Rather than fighting the system, students, parents, communities, and other life-long learners can invest in establishing parallel, new schools and/or networks of learning, discovering, innovating, and sharing. And some communities are already leading the way with innovative initiatives. For example:

  • Shibuya University Network (Japan): “Yasuaki Sakyo, president of Shibuya University, believes that education should be lifelong. At Shibuya, courses are free and open to all; classes take place in shops, cafes and outside; and anyone can be a teacher” (CNN, 2007). In essence, the entire community and its environment have become the co-learners, co-teachers, and classroom.
  • The Bank of Common Knowledge (Banco Común de Conocimientos, Spain) “is a pilot experience dedicated to the research of social mechanisms for the collective production of contents, mutual education, and citizen participation. It is a laboratory platform where we explore new ways of enhancing the distribution channels for practical and informal knowledge, as well as how to share it” (Bank of Common Knowledge, n.d.).
  • TED.com (Technology, Entertainment, Design, USA) challenges lecture-based education by creating “a clearinghouse that offers free knowledge and inspiration from the world’s most inspired thinkers, and also a community of curious souls to engage with ideas and each other” (TED, n.d.).

Redefining human capital development

To move forward in making Invisible Learning visible, we need to engage in conversations on what futures we want to create. We need to clarify our visions of the future. In China, India, and throughout much of the developing world, the vision is simple: Catch up to the West through planned development. But, in the United States, Europe, and much of the rest of the Western world, concrete visions of where we want to be in the future are absent. We assert that we either do not know where we want to be in the future or we lack the foresight to imagine ourselves in a future that is very different from today.

The consequence is that we are not making investments into our human capital development systems that will enable us to meet needs set by future challenges. We need to prepare our youth and other members of society for a future and workforce needs that we cannot imagine. Moreover, given the potential for today’s youth to be engaged productively in a “post-Singularity” era, it is important to assist them in the development of skills and habits of mind (i.e., the Leapfrog Institutes’ liberal skills outlined in the “Leapfrog” memo series archived at Education Futures). that will foster life-long learning and the innovative applications of their knowledge.

This lack of vision –and acting on it– impacts not only education, but also other areas of our socioeconomic wellbeing. Bob Herbert (2010) recently wrote for the New York Times on the United States’ new unfound willingness to invest in ideas that could increase potentials for future growth and prosperity:

The United States is not just losing its capacity to do great things. It’s losing its soul. It’s speeding down an increasingly rubble-strewn path to a region where being second rate is good enough. (Herbert, 2010)

As organizations, communities, and nations, we need to set visions for the futures we will co-create, and act upon them. Throughout the remainder of this volume, we explore some of the methods individuals, teams, and organizations may employ to help develop these visions of the future.

Using technology purposively

When engaged in conversations about invisible learning or other innovations in education, there is a tendency for people to gravitate their thoughts toward technology as if it can serve as a “silver bullet” to slay the allegorical werewolf of the persistence of the Education 1.0 model. Innovation in education does not mean “technology.” Douglas Adams (1999) elaborated on the challenges of defining the purpose of the Internet:

Another problem with the net is that it’s still ‘technology’, and ‘technology’, as the computer scientist Bran Ferren memorably defined it, is ‘stuff that doesn’t work yet.’ We no longer think of chairs as technology, we just think of them as chairs. But there was a time when we hadn’t worked out how many legs chairs should have, how tall they should be, and they would often ‘crash’ when we tried to use them. Before long, computers will be as trivial and plentiful as chairs (and a couple of decades or so after that, as sheets of paper or grains of sand) and we will cease to be aware of the things. In fact I’m sure we will look back on this last decade and wonder how we could ever have mistaken what we were doing with them for ‘productivity.’ (Adams, 1999)

Moreover, we use the term “technology” to describe new tools that we do not understand. In other words, the purposive uses of “technology” are not well defined. As a result, in educational contexts, we often take the best technologies and squander the opportunities they afford us. Roger Schank (in Molist, 2010) puts it bluntly:

It’s the same garbage, but placed differently. Schools select new technologies and ruin them. For example, when television came, every school put one in each classroom, but used it to do exactly the same things as before. The same with computers today. Oh, yes, we have e-larning! What does it mean? Then they give the same terrible course, but online, using computers in a stupid way.(Molist, 2010)

Conversely, the Invisible Learning approach to technology is purposive, pragmatic and centered at improving the human experience at its core. Specifically, this means that it is:

  • Well-defined: The purpose and applications of particular technologies need to be specified. Bringing in technologies for the sake of using technologies will likely lead to their misuse, underuse, and/or the creation of unintended outcomes.
  • Focused on developing mindware: The focus of technologies should not be on hardware or software, but on how they enhance our mindware – that is, they focus is placed on how technologies can support our imaginations, creativity, and help us innovate.
  • Social: The use of technologies is often a social experience and their social applications should be addressed. This includes the leverage of social media tools for learning such as Facebook, Twitter, etc., which are commonly blocked from formal education settings.
  • Experimental: Embraces the concept of “learning by doing,” and allows for trial and error which can lead to successes and the occasional failure – but does not create failures.
  • Continuously evolving: As an area for “beta testing” new ideas and approaches to problems, it is continuously in a state of remixing and transformation. As society evolves continuously, so must our learning and sharing.

Who gets to leapfrog to Knowmad Society?

Lastly, a problem facing Invisible Learning is one of equity and equality. Is it appropriate for a select group of “invisible learners” to leapfrog ahead of peers who may be trapped within the paradigm of “education 1.0?” If 1% of the population benefits from Invisible Learning, what should we do about the other 99%? Should they not have the right to leapfrog ahead, too?

We believe so. But, we also recognize the incredible inertia mainstream Education 1.0 possesses. Given rates of accelerating technological, social and economic change, we cannot wait. The revolution in learning and human capital development needs to begin now. This may mean starting out small, working parallel with entrenched systems, but it also means we need to lead by example.

References

 

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  • Molist, M. (2010, February 25). Schank: “El ‘e-learning’ actual es la misma basura, pero en diferente sitio”, Interview, El País. Retrieved from http://www.elpais.com/articulo/portada/Schank/e-learning/actual/misma/basura/diferente/sitio/elpeputec/20100225elpcibpor_6/Tes
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Call for papers: "Borderless society"

Please consider contributing to this special issue of On the Horizon. I will serve as the guest editor:

Call for Papers

On the Horizon – special issue

“Borderless society: The ‘new’ work and education”

Guest editor: Dr. John Moravec

Brief description

In a world driven by exponential accelerating technological and social change, globalization, and a push for more creative and context-driven innovations, how can we ensure the success of ourselves as individuals, communities, and the planet? This special issue of On the Horizon explores the converging future of learning, work and how we relate with each other in this emerging paradigm.

Of particular importance are the emerging class of borderless “new workers,” “neo-nomads” (or knowmads):

[…] a nomadic knowledge worker –that is, a creative, imaginative, and innovative person who can work with almost anybody, anytime, and anywhere. Industrial society is giving way to knowledge and innovation work. Whereas industrialization required people to settle in one place to perform a very specific role or function, the jobs associated with knowledge and information workers have become much less specific in regard to task and place.

This issue aims to explore the role of education in developing and supporting such a “knowmad society.” While a traditional lens of organizational thought is used to describe the rise of knowmads in this call for papers, other creative approaches to exploring the changing workforce and human potential development needs are invited.

Suggested topics include (but are not limited to)

  • Roles of technology in human potential development for hyper-individualized creative and innovation workers
  • The role of learning organizations in the creation of personal identity in post-cultural society
  • Key skills and competencies development areas for knowmadic, new workers
  • The economics of education for knowmadic workers
  • Maximizing human potential development in a society embroiled in accelerating change
  • Managing chaos and uncertainty in post-industrial careers
  • Redesigning and reformatting conceptualizations of space and “place” to attend to needs of knowmadic learners and workers
  • New economics and comparative dimensions of knowmadic workers globally
  • Do knowmads have to roam the earth physically or can they roam virtually and live locally?
  • What new worker parallels are emerging in other working classes (i.e., blue collar workers)?

Submissions of title and 250-word proposal due: July 1, 2012

Notice of acceptance: July 13, 2012

Papers due: December 1, 2012

Review result notification: January 15, 2013

Submit a paper

Submissions to this special issue of On the Horizon should be sent to the guest editor at moravec@gmail.com.

General questions to:

Tom P. Abeles, editor
On the Horizon
tabeles@gmail.com

More information, including full author guidelines, is available at: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/oth.htm

Download the Emerald Insight’s official flyer for this CFP.

Exploring the "3rd space" of co-working and co-learning

Last week, I traveled to Utrecht, The Netherlands, to participate in the 3rd Space World Conference, hosted by seats2meet.com, a co-working enterprise that is establishing locations throughout the world. The event was designed to introduce people to sustainable co-working, and to also connect co-working centers and thought leaders together. Knowledge sharing, the enabling of serendipity and Society 3.0 are some of the other key elements that were covered.

I provided an update on the Knowmad Society project, which really looks at how third space people — knowmads — build and interact with the third space through education, working, and living:

Reflecting on the day, our moderator, Sebastian Olma, noted:

Obviously, the people populating 3rd spaces need a set of skills, attitudes and craftsmanship that is different form the one their industrial ancestors had. So education is an enormously important topic in this context and also one that “knowmad” John Moravec could only broach at the conference. It is true that we need to be rather imaginative in this area. However, and somewhat paradoxically, we also need to be very clear about the specific parameters that we want to use in order to set up a 3rd space of education as one of imagination, one that facilitates the formation of individuals able to navigate their tech-saturated environment as active contributors rather than passive consumers.

Other important talks recorded from the event:

The livestream of the event attracted over 1000 viewers from 31 countries, and nearly 125,000 people were reached by Twitter with approximately 1.8 million impressions. The topic trended in the Dutch twittersphere, and I’m sure it trended in other countries as well. From this initial success, seats2meet.com plans to create a global platform to connect co-working spaces from around the world. Stay tuned!

Leadership and Entrepreneurship: "Knowmads challenge all structures"

De Baak‘s Ralph Blom wrote up a short interview with me for last month’s issue of Leadership and Entrepreneurship.

My favorite bit:

What skills are needed in a society 3.0?

“Because everybody is in it together it is not bounded by a specific generation. Nobody has done this before, there are no role models. We all have to co-create this together. Knowmads are highly engaged, creative, innovative, collaborative and highly motivated. They adapt fast in new situations and contextualize ideas due to situations. So schools need to find out how we can learn skills in motivation, creative orientation, being friendly, and an ungoing mindset on always keep up with technologies. All of us have to learn to share without geographical limitation. We have to create global footprints, go beyond the small communities and learn how to engage people all over the world in open and flat knowledge networks. A big cultural mindshift is needed, we have to start thinking that learning is everywhere, always and naturally. It is quit normal that even the biggest leader says: “Can you help me learn that?”. The most successful entrepreneurs do it all the time: “I don’t know how to do this. I have this idea. I want to get it to the next level. Can you help figure this out?” Innovation will not come from software and new technologies. It’s about mindware. That is our imagination, our creativity.”

Read the full interview on De Baak’s website.

Last week in brief: BIG things brewing

A lot has happened in the past week, and I feel that bits and pieces are coming together to form a huge break from the mainstream in human capital development in the Netherlands. In brief:

On Monday, I visited TEDxDelft at TU Delft. The day was very well organized and included a selection of talks from a book maker, an astronaut, constructors of a high tech opera, a parkour exhibition, and a talk by Marcel Kampman on how to close what he calls the Dream Gap. Marcel provides 9 ideas to tackle the issue, including re-organizing TED so that it it focuses on T-shaped approaches to EDucation (hence, T-ED), that work to connect people-to-people in knowledge creation and sharing. Smart idea.

During the lunch break, Marcel and I also got together and recorded videos for each others projects. Here’s what I had to say for the Dream School initiative he’s playing a major role with for Stad & Esch:

Stad & Esch & Onderwijs & John Moravec from Stad & Esch on Vimeo.

(I’ll post my video interview with Marcel in a future post, which will include his TEDxDelft talk, as soon as it becomes available.)

On Tuesday, I visited the UniC school in Utrecht, which flips the use of technology in the classroom around to allow students to engage in learning activities that enable them to follow their own passions and interests. They bring in their own laptops or tablet devices, and spend their time on individual and team learning projects that are guided by faculty that do more to attend to their learning rather than trying to manage it. Jelmer Evers showed me around, and explained that because higher level students are required to take a standardized learning exam, they must unlearn everything the school has taught them so that they can complete the tests in an industrialized manner. Jelmer writes about this difficult situation on his blog, and fears an NCLB-like nightmare in the Netherlands may be emerging:

So far so good. If it was up to a lot of teachers and students, learning would take place more outside of the school as well. But reality is different of course. That’s where the inspection comes in. The education inspection is an organization which visits schools. In general it sees to good educational practice and particulary it audits “weak” schools which produce bad grades, most notably exam results. We’re a new school and those results are continuously improving. So in the end I think we’ll do fine (and our students better in the ways that count as well). The thing is, a lot of the skills that we focus on aren’t captured in the official results and a lot of people are scrutinizing us to see if we will be able to produce these results. We had a real nice discussion with the inspectors of course and they were very generous, but in the end it is the “result” that matters. In fact there is an ever increasing focus on results and testing, like in the United States.

Wednesday centered on a collaborative workshop at the Third National Self-Organization Day, organized by Stichting Zelforganisatie in Rotterdam, with Edwin de Bree and three students from the Sudbury education schools in the Netherlands. I spoke about Invisible Learning, and Edwin moderated a panel discussion and “speed dating”/Q&A session between the students and the workshop participants. Later in the day, Ronald van den Hoff gave a talk on his vision of Society 3.0. One interesting projection I took with me: He projects that 45% of the workforce will be comprised of knowmads or engaged in knowmad-like work.

On Thursday, my journey continued with a visit to the NHL Hogeschool in Leeuwarden for a day-long workshop on Knowmad Society and Invisible Learning, entitled “MEAT with John Moravec.” The group of faculty and students at NHL, lead by Jooske Haije, was a lot of fun to work with, not only because they are working to implement ideas from Invisible Learning and Knowmad Society into their own institution, but also because the group were excited to remix and share new ideas. I was delightfully surprised to find that they had made morning snacks out of the brain imagery that Cristóbal Cobo and I originally intended to use for the cover of our Invisible Learning book. The faculty are fired-up on making invisible learning visible, and I look forward to hearing about they will present from the workshop to an assembly celebrating the school’s 40th anniversary later this month.

Later, in the afternoon, I joined the Otava Folk High School in Finland for a talk on Invisible Learning via Adobe Connect:

On Friday, we began to bring all these pieces together. Ronald van den Hoff hosted a round table on education in Society 3.0 at Seats2Meet in Utrecht. In the world of educational innovation, with various stakeholders and initiatives largely operating independent of each other, we recognized a need to better connect and integrate the work and thinking of all key players — including students. With interim futuring activities to keep us thinking and acting, our group will again meet in January and March to plot next steps. Already, Ronald has pledged in-kind support from Seats2Meet International to support the initiative, coordinated by Annemarije Bakker, so I am quite optimistic about what we may accomplish in the coming months.

During the second half of the day, I traveled to Amsterdam with Thieu Besselink for a quick visit to the Waag Society and the Creative Learning Lab, where they have recently released a book entitled Open Design Now: Why design cannot remain exclusive. As they describe it, the book:

surveys this emerging field for the first time. Insiders including John Thackara, Droog Design’s Renny Ramakers and Bre Pettis look at what’s driving open design and where it’s going. They examine new business models and issues of copyright, sustainability and social critique. Case studies show how projects ranging from the RepRap self-replicating 3D-printer to $50 prosthetic legs are changing the world.

Finally, upon hearing that Otto Scharmer was visiting Amsterdam, I crashed the final minutes of the Crossing the Tipping Point congress:

I apologize to anybody that may have been upset that I didn’t register before stoping by (I wish I had known about the event sooner!), but I really enjoyed meeting all of you. 🙂


Coda

Throughout Northern Europe, and, in particular, in the Netherlands, I sense a real push for creating educational reforms that will enable the countries to leapfrog beyond old industrial paradigms to 21st century innovation and knowmadic paradigms. In these countries where education policies are so deeply rooted in the old Prussian tradition that aims to produce loyal factory workers and government bureaucrats, perhaps we can also find the greatest potential for meaningful change and leadership in developing Society 3.0.

The stars seem to be aligning for this shift. And, when it happens, it will be big. The right people are connecting to bring new ideas to the table, and are generating new ways for generating positive futures. For leading, facilitating, and hosting many of these conversations, I extend my greatest gratitude especially to Seats2Meet International, Ronald van den Hoff, Iris Meerts, Jooske Haije, and Edwin de Bree. Thank you for making this happen!

(I’ll be back in January.)

Perspectives on Invisible Learning

By popular demand, here are the slides from my Invisible Learning “stump lecture” from the past month:

In an era of globalization and “flattening” of our relatiohships around the Earth, how can we learn better? What happened to learning as we moved from the stable structures of the 20th century to fluid and amorphic structures of the 21st century? What roles do schools and colleges play when you can learn in any context and at any time? Do we continue with formal learning or do we formalize informal learning?

This is an open invitation to explore some of the best ideas emerging around the planet that are contributing to a new ecology of learning.

More info: www.invisiblelearning.com

Invisible Learning released

Cristóbal Cobo and I are pleased to announce that the Spanish edition of our new book, Invisible Learning (Aprendizaje Invisible), has just been released by the University of Barcelona (Col·lecció Transmedia XXI. Laboratori de Mitjans Interactius / Publicacions i Edicions de la Universitat de Barcelona). The e-book is available for purchase at the UB website today. The print edition will arrive in the coming months. Update May 15, 2011: The print edition is now available for order at the UB website.

TO DOWNLOAD THE BOOK, VISIT THE UNIVERSITY OF BARCELONA PRESS

Dialogue with the Cristóbal Cobo and John Moravec about Invisible Learning

The Invisible Learning concept

Our proposed invisible learning concept is the result of several years of research and work to integrate diverse perspectives on a new paradigm of learning and human capital development that is especially relevant in the context of the 21st century. This view takes into account the impact of technological advances and changes in formal, non-formal, and informal education, in addition to the ‘fuzzy’ metaspaces in between. Within this approach, we explore a panorama of options for future development of education that is relevant today. Invisible Learning does not propose a theory, but rather establishes a metatheory capable of integrating different ideas and perspectives. This has been described as a protoparadigm, which is still in the ‘beta’ stage of construction.

Our conversation starts in Spanish

We are pleased that the University of Barcelona approached us to publish the book, and they have the privilege to produce the first printed edition as well as the first electronic edition. Moreover, with more native Spanish speakers in the United States than in Spain, we believe there is a legitimate market for a Spanish-language text throughout the Americas and Europe.

An English edition is in the works, and we hope to reward our patient English readers with the next release as a free ebook. If you are interested in helping us produce this edition (i.e., direct assistance through translation support or other resources), please email us.

Presentations and workshops

Yes, we love to talk! If you are interested in organizing a presentation or workshop about Invisible Learning at your organization, please email us. Recordings of some of our previous talks are linked, below:

Continuing the conversation

This book uses the hashtag #invisi in Twitter. You can also follow us:

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