Future of Learning

It was a bit of a struggle getting up early on the first day of the hols in order to get to the Future of Learning '18 Conference by 8.00am! The day was well worth it - brain stretching; thought-provoking and some fascinating looks at what education looks like outside a typical school setting. Organisers Cheryl Doig and Hamish Duff set the scene:    

Intro 1 - Hamish Duff

Hamish began with the notion that there has always been change, but NOW - rapid exponential change - Sci-fi like change!

What is exponential? (we've all seen those graphs...) What does that mean for the future? For education?
Teachers can be terrible at coping with change - it’s danger, how do we help teachers through this change?
Often the fear of technology has been promulgated by the media - the robots of Skynet; the dangers of AI.
We need to learn at scale - for teachers, this is a big shift in workload. Interestingly project failure largely through resistance (made me think about our work at RHS) with most traditional struggle the most

We need to have 'Intelligent optimism' - use technology to improve, not replace. to augment human work (this was a theme for the day).

Our world in data- life is getting better - mortality, literacy are actually improving worldwide.

Reimagine learning - how do we do this as well as all the compliance stuff? Who is going to do this!
- what needs to be disrupted?
- How do we support staff!?
- What is the role of an educator?

Intro 2 - Cheryl Doig

There’s no ONE future!

Framework for the day - anticipate, collaborate and activate
We live in our inner world - our physiology - the world we know. Then the world of our experiences. Outside these are the 'known world' - the things we have not experienced yet but we know exists. What we need to look to are the world of possibilities - this is stuff we may not ever of heard of....anticipation.

We need to be thinking - non-binary thinking:

We need to collaborate - and to explore outside of our own areas

Activate-
What do we want to leave with to act on?
Preferred futures - where we as teachers can be influencers
Probable futures....
Possible futures......

Keynote 1 Jason Swanson - Knowledgeworks

Jason explores the future of learning, helping stakeholders translate future insights into forward thinking visons for transforming education. Jason has explored how trends and developments such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, augmented and virtual reality might impact learning. He has authored dozens of articles and forecasts, ranging from the future of work and readiness, the future of credentials, the expansion and diversification of educator roles and the creation of learning ecosystems.) He posed lots of questions 

The future of learning - redefining readiness from the inside out.
The future is not fixed - ours to create

Profound social justice issues related to readiness for the future.

Every student should experience personalised learning so they are ready for what’s next
- policy
- Teacher practice
- Forecast future of learning - all of these should work together to anticipate change 

How has work changed since - introduction of technology in education
- ubiquitous learning
How will ready be defined in 2040?
- exponential - rates of doubling are incomprehensible to the human mind

ERA shift - we are in a defining point in history
- new social norms
- New economic systems
BUT
- the change in technology
- Pressing nature to work with the code in our devices to make sense of the world we live on

We are in the 4th industrial revolution - paradigm busting innovations - historical ones over long periods of time - these have reduced each time
- technological advancements on nano, AI, biotech etc

2 Drivers of change
- rise of smart machines - augmentation and/ displacement of human intelligence
- Decline of the full time work force access talent in the open market, globalisation creating world wide work force - structure of work will become a career mosaic

These will have HUGE impact on future lifestyles - impact on education?????

Future work characteristics 
- market driven
- Modular and recombined
- Data and market driven
- Grounded in relating - relationships will drive success
- Interwoven with learning - frequent adaptations - act of working will align with act of learning

Core social and emotional skills 
- understand self - individual skills
- Social awareness- collaboration
- self discovery
Academic skills and knowledge still important .

Education educational change 
- mastering content.
- Thinking and doing - project, inquiry
- Feeling and relating

How might we change education 
- teach and integrate social emotions
- Bring uncertainty and ambiguity - VUCA world
- Nurture aspirational visions
- Use technology AUGMENT - capability
- What is success
- Develop reflective learning practice
- Rethink teacher prep
- Broader than just 9-3 in a school

How do we navigate to change the power of the status quo? 
- need to change the traditional markers of success
- Shelf life for transferable skills is at risk

How do we prioritise PLD needs - skills vs development? 
- personalise whatt your staff needs
- 1 size fits all it’s not going to cut the mustard!

Panel 1  - Hannah Hudson, Eruera Tarena, Andy Kai Fong 

Hannah Hudson (amazing young woman)  

- student UC - future problem solving programme
- Collective future is something we should all be thinking about on a macro scale
- The problem of the subject silo - what about the space between the subjects
- The world is one big body of knowledge
- Interdisciplinary thinking is where the world’s issues will be solved
- Every NZ show understand Moore’s Law -

Eruera Tarena 
- can disruption advance equity and advancement for Maori
- Adaptive leadership
- Astronauts of their time - based on a hunch - not bound by control
- Navigators look backwards - sailing away from - what are we ready to leave behind?
- future workforce engagement stats
- Hunch -  that we will plan the future with intent
- Treaty partnership 2.0 ! What could we create together, rather than focusing on what has divided us in the past

Andy Kai Fong (inspirational leadership + social justice) 
- Kua Rite - we are ready
- Schooling must change
- Influencers - professional; societal; experiential
- the need to be increasingly human -
- Change is complex
- Reimagine learning that allows everyone to be successful
At Haeata 
- we celebrate not sort
- we connect and don’t silo
- We celebrate differences
- we celebrate dispositions
- We begin with curiosity not content
- We make it personal

Complexity of the interconnection between curriculum, pedagogy, policy, resourcing, whanau and assessment - complexity is not addressed!

Keynote 2  Faye Langdon - 21stC Skills Lab

How to get ahead in a world of AI, Algorithms, BOTs and Big Data! 

Our education system still focuses on ‘acing the test’.
There are 1 million GenZed population - we need to be creating learners that fill the gap that employers need.

21stC - our humanness is going tomorrow enable us to thrive and survive - we have an amazing human brain we need to enable and work with technology ....

Requirements for future .....
- critical thinking
- Collaboration
- Digital skills
Everyone needs to be a learner - all the time + learn unlearn relearn
Many young people’s world is a passive relationship with technology - they need to become active

The economy will be person-centred
- collaboration and teamwork
- Individuals from radically different backgrounds
- Creative economy - huge growth worldwide
- Human-oriented services
- Cybereconomy

A new quotient has been added to IQ, EQ - the AQ - adaptability quotient

Big 6 - the focus for future employment 
- analytics
- Numeracy - lot of jobs will depend on this
- Adaptability and flexibility
- Digital
- 3Cs - communication, collaboration, critical thinking
- Mobility is the new norm

Building a picture of capabilities - building a career web.... need to help students navigate a career pathway

A lot of talk about Self-directed and human-centred learning

Changes in requirements World Economic Forum 
- 181% increase in bilingual skills required
- 212% increase in Digital literacy skills required 

- 158% increase in critical thinking skills required 

- 65% increase in creativity  skills required 

Aspirational future - insights, experiences

Dark future - inequity, invasion of privacy, targeting the vulnerable - what impact do I have as an educator

The oath of non- harm for an age of big data: 

I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability, the following covenant:
I will respect all people for their integrity and wisdom, understanding that they are experts in their own lives, and will gladly share with them all the benefits of my knowledge.
I will use my skills and resources to create bridges for human potential, not barriers. I will create tools that remove obstacles between resources and the people who need them.
I will not use my technical knowledge to compound the disadvantage created by historic patterns of racism, classism, able-ism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, transphobia, religious intolerance, and other forms of oppression.
I will design with history in mind. To ignore a four-century- long pattern of punishing the poor is to be complicit in the “unintended,” but terribly predictable consequences that arise when equity and good intentions are assumed as initial conditions.
I will integrate systems for the needs of people, not data. I will choose system integration as a mechanism to attain human needs, not to facilitate ubiquitous surveillance.
I will not collect data for data’s sake, nor keep it just because I can.
When informed consent and design convenience come into conflict, informed consent will always prevail.
I will design no data-based system that overturns an established legal right of the poor.
I will remember that the technologies I design are not aimed at data points, probabilities, or patterns, but at human beings.

Panel 2 Amy Fletcher, Margaret Pickering, Ed Liedenberger

Amy Fletcher - higher education - disruption the status quo 

Personalised learning when done well is essential - student at centre. 

Automation is the Voldemort the terrifying force nobody is willing to name. - Jerry Mcluskey

-EdTech solutions need to focus on personalisation.
- however most Tertiary deliver the opposite

- need for competency based models - learning can take place in a variety of institutions - needs to be transparent and transferable
- Business and education sometimes at odds. What is valued in an education system? What if there’s content that can be ‘chunked’? 

Margaret Pickering - Stickmen Media - Machines as learning partners

Delivering learning and other stuff through IT

- low barrier to entry
- Self driven
- Learning as entertainment

The challenge
- what will still be relevant
- Digital wasteland unfinished project - really high % of online courses never completed

Making the most of the learning activity
- engagement types important - preferred play type
- - competitive - killers
- - curious - explorers
- - chatty and cooperative - socialiser.
- - achievers - all the gold stars
- nurturers - build and refine

Balance between boredom and balance.
Learners still need to take responsibility for making the education.

Make no assumptions, know your learners and engage them .!

Ed Liebenberger - Jade Software
- Humans crave connection
- Shared experiences last for life
- AI is tapping into key aspects of human connection - touch, facial expression

Feedback - generates data - creates patterns - modifies behaviours.
- Netflix - preferences

Data used to improve student experiences - enabling conversations.

Accuracy of voice recognition- exponential improvement.

Keynote 3 James Hay - Virtual Medical Coaching

Because fantastic education doesn’t just happen


Tonnes of data - how do we make use data in education? What do they come in knowing?

- Adaptive learning development tools - most sophisticated tool for building adaptive and personalised learning.
-  Big data platform - ongoing access to their data - compared to class average - detailed analytics and insights

- Advanced assessments- evidence based assessment; credible statistics; personalised experiences - machines can make the situations more complex
- Retention strategies - continual reminders of content and assessment - feedback to teachers as well - through gamification 

- Live assessment tools - gauge what stud nets need to know and need to be assessed on - students get to the same point but not in the same way and at the same time.
- Being able to assess knowledge gaps - and fills them

Adaptive digital learning -  Unique to each student - imagine if NCEA was designed like this 

Panel 4 Micro Credentials and Block Change (or where I learned a new language and my head hurt...) 

Matt Carter Otago Polytech

MicroCredentials
- valuing personal learning
- Edubits - I see poissibilities for blended Polytech courses here
- small meaningful packages of skills that may include soft skills
- assessable competencies
- Digital badges of competency -
- could be a course; skills learnt at work; application at work;
- individualised pathway


Sam Mann - self determined education
- process of learning - heutology
- Masters of Professional Practice
- Bachelor of Leadership for Change - I want to make a difference

Andrew Masters - block chain guru
- how do we scale learning in an exponential world?
- Convergence of technology at present
- Reduction in the price of acquiring knowledge
- Trust - value of the qualification from trusted institutions -  will it hold value
- it the job going to exist?
Power is shifting - decentralisation.
-- what if anyone could be a teacher in any Subject?
- what if the teacher could give out the qualification/microcredentials
- a digital ledger of qualifications - accessible to all - open public
global

What if - 
Professional Standards - can be shifted to MC
Professional learning- reinforcing lifelong learning - not lip-service - take ongoing learning seriously

Mindblowing : Soul Machines - Dr Elinor Swery

Machines as learning partners: @soulmachines who have created a virtual nervous system that has emotional intelligence is designed to bridge the machine and man to communicate effectively. 

Takeaway thoughts

- where were the teacher training institutions in the conversation?

- school MUST change 

- the model MUST evolve