Imagining future scenarios

Few have been able to predict the changes that have occurred during the last 10 years. Indeed, many who are in the business of organising their financial investments failed to predict the recent ‘meltdown’ in global credit markets. The casualties have included many of the financial planning experts themselves and the financial sector has been hit hard. Similarly, predictions of education trends have proven to be difficult. In the same way, predictions about what learning spaces will look like by 2020 are likely to be proven as wrong.

Therefore, rather than trying to predict what learning spaces might look like in 2020, this brief paper poses a provocative scenario of learning and teaching in 2020. Through the future scenario building, imagination is invited, as well as critiquing the scenario through questions such as ‘Is this educationally justifiable?’ and ‘What transformational possibilities are evident?’.

The following scenario is replicated from the book Transforming learning with ICT: making IT happen (Finger, Russell, Jamieson-Proctor, & Russell, 2007). It proposes pLearning – beyond eLearning and the current widespread use of the term ICT - using PLT (Population Learning Technologies). In building this scenario, my thinking was stimulated by the concept of Population Health Technologies (PHTs), which have the central aim of using ICT to improve the health of populations and communities (Eng, 2005, p. 1). According to Eng, PHTs might change many population health paradigms so that, in the future, emerging ICT (including future versions of the internet, microelectromechanical systems, nanotechnologies, genomics, robotics, artificial intelligence and sensors) will enhance health and the quality of life.

Similarly, the PLT outlined in the following Learning Spaces Scenario: Population Learning Technologies (PLT) in 2020 are envisioned to transform learning and teaching through new technologies which focus on people, pedagogies, purpose, problem-solving, performance and perspectives. Just as PHTs aim to change population health paradigms, so PLT reflects a vision to change many learning paradigms to improve the learning of populations and communities.

The learning spaces scenario is conveyed through the experiences of a teacher in 2020.

Learning spaces scenario: Population Learning Technologies (PLT) in 2020

1. pLearning with PLT

We undertake pLearning, which means learning with a sharp focus on innovative pedagogies using PLT—Population Learning Technologies. We also call them PLT because our local and global visions portray a joy of learning for the entire world population. The ‘p’ in pLearning, as well as focusing on pedagogy, also refers to the purpose of learning, problem based learning, high performance and considering diverse perspectives. Of course it also reflects the portability of most of the PLT. Some people back in the 1990s called them ‘learning technologies’; then we changed them to ‘ICT’ meaning information and communication technology. But in that usage, learning was implicit. With our new technologies, we foreground the purpose of learning. The joy of learning is encouraged everywhere and throughout the entire lifespan.

2. pLearning sites, pLearning places and pLearning communities
We don’t use the term ‘school’ any more. We have pLearning sites, pLearning places and pLearning communities. pLearning communities are inclusive groups; anyone can join any learning community. pLearning places are official, government-legislated, approved sites where students must be registered when they turn two years old (similar to what 20th-century schools used to do with enrolment). pLearning sites are physical spaces a bit like 20th-century schools, where people meet for events. I get paid to work formally with learners in pLearning places and attend pLearning sites for special events. PLT enables me to undertake pLearning with my students wherever and whenever I wish.

3. Snippets from my day
My plan for today is the usual one - a mix of World Teacher PLT communications, interactions with students through pLearning place activities, and this evening we have a pLearning site social event where a guest speaker will be presenting an online synchronous presentation from the USA. Students who can attend physically will view this in one of the pLearning site auditoriums with full large-screen display and interactivity. The guest speaker will be providing complex knowledge and answering questions related to the new technologies she is developing. Students will also be viewing a special keynote address by the director of pLearning ANZ - a collaborative Australian and New Zealand intersystemic organisation responsible for curriculum, pedagogy and assessment policy, as well as content and content delivery, resources and infrastructure.

4. Current pLearning
We have been studying technology developments which have occurred during the last 50 years, as 90 per cent of all technologies have been invented during that time. Many of them have happened since 2010. My students have been writing possible future scenarios for 2050 after studying those technological changes. We have had parents communicating with us about the technologies they used when they had to go to physical spaces called schools every day to learn. Some used very large computers, and some called them information and communication technologies (ICT) about 20 years ago. Looking back and forward has excited the children much as it did when I was younger.

5. Resources
pLearning places have life-sized flat screens and digital abilities to provide both synchronous and asynchronous pLearning. The life-sized image is usually of a person with whom we can interact, and most students also have several of these in various rooms of their homes. Lessons, presentations, instructive sessions and simulated learning activities can be downloaded in their homes, stored and accessed. Live streaming can also occur for synchronous interaction, and almost all resources can be downloaded for students to revisit as they wish. All have some level of interactivity for both synchronous and asynchronous learning. We all have PLT implanted knowledge devices linked to auditory and retinal imaging for data input. Students have these implanted prior to formal pLearning, which commences when children are two years of age. ‘Being augmented and loving it’ is a slogan of one of the major international companies which supplies these implants. We have to obtain special permission from regulatory authorities where parents and guardians resist the artificial enhancement of their children’s natural powers of perception, memory and reasoning. Some parents and guardians can’t afford this technology and the annual costs. This restricts those students from some of the PLT resources.

6. Online content collections
The resources, known as PLT knowledge resources, are organised according to quick-access knowledge, broad-based knowledge, one-off knowledge and complex knowledge. We expect students to communicate with us and to interact in pLearning place activities to build complex knowledge. As students move through their formal schooling years, they learn how to access the other forms of knowledge in self-directed and collaborative ways with other learners.

7. Assessment
Education Connect provides a centralised coordinated approach to student information. Identity management processes enable ready retrieval, input and management of PLT portfolios as personal stories of learning, these are stored in Education Connect database also connects with Health Connect, the database of health information (PHT), as health and medical information can inform learning and teaching.

8. Access
As a teacher, I have access to extensive educational assessment and can request evidence. Students, parents and guardians have immediate access to all data.

9. Individualisation and classroom management
My daily task is to interpret and track student pLearning using the online data tracking mechanisms. Students work within the pLearning sites, pLearning places and pLearning communities. Today I have events occurring in all three domains.

While I have no playground duty, bus duty, and no classroom behaviour problems (except possibly tonight at the pLearning site event), I find it hard to say, ‘I can now relax’. When I go for a walk to relax, students will be communicating with me. I can divert these to automatic multimedia PLT responses. However, while I seem to be in control, at times I search for a space for myself to get away from the technology. It often seems to be driving me. While I can turn it off to sleep, after I wake I have several hours of work waiting to deal with. PLT knows few boundaries and it operates 24/7.

Your futures scenario building

What are your reflections on this scenario? What do you think learning spaces might be like in 2020? What would you like learning spaces to be like in 2020?

As Drucker has indicated, ‘the best way to predict the future is to create it’. The learning spaces of tomorrow are those we are creating now. I encourage you to play a leadership role in designing and creating appropriate, stimulating and improved learning spaces.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr Glenn Finger is Deputy Dean (Learning and Teaching), Faculty of Education Executive, at Griffith University, in Queensland, Australia.

 

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