I thought we'd start with the big questions. In your estimations, what is the future of education? Get started!

NO FUTURE — just kidding. People are constantly being born and passing away.

The future of education is putting the new ones in touch with the slightly older, and making sure that language, mathematics, logic, and history are conveyed.

By any means at all. Preferably without "Standards of Learning" exams, which are a scam.

Love this thought of the tautness of generations, usurping our elders, but strengthening those relationships and histories, productively and dynamically.

Futures. There is no single future of education, but a plurality of them.

As Max points out, standards are scam. Worse, they tend to homogenize. No single system can fit all participants. All sets of standards either (a) leave important items out making them harder to discover, and/or (b) are fraudulent in that they cannot be met by all those that they are intended to measure.

Humans are curious animals. As long as we make culture readily available, searchable, and discoverable through libraries, museums, online resources, and people, I think we'll be OK.

So this is the paradox that I've been struggling with. We need to create an architecture of education, so that learning can take places, but is that architecture not already prescriptive?

More children playing an active role in their education. Fewer judgements, "learning styles", "learning disabilities". More encouragement, confidence, joy, jumping in, desire to excel. Less "I only have to be a little bit better than the next person, so let's kick their legs out from under them." At least that's what I hope.

Steve Jobs Interview:

Q: Could technology help by improving education?

Steve Jobs:
I used to think that technology could help education. I've probably spearheaded giving away more computer equipment to schools than anybody else on the planet. But I've had to come to the inevitable conclusion that the problem is not one that technology can hope to solve. What's wrong with education cannot be fixed with technology. No amount of technology will make a dent.

It's a political problem. The problems are sociopolitical. The problems are unions.... The problem is bureaucracy.

wired.com

Wonderful. I actually wrote up a little piece about just that. bobbyjgeorge.com

For education to truly be successful, it will need to reevaluate what it actually defines as educated. I was put in countless remedial classes only to be thrown out a week later. Knowing multiplication tables was the benchmark for mathematical ability, I was lazy, and didn't learn them till later in life. I was excellent in all other forms of mathematics. This certainly only hindered my learning.

It will also have to stop treating students as a herd. I used to finish a weeks work in hours. Other students would take the entire week. It only fostered laziness in me. Having an adaptive program that encourages students to excel when they need to would make all the difference.

Absolutely. Everyone learns differently, and at their own pace. Our role, as educators, is to follow those interests - to inspire and entice that sense of curiosity & wonder.

I just watched a chat on "The Future of Education" (with Steve Hargadon, Jeff Brazil, Audrey Watters, Bryan Alexander, Monika Hardy) and I think it's worth sharing. Steve Hargadon kicks off the discussion with a pair of stories and a list of his four core beliefs regarding education, all of which I agree with:

1. "the worth and inherent value of every child" as opposed to defining children by deficiencies, as is mostly the case with the system that we currently have

2. "agency: the ultimate goal of education should be to develop the ability for students to take responsibility for their own lives and become increasingly self directed"

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[This is part one of three. I'm bumping up against the character limit.]

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3. "the value of learning in helping us lead better lives by overcoming our biases, by overcoming simplistic thinking, by overcoming cognitive errors"

4. "the value of participation" for learning, democracy, professional development, etc.

One of the important points made in the conversation that follows is that that future could (and I hope it will) be found in networks rather than institutions or *a* system, both of which imply hierarchical power maintained through standardization. That's why I'm also leaving a link to Tricia Wang's talk "Dancing with Handcuffs: The Geography of Trust", in which she gives a great description of the power of social networks while describing how they differ from social circles.

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[part three of three]

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One final wish from me to add to all of this: I hope the future of education involves the elimination of age segregation. Networks can make that easy to accomplish.

I'd like to add a different point of view to the issue if I may. As the technology advances and provides us with better tools of engagement to different topics (such as branch), we as humans develop characters in sync with the digital world.

This means, many things that are worthy of money are also presented with better visuals, interface and manageability. Any type of marketing can also include educational values, and they do. I'll try to explain with an example.

surgery-games.org

This is an example I could find in a quick look and it's somewhat educational. The reasons that is produced is it's ability to generate money. The better presented and marketed this is, the quality will rise thus the income.

So, in time the science will be more accurate and the graphics and interface etc. This looks OK and good but the problem with this is i believe to be big and crucial.

It's clear that the kids are picking up many things from online educational tools and it's derived by the market. Google given CPC value, the actual market value of the subject and click rate determines what is produced. Not only educationally, but that is the part that worries me the most.

So I'm not sure if I managed to make sense, but i think this is a serious issue and should be handled professionally.

en Venezuela ya no se piensa en el futuro de la educación, realmente se piensa en otras cosas.. y no en el futuro de la educación pienso que el mundo sin educación se volvería un mundo fracasado.

Great comments and woukd be interesting to hear how and should educators incorporate the growing number of online education tools like Khan Academu, 2tor, Coursera etc into traditional curriculums?

Pienso que el futuro de la educación está ligado a la tecnología, pero a al vez ésta debe ser practica, menos retòtica, más practica. También es necesario entender que no se debe enseñar algo que los niños no quieran aprender...es decir, si desde niños se puede enfocar más en lo que seràn cuando grandes, el tiempo que se ahorrarà será mucho.

No puedo escribir en Español...la estructura cambia... Es sòlo branch, para Ingleses y amèricanos?.... Is Branch only american and England people?...

buen punto de vista jorge, pero creo que no estas pensando en un futuro porque a decir verdad al parecer chavez saldrá este año de la presidencia puede que tome la educación otro rumbo en este país tan desorientado, esta red social me imagino que es para todo el mundo pero apenas comienza todavía no debe estar terminado por lo que los que somos de latinoamerica se nos hará complicado la red.

Before starting to my thoughts, I wanna thx for adding me man.
I actually say my words in the perspective of my country. I do not have enough idea how they teach in other countries.

-taking advantage of technology:
In the future, tablet PCs will be used in classes I guess. It has to be, in my opinion. As for now, I can clearly say that It's a necessity, but we are not allowed to use it. Ridiculous! University educating must be universal, we, as university students, need to search, find, learn, share in a class by tablet pcs. In a century that people can not live without technology, that is a crucial thing which should be used in future time. But I believe, it will happen.

other thing that I would like to share is:
-practice based learning
I know it is not the coming future of educating and not the respond that you wanna hear but, we are in branch man. This website is made for that. You can look at it as desired future. Anyway. Practice based learning is one of what needs to happen. If you ask why, it is because of the system that we are living in. Employers are looking for a person who knows the job well. They have right to want it but educating in many universities is not based on practice and mostly do not related to real working life. That's why we graduate with incomplete information, and feel like a fish out of water when searching for a job. They should teach us how to fishing, not how to eat it.

correct me if I'm wrong :)

Having a daughter for about 2 and a half years now shows me how children really learn things! I really think that education can work perfectly if there is an interest.

How many students in the world are complaining about things they don't want to learn. Ok, I think it's necessary to learn the basics of math. But there are a lot of things you have to learn without having an interest and without using this knowledge never in your live.

Instead of wasting time in things we don't want to learn, the focus of education should be concentrated in things we love to do!

It's just that simple, learn what you love to do... like my 2 years old daughter... She is interested in something... she learns is by herself.

@ Dominic This is especially so when students reach high school. The amount of 'fluff' that is taught is absolutely fruitless. Our education system, even into tertiary, should foster those that want to whether they did it in school or not. Speaking of which, students should only be doing tasters in upper-years.

I think that platforms like Udemy and Coursera are game changers and are already disrupting education.

When High School students can take entire University courses, learn a new subject and then practice it online in realtime that changes everything, and it's already happened.

The model used to be that to learn a subject you first had a teacher explain it to you, then you read about it in a book, and then to prove you knew it you demonstrated you knowledge by doing homework assignments and taking tests.

Now you can learn a new subject like app development, build an entire app, launch it on the app store and show what you know in an entirely different way. This takes the demonstration of knowledge out of academia and into the real world.

My take on the future of education is that it needs to change from classrooms following set curricula to an individualised learning approach, primarily so that pupils can learn something before being moved onto the next topic - this may mean that over the course of a year some students will cover a great many topics and others just one, but at the end of that period all will have learnt something. The current UK model of national curriculum and age based classes is only well suited to the average student - those who are outside of the average do not get the best from the classroom experience leading to frustration and disinterest in school.

esta conversacion cambia todo lo referente a red social, ya que se basan en un tema en especifico y tecnico que no muchos pueden aportar.

Speaking of average, that doesn't exist ... the education NEEDS to learn that. There are merely some who fit the system better than others.

I want to be able to branch to <b>higher</b> education, but the branching mechanism (the tree branches on the right) does not appear to work. Financing education is a prime topic for discussion, then format. Notice that many of our leaders or contenders attended Harvard? No accident. If I ever get to branch, I promise to discuss financing and traditional prestige Universities as the first order of business.

Is it a bad/good thing for the leaders to be from Harvard?

Actually I think education has to be very individual. As every human is individual there should exist new ways to reach everyone. Is like learning a new language... some people learn it very good by taking a course in a university, others prefer the daily business... learning by doing. I don't know where this conversation ends.. and what will be the conclusion but I recommend some videos from TED:

bit.ly
bit.ly
bit.ly

@Dominic, This thread is about HIGHER education in particular, how to finance it in general, how to achieve it yes, but not particularly with extension to all of education. To the extent that these TEDs discuss REAL WORLD applications, there is an ongoing debate in HIGHER education as to whether jobs are relevant. HIGHER education is actually aimed at improving society generally. Providing a skills and knowledge package for that purpose. And, to train leaders. As such Philosophy, Lobachevskian mathematics and yes, even knowledge of Ancient Greek and Latin can be relevant. HIGHER education, beyond high school is much demeaned on the internet, and yet is the possession of most of the world's leaders and few of the world's followers.

NB - When threads get off topic in branch, there needs to be a way to move them back, or branch them better to where they are relevant. Branch is interesting, but it still has far to go.

@ Bert ::: People aren't driven to achieve HIGHER education, explaining the lack of graduates you state. People are motivated when they see purpose, and quite frankly, they aren't shown the possibility that HIGHER education offers.

@Personia, I have no idea where you get the notion that enrollments are declining in HIGHER education. I teach at a University and my daughter is a senior in high school. Admissions are more competitive and costs are higher than ever at Traditional Universities. In discussions with the Chancellor of my alma mater (Washington University in St. Louis), he has argued against putting any course material online in a generally accessible manner, preferring to maintain Wash. U's education for the attending students. Even MIT Open Courseware is limited in scope and often doesn't contain full curricula. I think all the online education advocates have some very grandiose notions of what will be achieved.

@ Bert :: I understand and totally agree that is fact. What I forgot to mention is that I'm referring to the young people I observe in my general life. You and I are seeing things from two different demographics (me being aware of both). I'm sorry for being ambiguous.

En España realmente los jóvenes no toman muy enserio su educación ya que no saben lo importante que es estudiar para llegar a tener un empleo. Desde mi punto de vista la educación se debe empezar en casa y afianzar en la escuela.
In Spain youth really do not take their education/studies very seriously because they do not know how important it is to study to get a job. From my point of view, education should start at home and strengthen in school.

I do see your point, David. It's a very important one. A lot of people aren't presented the benefits of education. To put it simply.

The online solutions coming out today are incredible, but I still think a real world experience provides you with better relationships. I wouldn't be where I am today if I hadn't met and been shaped by people outside of the classroom, but still in the community.

I believe the future of education should be 3 simple things:
1. Personalized: Every student is different, some grasp things quicker than others. With todays web & mobile technology, students should be able to take requirement based personalized sessions.

2. Incentivized: In India, many poor parents dont send children to schools because they put them to work to earn money. Why not we incentivize these parents by paying these children money to come to school. The nature of incentive can vary based on countries.

3. Practical-ized: We have all heard it so many times, but not implemented fully. Theory needs to be backed up by practical experience for a holistic understanding and the pedagogy needs to incorporate that.

Increibe, tenemos el mismo pensamiento . Totalmente de acuerdo contigo.

@ Pronojit :: You pretty well have it spot on ;)

Personalized education and the ability for students to "create" their own degree, i.e. major/minors that don't fit into the current model as well as degrees done over several institutions rather than in one.

That's a really good model! But I thought, that narrows students into only what they know. They don't discover innovations and perhaps new interests and talents if they do just what they want; as a lot wouldn't think much on it.