Emergent Futures Tumblelog

This is the Tumblelog of Paul Higgins and Sandy Teagle - Futurists from Melbourne and Brisbane in Australia. Go to Emergent Futures to see more or follow on Twitter at FuturistPaul . If you right click on the pictures, titles or links in these posts you will be able to go to the original story on the web. If you click on comments for each post you can either read what others have said or add your own comment via Disqus. If you click on the date of a post it will take you to a single post view where you can copy the web link if you want to send it to someone else. If you click on the tags it will take you to other stories from Emergent Futures with the same tag.

May 7th 2012

Reblogged from courtenaybird|38 notes |# Comments

‘The Single Biggest Change in Education Since the Printing Press’  (via courtenaybird)

Posted at 2:51am and tagged with: education, technology, tech, not for profit, disruption,.

“

The dons of elite education could batten down the hatches and try to preserve the limited-supply model that has served them well (see: newspapers, record labels, publishing houses). Or, they can choose to embrace the openness and radically democratic accessibility the Internet makes possible.


This morning two of the top universities announced a collaboration that signals they are taking the latter path: MIT and Harvard are each pouring $30 million into a nonprofit partnership edX, which they hope will make the top-notch faculties and courses of their schools available for free to millions of people around the world — free for anyone with an Internet connection. In presenting edX, the initiative’s new president, Anant Agarwal, called the opportunity presented in online education ‘the single biggest change in education since the printing press.’
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May 6th 2012

Reblogged from infoneer-pulse|98 notes |# Comments

For Social Media In The Classroom To Work, Instructors Need Best Practices (via infoneer-pulse)

Posted at 12:01pm and tagged with: tech, technology, education,.

“
There is a growing body of scholarly research suggesting that, when used properly, social media can boost both learning outcomes and student engagement. The key phrase in that sentence is “when used properly.” The problem is that research in this area is still relatively limited, and most of what is being done in classrooms is experimental. No one has figured out definitively what does and does not work.
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May 3rd 2012

Reblogged from stoweboyd|2 notes |# Comments

April 28, 2012 at 03:40AM via http://bit.ly/IBwpB8 (via stoweboyd)

Posted at 4:41am and tagged with: education, connected, tech, technology, networks,.

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@catherinecronin: Great post by @sharonlflynn on #pelc12: All about connections http://t.co/SRof1EoU « happy to be a part of them, Sharon :)
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May 2nd 2012

What happens when you give Kindles to kids in Ghana? Results:

Reblogged from courtenaybird|312 notes |# Comments

courtenaybird:

  • Kids learned to use e-readers quickly even though 43 percent of them had never used a computer before. Also, not surprisingly, they were quick to discover “the multimedia aspects of the e-reader, such as music and Internet features.”
  • Near-zero theft. Only two e-readers (out of 600) were lost in the whole study, partly because “community involvement was encouraged through e-reader pledges, community outreach programs, and support from community leaders.”
  • Kids got access to way more books. Before the study, primary-school students had access to an average of 3.6 books at home. Junior-high students had access to an average of 8.6 books at home and high-school students access to an average of 11 books. With the e-reader program, kids had access to an average of 107 book.
  • Primary school students’ test scores improved, but effects on older kids were less clear. The reading scores of primary-school students who received e-readers increased from 12.9 percent to 15.7 percent. But results for older kids were mixed.
  • Students sought out access to international news. “Amazon data revealed that students were downloading The New York Times, USA Today, and El País etc., demonstrating that students want to access a wide range of reading materials that were previously inaccessible.”
  • Kindles break too easily. Worldreader had not predicted how many Kindles would break: 243 out of 600, or 40.5 percent. 
  • The program appears cost-effective. Worldreader estimates that “for the years 2014-2018, using a calculation focused strictly on the provisioning of textbooks, the e-reader system would cost only $8.93-$11.40 more per student over a 4 year period [$0.19 to $0.24 per month] than the traditional paper book system.”

Posted at 8:52pm and tagged with: tech, tablets, education, technology,.

May 2nd 2012

Reblogged from newyorker|81 notes |# Comments

longreads:

Stanford University, and its president John L. Hennessy, have a tight relationship with Silicon Valley, which has helped the university’s endowment grow to nearly $17 billion. A look at how those relationships are shaping what’s next:

John Hennessy’s experience in Silicon Valley proves that digital disruption is normal, and even desirable. It is commonly believed that traditional companies and services get disrupted because they are inefficient and costly. The publishing industry has suffered in recent years, the argument goes, because reading on screens is more convenient. Why wait in line at a store when there’s Amazon? Why pay for a travel agent when there’s Expedia? The same argument can be applied to online education. An online syllabus could reach many more students, and reduce tuition charges and eliminate room and board. Students in an online university could take any course whenever they wanted, and wouldn’t have to waste time bicycling to class.

“Get Rich U.” — Ken Auletta, The New Yorker

See also: “Rich Harvard, Poor Harvard.” — Nina Munk, Vanity Fair, Aug. 1, 2009

Posted at 3:22pm and tagged with: technology, tech, education, disruption,.

longreads: Stanford University, and its president John L. Hennessy, have a tight relationship with Silicon Valley, which has helped the university’s endowment grow to nearly $17 billion. A look at how those relationships are shaping what’s next: John Hennessy’s experience in Silicon Valley proves that digital disruption is normal, and even desirable. It is commonly believed that traditional companies and services get disrupted because they are inefficient and costly. The publishing industry has suffered in recent years, the argument goes, because reading on screens is more convenient. Why wait in line at a store when there’s Amazon? Why pay for a travel agent when there’s Expedia? The same argument can be applied to online education. An online syllabus could reach many more students, and reduce tuition charges and eliminate room and board. Students in an online university could take any course whenever they wanted, and wouldn’t have to waste time bicycling to class. “Get Rich U.” — Ken Auletta, The New Yorker See also: “Rich Harvard, Poor Harvard.” — Nina Munk, Vanity Fair, Aug. 1, 2009

May 1st 2012

Reblogged from safx|800 notes |# Comments

safx:

abaldwin360:

Wages for Americans age 25-34 have decreased 5% since 2001 while tuition rates have increased 8% PER YEAR on average.

This is not ok.

Posted at 10:09am and tagged with: trends, economic, education, inequality,.

safx: abaldwin360: Wages for Americans age 25-34 have decreased 5% since 2001 while tuition rates have increased 8% PER YEAR on average. This is not ok.

April 30th 2012

Reblogged from smarterplanet|119 notes |# Comments

smarterplanet:

TED-Ed’s New Video Tool Allows Anyone To Create Video Lessons Online

TED-Ed’s new free platform allows anyone to “flip” any video on YouTube by adding custom content to play alongside it, making it possible to turn any piece of video content into a teachable moment.

Read more->

Posted at 5:30pm and tagged with: education, video, tech, technology, innovation,.

smarterplanet: TED-Ed’s New Video Tool Allows Anyone To Create Video Lessons Online TED-Ed’s new free platform allows anyone to “flip” any video on YouTube by adding custom content to play alongside it, making it possible to turn any piece of video content into a teachable moment. Read more->

April 30th 2012

Reblogged from campfireff|12 notes |# Comments

Paul Higgins: I am doing the keynote at the Campfire Film Festival in a couple of weeks. Richard’s words here about his dream are why I am doing it.

campfireff:

It IS huge - TED extending its arms into educational videos. But already we’re learning things about how it works, and it already has its detractors. This, from Hack Education:

There are currently 60+ videos available, and while the animation is pretty snazzy, the content cannot be remixed or mashed-up as nothing isn’t openly licensed. Just what education needs – more proprietary content, another defensive brand. Shelly Blake-Plock argues there are other problems with the site: the emphasis on consuming rather than making.

Certainly an area to watch and discuss. I’m not as “depressed” about where TED Ed is going as Shelly. There’s some exciting things ahead here.

My prediction: with big players like TED, Khan & YouTube in the same space now working together, there’s going to be lots of fireworks to watch in educational innovation in the months ahead.

My only negativity about it all comes from the dream I have, that education is something greater than a knowledge-imparting exercise. Something greater than a lesson with a summary.

Something much greater.

Something deeper.

It’s why I love doing what we do at Campfire.

Posted at 8:41am and tagged with: education, purpose,.

April 27th 2012

Reblogged from smarterplanet|65 notes |# Comments

‘Me.EDU’: Debating the Coming Personalization of Higher Ed - Wired Campus - The Chronicle of Higher Education 

via infoneer-pulse

(via smarterplanet)

Posted at 8:18am and tagged with: tech, technology, data, disruption, education, analytics,.

“
We’re entering a world that is going to be so data-mined it will be unrecognizable to us in 20 years, the way our kids laugh at us for buying records,” said one panelist, Jose Ferreira, founder of the interactive-learning company Knewton. “What that means for education is profound, because education produces vastly more data than any other data industry.
”

April 26th 2012

A Smarter Planet: How the iPad Is Changing Education | ReadWriteWeb

Reblogged from smarterplanet|40 notes |# Comments

smarterplanet:

The iPad may only be two years old, but it’s already begun to change many things. Reading is one of them. Work is another. It is selling like crazy, but it will be some time before most of the people you know own a tablet.

The market for this type of device may only be in its…

Posted at 10:10am and tagged with: tablets, technology, tech, education,.