Archive for August, 2007

A New Paradigm of Knowledge Production

8/31/2007

My doctoral dissertation, A New Paradigm of Knowledge Production in Minnesota Higher Education: A Delphi Study, is available for purchase online or for online preview: Click here to preview the first chapter Or, purchase a PDF download or hardcover copy of this document online at the Education Futures store SPECIAL: Download now and save! For [...]


What do you know?

8/29/2007

The StarTribune ran a positive piece that raises awareness of David Shupe’s eLumen Collaborative, a Web-based, enterprise-level application for tracking student competencies. The project began as a response to a simple question that higher education institutions and graduates have a hard time answering: What, precisely, did graduating students learn, and what competencies have they developed? [...]


The future of search?

8/27/2007

The semantic web approaches! Powerlabs, which will launch in early September, utilizes Powerset, a large-scale search engine that breaks the confines of keyword search and takes advantage of the structure and nuances of natural language, according to the company. At the moment, they’re accepting sign-ups for pre-release experimentation.


Games in the Classroom 7–game mechanics for creating learning

8/22/2007

One of the big ideas from 6.0 was that kids are not naturally good at complex games. They often have the time, resources, but they do not always have the guidance of a mentor. Many kids are playing games designed by adults for adults. This is good and bad. Good in that the adult games [...]


Flashbacks: Morphonix and the Brock Effect

8/21/2007

Reader Arturo B. from Durango (Mexico) notes that Karen Littman posted an outstanding essay from 1992 in which she describes why she started Morphonix (creators of Neuromatrix, discussed in an earlier post): Even young children will become researchers as they discover and explore new information at their own pace. New technology is multisensory. It allows [...]


Games in the Classroom 6: cultural modeling and education beyond abstraction

8/20/2007

Do kids just naturally get it? Are they just good at games, computers, phones, and all things digital? My experience and common sense says no, although I wish it were a general truth. Do kids need to learn about games in school? Yes, if we want to guide them in optimal usage, and maybe learn [...]


Games in the Classroom 5: embodiment, context, complexity, good assessment, measurement, and relevance

8/18/2007

What was presented yesterday is how to embody and teach a lesson on Voice. Trying to teach voice sounds pretty boring, especially when you tell them excitedly in your teacher nerd-talk that “you’ll like it, it’s fun! We’ll look at poetry and other fiction and examine tone, emphasis, word choice, syntax, volume, and all the [...]


Quick poll on 21st century education

8/18/2007

I sent an email out to a few folks with a short question: Which trend will have the greatest impact on education in the 21st century? [ ] Globalization [ ] Rise of the knowledge society [ ] Accelerating change [ ] Other: _______ The results will be posted below as I receive them. If [...]


Games in the Classroom Part 4

8/17/2007

Games as Expert Systems It seems like common sense to assume that the best way to learn something is to work one-on-one with an expert. Unfortunately, many of these experts are busy using their expertise in important projects at the Louvre, saving lives, winning Nobel prizes, and putting out fires—and sometimes a great expert is [...]


Alternative presents and futures research

8/15/2007

I am developing the following ideas with George Kubik and John Moravec. We welcome any feedback you might have. To date, divisions of past, present, and future have been a necessary condition for a paradigm of futures research. We assert that the futures research field must progress beyond traditional assumptions and categories of past, present [...]


Related posts

Five secrets futurists don’t want you to know

Professional futurists continue to make outstanding contributions toward the development of understandings of the future, but is futures thought limited to this select group? Definitely not! With a do-it-yourself attitude, and leverage of the right resources, anybody can become an effective futurist. Here’s why: Nobody knows the future – don’t trust anybody who says otherwise. [...]


Leapfrogging to the New Basics

Are the old basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic relevant in the 21st century? Or, is it time for an upgrade? Arthur Harkins and I assembled a list of New Basics for education that can help us leapfrog to an education paradigm that is both innovative and relevant for the 21st century and beyond. These [...]


Futures Research Quarterly publishes special Leapfrog issue

The World Futures Society has published a special issue of Futures Research Quarterly, focused on the Leapfrog Principle.  These papers will serve as the knowledge base for the upcoming Leapfrog conference in Anqing, China this October.  Online copies should be available through EBSCOhost in the near future (check with your library for access).  Contents for [...]


Slides from World Future Society presentation: Youth futures

Youth Futures: Projecting the Roles of Disruptive Technologies, Anticipatory Knowledge, and Continuous Innovation Summary: This session highlights the Global Youth Policy and Leadership Program at the University of Minnesota where faculty and students of all ages (kindergarten through graduate school) crafted scenarios, composed alternative futures, and explored other various futures methodologies. In this session, particular [...]


Top ten list #3: The correlates of Leapfrogging

Leapfrogging means to jump over obstacles to achieve goals. It means to get ahead of the competition or the present state of the art through innovative, time-and-cost-saving means. What else does it mean? Leapfrogging means that you are anticipatory. Leapfrogging means that you are creating options. Leapfrogging synergizes classical and virtual realities. Leapfrogging means never [...]


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