Our third item this week on the United States’ unstable orbit around mediocrity is a repost of our top ten list of how U.S. education is failing to create students that will succeed in creative, knowledge- and innovation-based economies (first published last June). We apologize for beating a dead horse, but No Child Left Behind [...]

We wrap up our ten days of top ten lists with ten resources that can help you start to think as an education futurist. This list is far from complete — feel free to post your own in the comments!

Wikipedia
Wired
The New York Times
The Wall Street Journal
Kurzweil, R. (2005). The Singularity is near: When humans [...]

Significant learning occurs beyond formal education contexts. Today’s top ten list describes the power of informal and nonformal learning.

Informal learning is learning by living – learning isn’t specifically planned, it simply occurs. Two examples of informal learning: 1) taking in what one observes while walking the streets; and 2) listening in on an [...]

Today’s list discusses how to move beyond the failures of U.S. education and transform our schools, communities, and families into centers of knowledge production and innovation.

Schools of the agricultural and industrial ages produced graduates suitable for their economies and societies. Change is accelerating, and students that are being prepared for old society jobs cannot [...]

Today’s list discusses how U.S. education is failing to create students that will succeed in creative, knowledge- and innovation-based economies. Not surprisingly, No Child Left Behind heads-off this list as failure #1:

No Child Left Behind. NCLB is producing exactly the wrong products for the 21st Century, but is right on for the 1850’s through [...]

We’re back this week with the final five top ten lists! Today’s list contains tools and Web resources to help people start leapfrogging now.
Note: It’s hard to create an innovative tools top ten list while omitting services from Google – but, for the purpose of this list, Google is left off because everybody wants [...]

It’s not enough to question if China is on the verge of leapfrogging the world in education. Is China poised to leapfrog the world in the knowledge economy, or are they simply catching up? Perhaps the knowledge economy isn’t what matters, but the emerging innovation economy does. For the time being, however, [...]

Yesterday, we explored what leapfrogging is. But, what are a few examples…?

Someone says what s/he thinks, despite their fear.
A kid stops hanging with the Crips and returns to school.
Americans get into micronutrition and eschew McFood.
You start thinking about positive rather than negative futures.
You buy a Prius and sell the Cadillac.
You contract for companionship and [...]

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 having to say, “I’m catching [...]

As we stated in yesterday’s top ten list, human-surpassing intelligence will guarantee that the future is far more different than we can imagine. Our second top ten list plays off ideas from Ray Kurzweil’s The Singularity is near, Hans Moravec’s Mind children and Robot, and the work of Vernor Vinge. Onward Singularitarians!

Accelerating returns: S-curves of [...]