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During October 12-14 of this year Anqing Teachers College will sponsor a conference on Leapfrog-inspired changes in the near futures of Chinese and U.S. education. The University of Minnesota, Anqing Teachers College, and the World Future Society are collaborators in this exciting development.

The official title of the conference is Interdisciplinary Education in Teacher Training Programs via Leapfrog Principles. More information about the conference will be released in the near future.

Eight draft papers for the ATC conference are linked here. Please make any comments that you feel will improve the papers. In the near future, the papers will be edited by Dr. Tim Mack, President of the World Future Society, for a special issue of the journal Futures Research Quarterly.

From a recent article from Inside Higher Ed:

For all the hyperbole, facts about what’s actually happening on the ground in China can be hard to come by. A new study by economists at universities in Canada, New Zealand and China aims to document what its title calls “the higher educational transformation of China and its global implications,” collecting in one place statistics and other information about enrollments, demographic changes, numbers of colleges and faculty publishing, among other categories.

From the working paper’s abstract:

The number of undergraduate and graduate students in China has been grown at approximately 30% per year since 1999, and the number of graduates at all levels of higher education in China has approximately quadrupled in the last 6 years. The size of entering classes of new students and total student enrollments have risen even faster, and have approximately quintupled. Prior to 1999 increases in these areas were much smaller. Much of the increased spending is focused on elite universities, and new academic contracts differ sharply from earlier ones with no tenure and annual publication quotas often used. All of these changes have already had large impacts on China’s higher educational system and are beginning to be felt by the wider global educational structure. We suggest that even more major impacts will follow in the years to come and there are implications for global trade both directly in ideas, and in idea derived products. (emphasis added)

Given the explosive growth of Chinese higher education –and potential effects on social, cultural, and economic transformations, it is not surprising that the impact has not been probed. Change may be occurring far faster than researchers and policy directors can measure.

(Thanks to Tom Abeles for forwarding the source article.)

You don’t need to understand Mandarin to know what’s going on in these commercials. The videos seem to stream slowly from these Chinese YouTube equivalents, so you may want to brew a pot of coffee as they load. Believe me, it’s worth the wait.

First, a collection of Ozing (好记星) commercials:

Then, the infomercial:

The Chinese are embracing mobile learning (m-learning) devices, and the manufacturer’s use of Dashan (AKA Mark Rowswell) as a pitchman conveys the impression that the West is using devices like this already. On the contrary –we confiscate these things at the school door! Is it too late for the West?

(Make sure to read my previous post on the Ozing V99.)

From this morning’s MACTA keynote address: Co-constructing Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century

Career and Technical Education is poised at the inflection point of a technological and social change process identified as the “J” Curve. Just like the letter J, the “J” Curve describes a sharp upward turn in the exponentially accelerating rate of change. The effects of the “J” Curve will be felt -indeed, are already being felt- by every institution, company, government, and school in all societies. This presentation centers on the leadership that can be exerted by Career and Technical Education in the context of the “J” Curve’s increasing impacts.

To view the slides in a larger format, click here.

Sans commentaire (for now!)…

Join students, scholars and guests from the University of Minnesota and our broader community to discuss LeapFrog futures for Chinese and U.S. American youth. Special emphasis will be placed on expanding learning opportunities across the full spectrum of education, work and life.

The co-seminar will meet on three Saturday mornings this spring at the University of Minnesota. Although the co-seminar is offered for credit, the meetings are open to the entire community. More details are available here. For further information, please contact us.

Education Futures is back from winter break! Regular postings will now resume.

Photo by darkmatter

Looking forward to the rest of this year, here are my predictions of the big stories in the global education world for 2008:

1. Largely driven by the moderate success of OLPC, Linux will emerge as the platform of choice for K-12 technology leaders. The OLPC will demonstrate that not only is Linux different, but it can also be used to do new and different things. Instead of using new technologies to teach the same old curricula, new technologies will be used to teach new things.
2. Web 2.0 will continue to democratize the globalization of higher education as more students and professors embrace open communications platforms. This means university administrations will have a harder time “owning” their global agendas.
3. Because of the influences of #1 and #2, education-oriented open source development will boom.
4. Chinese orientations toward the rest of the planet will change during the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. The Chinese widely view that the award to host the Olympics is a sign that their country is progressing positively –and of international acceptance. During the Olympics, however, much of the international attention will focus on revisiting the Tienanmen Square Massacre, the government’s treatment of political prisoners, the annexation of Tibet, the mainland’s relations with Taiwan, catastrophic ecological destruction throughout China, and many more sensitive topics. Unless if the Chinese can distract the world with Olympian splendor, they will have to endure international condemnation. What will this do to the millions of Chinese school kids who were drafted into generating national spirit under the false assumption that the world thinks China is doing a great job? Will China reorient its education system away from the West?
5. India’s the place to be. As more U.S. companies quietly continue to offshore their creative work to India, India’s knowledge economy will boom. The world will take notice of this in 2008.

Here are predictions for 2008 from elsewhere:

General

• The Futurist’s top 10 forecasts for 2008 and beyond
• 2008 Futurecasts review (to be followed by 2008 near futurecast in February)
• Breasts, violas and tulips: Alt predictions for 2008 (Wired)
• In between years: Trends and snippets (CNET)
• Innovation predictions 2008 (BusinessWeek)

Business and Economy

• No recession but… (BusinessWeek)
• Top 10 startups worth watching in 2008 (Wired)
• IT pros go hybrid in 2008 (Network World)

Environment

• 7 technologies that will save the Earth in 2008 (Ecogeek)
• IT leaders share green-tech predictions for 2008 (InfoWorld)
• Green for 2008: The car is reborn (CNET)

Media and Technology

• Gadgets and technology of 2008 (NPR podcast)
• 2008 media predictions (HP)
• Technology in 2008 (Economist) and a critique
• Top tech predictions for 2008 (Information Week)
• Media predictions for 2008 (BusinessWeek)

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports on a discussion paper, “British Universities in China: The Reality Beyond the Rhetoric,” published this month by Agora, a British organization focused on higher education. Paul Mooney writes in the Chronicle:

Ian Gow, an expert on Asia and former provost of the University of Nottingham at Ningbo, China, expresses similar skepticism toward dealing with that nation. British universities “must stop pussyfooting around this aggressively ambitious country,” he writes.

“Make no mistake: China wants to be the leading power in higher education, and it will extract what it can from the U.K.,” writes Mr. Gow, who now heads the business school at the University of the West of England.

Mr. Gow also describes the challenges of working in China, including finding high-quality staff members, the lack of “enabling regulatory frameworks” for joint ventures with foreign institutions, and partners that are constantly changing their terms.

I have no doubt that China wants to become the preeminent global power in education in 2050. They have the will and the investment capital to build fine institutions. I have doubts that they will achieve it, however. Their strategy to import technologies and ideas from abroad is somewhat flawed. Rather than piggybacking on ideas generated elsewhere, should they not instead leapfrog the competition to create knowledge spaces that are both indigenous and world-class in quality?

Perhaps non-Chinese universities need to assert themselves better and renegotiate their terms of cooperation with Chinese institutions. But, does this need to be a priority? If China is in a state of continuous catch-up with their foreign competition, what harm is there in collaboration?

I’m still in China, so this is just a quick note that CNN.com published a special report labeled “Just Imagine,” a vision of what life would be like in 2020. The learning section is quite good, and contains an interview with Yasuaki Sakyo, who founded Shibuya University Network — and implemented a lifelong learning approach that is infused into the community it serves. In effect, the entire city of Shibuya becomes a classroom.

More thoughts on this next week, along with a potentially BIG announcement on Leapfrog in China.

This weekend, I’ll head off to Beijing and Changchun, China for several discussions with higher education institutions and leaders on how we might collaboration on open, co-seminars and other Leapfrog projects. Since I’m not sure if the Great Firewall of China will allow me to access this site, Jeffrey Schulz, curriculum director at BlueSky Online Charter School, will guest blog. I’ll introduce him shortly…

(Photo by Steve Webel)