The work conference takes a specific angle to tackle the education issue: the (presumed) tension between entrepreneurial and academic values. Where do these values overlap and when do they contradict each other? What kinds of learning environments can start to emerge when both these worlds join forces? And how can these new learning networks be equipped to address urgent societal issues?

Following a “Yes – No – What the Fuck” intermission exercise facilitated by the Knowmads business school in Amsterdam, I gave a keynote talk that centered on invisible learning, and how higher education can contribute toward building Knowmad Society.

Later, I chatted with Andrew Keen on how we might foster entrepreneurship and expressions of innovation in higher education. Unfortunately, the studio lighting couldn’t mask my jet lag and emerging head cold:

Other interesting interviews:

Parag Khanna

Zoltan Acs

Thieu Besselink

Hrobjartur Arnason

One of the key points we make in Invisible Learning is that new technologies and new possibilities for social configurations are expanding the ecology of options we have for learning. “Schooling” is no longer limited to just schools. Rather, we can now learn in formal environments, online, informally, and serendipitously. Moreover, we can leverage technologies to remix these modes together — so, for example, it is now possible to have a meaningful and recognized learning experience at coffee shops, city parks, bowling alleys, etc.

Just as wise investors diversify their investment portfolio, so should we build diverse portfolios of our schools. This means that we should not invest too heavily in any one strategy. If we do not know with any precision what the future will be, we cannot have one-size-fits-all schools. We need to expand our ecologies of options.

Many times we find something that works. Perhaps a new pedagogical technique …or, maybe a new type of school. One of the first things we often ask ourselves when evaluating an innovation is: How do we scale it up?

FORGET SCALING UP.

WE NEED TO SCALE SIDEWAYS IN EDUCATION.

Scaling up is how we industrialize ideas, and employ them within a top-down managed system. This works in an educational monoculture, but not in a diverse ecology. Rather than industrializing our best ideas, why not share them horizontally? That is, let’s invite people and schools to adopt them if they work for them?

Scaling sideways invites co-creation. It is dialogical.

The question we need to ask is, how can we facilitate broader horizontalized communications and sharing of best practices, etc., between schools in a diverse ecology of options? Perhaps this means that top educational leaders, governments and other interest groups need to focus less on managing; and focus more on attending to the chaos and uncertainty of a more dynamic educational ecology.

And, let’s make sure to invite the kids into the horizontalized co-creation. We are all white belts when it comes to understanding and acting on our futures. We do not have any role models to draw from. We have never been to the future before.

We must engage kids in this conversation now. Knowmad Society is their’s, but it is up to us to build it together.

Note: Adapted from my plenary talk at the Onderwijs en ondernemen “op expeditie” conference in The Hague, Netherlands on October 6, 2011.

As the Invisible Learning book enters the final layout stage this week (expect the release in April), Cristóbal Cobo and I are already delivering talks, workshops, and seminars on the topic. Already, in addition to our home base countries, we have been invited to speak in Argentina, Colombia, Czech Republic, Mexico, Netherlands, and Spain.

In regard to the Netherlands, what started as a Twitter conversation two weeks ago has expanded into a two-day event, The Invisible Learning Tour (TILT), on March 7-8. The event is a co-production of Sudbury Netherlands, CMD Leeuwarden, HAN, Inholland, Knowmads, and MooiPunt. The Co-lere website introduces the gathering:

Our schools, universities and other institutions need to make a quantum leap to catch up to the highly-globalized knowledge- and innovation-driven society. At this conference, we work together with John Moravec, education futurist, in an Invisible Learning tour to make new educational paradigms and approaches to human capital development visible.

Monday, March 7, I will open with a talk on Invisible Learning in the morning, and, in the afternoon, we will morph the event into an open meeting space. Further details are being posted to this Facebook page (where you can RSVP to attend, too).

Tuesday, March 8, will make site visits to see invisible learning concepts in practice at HAN Arnhem, the Sudbury Schools of De Koers in Beverwijk and De Kampanje in Amersfoort, Knowmads in Amsterdam, and the Creative Learning Lab in Amsterdam.

…and, to better introduce all this, the organizers (and I) are organizing a “teaser” webinar on March 2:

20:00 Amsterdam time
13:00 Minneapolis/Central/Mexico City time

Link: https://umconnect.umn.edu/ilwebinar

(More information on Facebook)

Need more information on the Invisible Learning kickoff in the Netherlands?

Join the TILT Facebook group or email contact@mooipunt.nl.

If you cannot make it on March 7-8…

…and if you are interested in organizing a talk or workshop about Invisible Learning at your organization, drop us an email!

p.s., Thanks for the shout out, Marcel!

Next Monday, June 7, the Invisible Learning project invites you to participate in an open webinar with our invited guests: Knowmads (Amsterdam, Netherlands), a creative, entrepreneurial school for developing entrepreneurs who want to make a difference in this world.

This is not a conference, but an opportunity to converse, exchange ideas and viewpoints among cyber-participants. Participation is open to all.

If you have questions and ideas in the upcoming days before the webinar, you can send them through the Invisible Learning website to @john or @cristobalcobo — or by Twitter (@moravec or @cristobalcobo).

• The link to join the webinar will be posted at the www.invisiblelearning.com portal
• Please spread the word about this event by sharing this invitation (i.e., feel free to copy it into your blog)
• On Twitter, we use the #invislearning hashtag for tracking Invisible Learning conversations.

We will use Adobe Connect Pro to broadcast the webinar, and a recording of the encounter will be posted online immediately after the meeting.

If you would like to know the corresponding hour for this activity in your country, we recommend you use this tool: http://www.timedial.net/world-time-difference-calculator/

We look forward to seeing you at the webinar!
John Moravec
Cristóbal Cobo

I’m back from a busy week in the Netherlands. First on the agenda was Education Futures NL, an Education 3.0-focused workshop collaboration between Education Futures and Helikon (Fons van den Berg). In addition to our collaboration, the workshop was supplemented with contributions from Cristóbal Cobo and the Knowmads. Meeting space for the event was generously provided by the Creative Learning Lab, a part of the Waag Society. The event attracted 40 of the sharpest minds in the country, most of whom indicated that they were prepared to bring disruptive innovations to education immediately. The group will continue to meet and develop ideas — stay tuned for further developments, and make sure to view Marcel de Leeuwe‘s photos from the event!

My second conference visit was with i+i, where I gave a keynote talk on innovative teaching and learning “in the cloud.” An interesting component of the conference is the close relationships between its members, who, often, are isolated as technology leaders within their institutions. The event was therefore an intellectual reunion for many. One interesting aspect was “TeachMeetNL09,” an unconference within the conference, organized by Fons van den Berg and Marieke van Osch. By capitalizing on the social aspects of the i+i group and refocusing it into an unconference, I believe that Fons and Marieke are pioneering new trends that we will see emerge in professional and academic conferences.

As a side note, I also joined the Knowmads advisory board. With these great developments (and more), I hope to be back soon!

Photo credit:

First and foremost, I owe many thanks to Fons van der Berg for organizing Education Futures NL at the Creative Learning Lab in Amsterdam, November 2. The event will feature talks by me and Cristóbal Cobo, with additional activities facilitated by Fons. The Knowmads will also pay us a visit. Central to our conversations is the question: How shall we create new educational contexts that are relevant to Society 3.0?

I will then travel to the i+i Conference in Lunteren (Netherlands) on November 4. This technology-oriented group is interested in the technological, social and philosophical opportunities afforded by computing “in the clouds.” The focus of my keynote: ICT professionals are among the first to notice how accelerating technological change is driving dramatic transformations in society and how we work -but, what about the classroom? Are schools lagging behind in providing meaningful teaching and learning for the 21st century? Unfortunately, in most places, the answer is “yes.” This talk focuses on the evolving needs of society and the economy, and the failure of education to address them. I will present a roadmap to the changes required of education, and open a discussion on “what’s required next” as technology-enabled innovators reinvent Education 3.0.

Later that evening, I will join up with Fons for TeachMeet NL 09, where they say, “the best technologies for learning are conversations and beer.” I can’t wait!

Tom Elko will report from the premiere meeting of the WISE Forum to be held in Doha on November 16 – 18, 2009. The Forum will draw leaders and decision-makers from governments, businesses, civil society, schools & universities, international institutions, NGOs, grassroots movements, top-tier media, multimedia, art and other creative communities around the globe. The event is bringing in an impressive list of speakers, including Gerhard Schröder and Biz Stone (Twitter). Of particular note to educational innovators, Curriki will accept one of the first WISE Awards for innovation in education.

Finally, I head to Helsinki on November 20 for a visit with a seminar at Haaga-Helia University of Applied Science on Boundless Learning. With both virtual and in-person components, the seminar is developing into a real treat to participate in. For a sample of the ideas we will explore, view the videos posted on the Boundless Learning blog.

More soon… stay tuned!

TED is looking for an eclectic, heterogeneous group of young thinkers and doers from the fields of technology, entertainment, design, the sciences, engineering, humanities, the arts, economics, business, journalism, entrepreneurship and NGOs. More information is available at http://conferences.ted.com/TEDIndia/

What are the roles and qualifications for the Teacher of the Future?

This is the question that Education Futures is asking participants of the Education 2020 unconference in Islay, Scotland on June 12, 2009. (Watch my greetings for the conference.) Whether you’re participating in the event or not, you are invited to share your vision for future educators in the form of a classifieds ad-style job description for the Teacher of the Future, dated June 12, 2020. Submissions will be compiled and published at www.educationfutures.com in July of 2009.

Please download and complete this form [Word .doc] [Rich Text .rtf], and return it to me at john@educationfutures.com. Since all responses will be shared online, you are invited to also share a mini biographical statement and photo of yourself to introduce your contribution. Submissions for Teacher of the Future job descriptions must be received by no later than June 30, 2009, to be included for publication.

I just returned from my talks at the Creative Company Conference, ITSMF Academy, and the University of Oxford. The themes of each presentation were different, but I was able to work from a common subset of slides that built from ideas shared in the Designing Education 3.0 series at Education Futures:

Special thanks and greetings go to Rudolf van Wezel, Jamila Ross, Linda van der Heijden, Corrine Nederlof (@nederlof), Fons van der Berg (@helikon), Jeroen Bottema (@jeroenbottema), @roscamabbing, Donna Schaap (@SoyDonna), Ralf Beuker (@iterations), Arne van Oosterom (@designthinkers), Sir Ken Robinson (@SirKenRobinson), the Kaos Pilots, Amnon Levav, Michael Krömer, J. Roos, Agnes Hadderingh, Bert van Lamoen, Dan Sutch, Cristóbal Cobo, Ken Mayhew… and the many others I met and worked with over the past week!