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Here are the slides from the first half of my talk with Dr. Cristóbal Cobo at CUAED (UNAM) yesterday that described the pathway toward Education 3.0:

In addition to the work I mentioned during the talk, I recommend the following resources to participants:

1. Allee, V. (2003). The future of knowledge: Increasing prosperity through value networks. Amsterdam ; Boston: Butterworth-Heinemann.
2. Gibbons, M., Lomoges, C., Nowotny, H., Schwartzman, S., Scott, P., & Trow, M. (1994). The new production of knowledge: The dynamics of science and research in contemporary societies. London: Sage.
3. Hakken, D. (2003). The knowledge landscapes of cyberspace. New York: Routledge.
4. Kurzweil, R. (2005). The Singularity is near: When humans transcend biology. New York: Viking.
5. McElroy, M. W. (2003). The new knowledge management: Complexity, learning, and sustainable innovation. Burlington, MA: Butterworth-Heinemann.
6. Moravec, J. W. (2006). Chaordic knowledge production: A systems-based response to critical education. Theory of Science, XV/XXVIII(3), 149-162.
7. Pink, D. H. (2005). A whole new mind: Moving from the information age to the conceptual age. New York: Riverhead.

Update 18 April:Dr. Cobo posted more thoughts and resources from the conference at e-rgonomic.

Jeffrey Phillips asks:

Here’s a challenge for you. Find me a firm, any firm, that isn’t telling it’s people, it’s customers and it’s investors that innovation isn’t important. Can you imagine that? Telling these constituents that innovation isn’t important is like telling people that oxygen isn’t important. So, let’s take as a given that most firms advocate a bias toward innovation.

How about schools or colleges? How often do we bring up innovation (or discussions of creating pathways toward continuous innovation) with educational leaders only to receive a response of, “oh, we’re already doing that?”

Too often.

In my experience, I would say that perhaps 10-20% of school leaders I’ve talked with believe that they’re “already innovating” or are “innovating enough.” Innovation, by definition, means doing something substantially different, and it’s something that everybody can do. Perhaps what educational leaders are telling us is that we’re failing to define what innovation is and means what we need to do in educational contexts.

Can leaders see the pink elephant in the classroom if they’re looking at their organization through rose-tinted glasses? It’s time to start looking at our institutions differently.

Bigger or more complicated is not always better. Scott Anthony wrote an article in Harvard Business on the perils of “too much innovation.” He writes on over-engineering innovations:

There is something about human nature that restlessly seeks to improve things. But instead of asking “Can we?” innovate to improve what exists and create what doesn’t, companies need to ask “Should we?”

[...]

Overshooting happens in just about every industry. It tends to start in the least demanding tiers of the market and creep up to more demanding tiers. Overshooting creates conditions that encourage the formation of disruptive attackers who change the game through simplicity or low prices.

Simplifications can be innovations, too. The success of the iPod and iPhone can be credited to their simplistic designs. Likewise, the minimalism movement transformed the post-WWII design world. Education systems, in the meantime, have transformed into highly-engineered organisms.

Can simple work in education, too?

Driven by a New Paradigm of globalization, rise of the knowledge society and accelerating change, the education sector is in dire need of innovative transformations. Rather than over-engineering solutions to the challenges we face in education, are there simple, yet seemingly elegant, pathways to successful futures?

The StarTribune reports that the town of Chaska, Minnesota, is planning for a new higher education campus, built by an outfit called “EdCampus.” What makes the site unique is that it is being built without a sole tenant in mind:

The company plans to erect classrooms as shells, line up higher education institutions as tenants to fill them, then customize the rooms for satellite classes or lectures offered by as many colleges and universities as it can line up.

“They could lease space to anyone from Harvard to North Dakota State,” Chaska Mayor Gary Van Eyll said.

According to the Mayor of Chaska:

EdCampus located in Chaska. It is hard to explain this facility. It will be an innovational educational model that leverages the power of combining dynamic students from diverse institutions into a single campus – outfitted with customizable classroom space and student-centric services.

EdCampus will offer state-of-the-art technology, never seen before in post-secondary education.

Since secondary education institutions develop a tremendous amount of educational technologies, I’m not sure what technologies have never been seen before in post-secondary education. (Also, does this high tech EdCampus have a website?) The real innovation, however, is that such a “campus” concept allows higher education institutions to create a presence in a community without outlaying a huge investment. Some institutions may wish to try certain communities/markets before making a large investment in facilities. Others will appreciate the pathways for rapid egress afforded by lease arrangements.

What does this ability to enter and exit new markets rapidly mean for land grant universities, which are intended to create lasting presences in the communities they serve?

An editorial by Bill Gates appears in today’s Washington Post. He argues that if the U.S. continues to fail to produce the skilled talent it needs to succeed in an innovation economy, the country should import knowledge and innovation workers:

To remain competitive in the global economy, we must build on the success of such schools [as High Tech High] and commit to an ambitious national agenda for education. Government and businesses can both play a role. Companies must advocate for strong education policies and work with schools to foster interest in science and mathematics and to provide an education that is relevant to the needs of business. Government must work with educators to reform schools and improve educational excellence.

American competitiveness also requires immigration reforms that reflect the importance of highly skilled foreign-born employees. Demand for specialized technical skills has long exceeded the supply of native-born workers with advanced degrees, and scientists and engineers from other countries fill this gap.

Read the full editorial…

Today, I was asked, “what do we need to incorporate into educational programs to build innovation capital [in society]?”

Good question. Here are some quick thoughts on how education leaders can build innovation capital in society immediately:

1. Quit trying to manage education – how can we instead attend to educational experiences?

2. Permit students and teachers to break and rules that govern a “proper” education.

3. Always ask questions – inside and outside of educational contexts.

4. Be comfortable asking questions where we don’t know the correct answers.

5. Orient education toward the meaningful pursuit of new knowledge.

6. Embrace the functional expertise within everybody.

7. Start working on future problems today.

Any other thoughts out there?

A while back, I promised to share more on what co-seminars look like and how they operate. I promise to show a little bit tomorrow, with sample videos and a link to a co-seminar in progress. But, before I get to that, let me supply some background.

Co-seminars exhibit the following main characteristics:

• international;
• multilingual;
• embraces the use of Web 2.0 technologies (i.e., blogs, wikis, SlideShare, YouTube) to share ideas and promote learning;
• designed to enhance learning methodologies based on the principles of collective intelligence
• problem solving in complex environments;;
• purposive and intelligent use of information technology; and,
• use freely-available or open source technologies to limit expenses.

The co-seminar model was designed by collaborating faculty at FLACSO-México (mainly Cristóbal Cobo) and the Leapfrog Institutes at University of Minnesota (Arthur Harkins and John Moravec). In a pilot of the co-seminar model in summer of 2008, we built a course that integrated internally-focused content on innovation, knowledge management, and a forward-looking analysis of education in the 21st and 22nd centuries. The project included training instructors from multiple countries, and the participation of specialists from around the world (through virtual and in-person participation).

The co-seminar experience involves a new academic approach –particularly in regard to innovative teaching—that moves away from “download”/banking pedagogies toward “upload and download”/co-constructivist pedagogies that thrive in interdisciplinary environments. This means that both students and their instructors both learn and create new, meaningful knowledge.

A taste of a co-seminar in progress is coming tomorrow…

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.

Johnny Chung Lee at Carnegie Mellon University created a couple innovative uses for the relatively cheap Nintendo Wii Remote. Most impressively, by combining a Wiimote, an LCD projector, and a little C# programming, he created a low-cost, multi-touch whiteboard system:

More (including videos of other cool stuff you can do with your Wii) at his project page…

Education Futures readers in Minnesota are invited to join us for the next Horizon Forum meeting!

Online Education: Innovation or Illusion?

Facilitated by Jeffrey Schulz

Friday, February 22

11:00am – 1:00pm

Arthur Upson Room, Walter Library (University of Minnesota East Bank)

As online education continues to explode at all school levels, many questions arise. Is it valid? Does it take funding away from traditional sources? How is it different from what is being delivered in brick and mortar schools? What futures exist for online education? As an added bonus, Allison Powell, Vice President for the North American Council for Online Learning (NACOLplans to join us via Adobe Connect for a portion of the time.

Jeffrey Schulz, Curriculum Coordinator for BlueSky Online Charter School (now a Leapfrog Institutes partner), will lead a discussion and working session regarding online education, current trends and research, along with visioning for the future. You are invited to join the discussion as we envision education for the 21st Century and beyond.

Lunch and validated parking will be provided. Please RSVP your attendance to Carole MacLean at cmaclean@umn.edu or call 612-625-5060. We look forward to another rich conversation and hope you can join us!