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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.

Danah Boyd joined the call for reforming how academics publish their work by calling for a boycott of non-open-access journals …and, provided a list of suggestions on what needs to be done now:

• Tenured Faculty and Industry Scholars: Publish only in open-access journals.
• Disciplinary associations: Help open-access journals gain traction.
• Tenure committees: Recognize alternate venues and help the universities follow.
• Young punk scholars: Publish only in open-access journals in protest, especially if you’re in a new field.
• More conservative young scholars: publish what you need to get tenure and then stop publishing in closed venues immediately upon acquiring tenure.
• All scholars: Go out of your way to cite articles from open-access journals.
• All scholars: Start reviewing for open-access journals.
• Libraries: Begin subscribing to open-access journals and adding them to your catalogue.
• Universities: Support your faculty in creating open-access journals on your domains.
• Academic publishers: Wake up or get out.

(The above list is abstracted from her original post.)

I probably fall under the “young punk” category in her list, and publish in both traditional and new media as an attempt to compromise and appeal to both conservative and cutting-edge scholars. How can we move away from a culture of appeasement of 20th century academic culture and refocus our knowledge diffusion toward media formats that are more appealing to younger and more tech-savvy academics –such as blogs, and the spaces where open access journals and other, new, open media interface? How long until the academy will finally accept highly commented and linked blog posts as legitimate, peer-reviewed articles in a tenure review?

Today marks the first release of Global Leapfrog Education (ISSN 1933-0200), an open access, online journal hosted by the Global Leapfrog Institute, LLC.

The official journal repository is located at http://www.leapfroginstitute.org/journal/index.php/gle

The GLE blog (located at http://www.leapfroginstitute.org/gle) will be used to broaden discussion and serve as an access point for sharing further ideas and resources.

As we learn to master the OJS journal software, articles will be released in two trenches. First, Cristobal Cobo (FLACSO Mexico) discusses new learning opportunities provided by “Web 2.0″ and successor technologies. In a near future release date, Arthur Harkins, myself and George Kubik (University of Minnesota) describe a leapfrog pathway through simulational learning.

Introduction and mission

Global Leapfrog Education (GLE) is devoted to exploring how, through education and human capital development, communities can transcend current problems and challenges by empowering themselves to invent their own futures. GLE publishes articles spanning a wide range of interests related to leapfrog education (viz. change, technologies, knowledge production and innovation, global youth leadership, and futures-oriented philosophies and theories of education). This journal provides open access to all of its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.

Our electronic submission process is designed to facilitate rapid publication. Once an article is published, peer reviewers submit written, critical feedback to the author as an addendum to the article, published in GLE. Such reviews may be considered publications in their own right. Reviewers and other participants are also encouraged to contribute to discussions related to each article via the journal blog at http://www.leapfroginstitute.org/gle.

What is leapfrogging?

• Leapfrogging means jumping over obstacles to achieve goals.
• Leapfrogging is a leadership necessity.
• Leapfrogging saves precious time.
• Leapfrogging builds institutional and community prestige.
• Leapfrogging works best if everybody collaborates.

Focus and scope

The first country to adopt the Leapfrog Paradigm, bolster it with advanced communications technologies, and apply it in preschool through graduate contexts, will either continue to lead or will acquire newfound leadership among emerging knowledge and innovation economies.

We are aware of the need for simplicity, but the reality is that the Leapfrog Paradigm we describe is fundamentally cognitive in nature. It is the new educational mission required to support knowledge based innovation economies. New language and concepts are required.

The focus of GLE is on the language, concepts and education required to produce knowledge and direct it toward continuous innovation. This calls for an entirely new education mission –one that requires a different vocabulary and mindset compared to the now globally-distributed education missions for agricultural, industrial, and information-based societies.

GLE will help readers and contributors:

• Understand that states, regions and individuals are in a global competition in human capital development and application;
• Understand how technology shapes human world views and choices;
• Understand the relationship between technological change and social change with emphasis on the emerging Technological Singularity;
• Understand exponential acceleration of technological, scientific, societal and economic changes;
• Understand multiple perceived realities and their vectors;
• Develop leapfrog education scenarios related to technology, innovation, systems design and integration; and,
• Connect these leapfrog scenarios with 21st Century education redesign and redirection.

Journal keywords and key concepts

accelerating change, basic knowledge engine ecology, creativity, cybernetics, design, entrepreneurship, global leapfrog education, invention, innovation, knowledge engine ecologies, knowledge production, knowledge engine ecologies, memes and new social patterns in thought and belief, sociocultural prosumers, youth development

Full information on the journal architecture and instructions to contributors is located at http://www.leapfroginstitute.org/journal/index.php/gle/article/view/3/3