The Education Futures timeline of education

Glossary

Augmented Reality: “Augmented reality (AR) is a term for a live direct or indirect view of a physical real-world environment whose elements are merged with (or augmented by) virtual computer-generated imagery – creating a mixed reality. The augmentation is conventionally in real-time and in semantic context with environmental elements, such as sports scores on TV during a match. With the help of advanced AR technology (e.g. adding computer vision and object recognition) the information about the surrounding real world of the user becomes interactive and digitally usable. Artificial information about the environment and the objects in it can be stored and retrieved as an information layer on top of the real world view.” (Wikipedia)

Dark Ages of Modern Education: A period, marked by a retreat of educational progressivism toward standardized testing regimes, where innovative thought, action and outcomes in the education sector was stultified. During this period, the education industry relies on external creative inputs to drive transformations, but is incapable of transforming itself or providing meaningful external outputs.

Manhattan Project: A secret project conducted by the United States (and allies) to develop the first atomic bomb. Developed at great expense, the outcomes of the project forever changed human culture society. In regard to education, this timeline calls for a Manhattan Project-like initiative to reform education, and thus transform the world.

No Child Left Behind Act: “NCLB is the latest federal legislation that enacts the theories of standards-based education reform, which is based on the belief that setting high standards and establishing measurable goals can improve individual outcomes in education. The Act requires states to develop assessments in basic skills to be given to all students in certain grades, if those states are to receive federal funding for schools. The Act does not assert a national achievement standard; standards are set by each individual state.” (Wikipedia) A primary criticism of NCLB is that it forces schools to “teach to the test,” eliminating creativity and critical thinking development from curricula. (See also EF post “10 ways U.S. education is failing to produce creatives.”)

Progressive Education: “Educational progressivism is the belief that education must be based on the principle that humans are social animals who learn best in real-life activities with other people. Progressivists claimed to rely on the best available scientific theories of learning. Most progressive educators believe that children learn as if they were scientists [...] More recently, it has been viewed as an alternative to the test-oriented instruction legislated by the No Child Left Behind educational funding act.” (Wikipedia)

Technological Singularity: “…refers to the idea that technological progress would reach such an infinite (or at least extremely high) value at a point in the (near) future. This idea is inspired by the observation of accelerating change in the development of wealth, technology, and in particular our capability for information processing. Extrapolating these capabilities to the future has led a number of thinkers to envisage the short-term emergence of a self-improving artificial intelligence or superintelligence[1] that is so much beyond our present capabilities that it becomes impossible to understand it with our present conceptions. Thus, the technological singularity can be seen as an metasystem transition or transcendence to a wholly new regime of mind, society and technology.” (Wikipedia)

Transhumanism: “…is an international intellectual and cultural movement supporting the use of science and technology to improve human mental and physical characteristics and capacities. The movement regards aspects of the human condition, such as disability, suffering, disease, aging, and involuntary death as unnecessary and undesirable. Transhumanists look to biotechnologies and other emerging technologies for these purposes. [...] Transhumanist thinkers predict that human beings may eventually be able to transform themselves into beings with such greatly expanded abilities as to merit the label “posthuman.” (Wikipedia)

Turing Test: “…a proposal for a test of a machine’s ability to demonstrate intelligence. It proceeds as follows: a human judge engages in a natural language conversation with one human and one machine, each of which tries to appear human. All participants are placed in isolated locations. If the judge cannot reliably tell the machine from the human, the machine is said to have passed the test. In order to test the machine’s intelligence rather than its ability to render words into audio, the conversation is limited to a text-only channel such as a computer keyboard and screen.” (Wikipedia)

Recommended Further Reading

1. Allee, V. (2003). The future of knowledge: Increasing prosperity through value networks. Amsterdam ; Boston: Butterworth-Heinemann.
2. Appadurai, A. (1996). Modernity at large: Cultural dimensions of globalization. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota.
3. Bell, J. J. (2003). Exploring the “singularity”. The futurist, 37(3), 18-24.
4. Christensen, C. M., Horn, M. B., & Johnson, C. W. (2008). Disrupting class: How disruptive innovation will change the way the world learns. New York: McGraw-Hill.
5. Cobo, C., & Pardo Kuklinski, H. (2007). Planeta Web 2.0: Inteligencia colectiva o medios fast food Retrieved from http://planetaweb2.net
6. Cornish, E. (2004). Futuring: The exploration of the future. Bethesda, Md.: World Future Society.
7. De Grey, A. & Rae, M. (2007). Ending aging: The rejuvenation breakthroughs that could reverse human aging in our lifetime (1st ed.). New York: St. Martin’s Press.
8. Delanty, G. (2004). Does the university have a future? In J. K. Odin & P. T. Manicas (Eds.), Globalization and higher education (pp. 241-258). Honolulu: University of Hawai’i.
9. Doyle, R. (2003). Wetwares: Experiments in postvital living. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
10. European Technology Assessment Group. (2006). Technology assessment on converging technologies. Brussels: European Parliament.
11. Florida, R. L. (2004). The rise of the creative class: And how it’s transforming work, leisure, community and everyday life. New York, NY: Basic Books.
12. Fukuyama, F. (2002). Our posthuman future: Consequences of the biotechnology revolution. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
13. Hakken, D. (2003). The knowledge landscapes of cyberspace. New York: Routledge.
14. Harkins, A. M. (2002). The futures of career and technical cducation in a continuous innovation society. Journal of Vocational Education Research, 27(1).
15. Harkins, A. M., & Kubik, G. H. (2004). Anticipating the “Singularity”: Innovation-focused knowledge production via archetypal campuses (working paper). University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.
16. IBM. (2008). A mandate for change is a mandate for smart, from http://www.ibm.com/
17. Kurzweil, R. (2005). The Singularity is near: When humans transcend biology. New York: Viking.
18. Lenarcic, J., & Mousset, E. C. (2004). The open source singularity: A postmodernist view. Paper presented at the Computing and Philosophy Conference, Canberra.
19. Li, C., & Bernoff, J. (2008). Groundswell: Winning in a world transformed by social technologies. Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business Press.
20. Minsky, M. (1988). The society of mind. New York: Simon & Schuster.
21. Moravec, H. P. (1999). Robot: Mere machine to transcendent mind. New York: Oxford University Press.
22. Moravec, J. W. (2008, November 20). Knowmads in Society 3.0. Retrieved from http://www.educationfutures.com/
23. Moravec, J. W. (2006). Chaordic knowledge production: A systems-based response to critical education. Teorie vedy / Theory of Science, XV / XXVIII / 2006(3), 149-162.
24. Moravec, J. W. (2008). A new paradigm of knowledge production in higher education. On the Horizon, 16(3), 123-136. doi: 10.1108/10748120810901422
25. Paul, G. S., & Cox, E. (1996). Beyond humanity: Cyberevolution and future minds. Rockland, Mass.: Charles River Media, Inc.
26. Pink, D. H. (2006). A whole new mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future . New York: Riverhead.
27. Polanyi, M. (1968). Personal knowledge: Towards a post-critical philosophy. Chicago: University of Chicago.
28. Ramaley, J. A. (2005). Educational challenges and their implications for K-16 collaborations in STEM education. Winona State University.
29. Vinge, V. (1993). The Technological Singularity Retrieved March 10, 2008, from http://www.kurzweilai.net/
30. Youso, K. (2009, February 21). Approaching ‘Singularity’, StarTribune, pp. E1:E3. Retrieved from http://www.startribune.com