Yesterday I came across this on Twitter (via @carljackmiller), a post that has since gone viral. Besides the fact that I’d never heard of James Burke before, this video of him from 1985 blew my mind.

He delivers his ideas on how the world will be impacted by the digital age. He talks about global communication channels, global knowledge, open-source and says “We could operate on the basis that values and standards and ethics and facts and truths all depend on what your view of the world is… And that there may be as many views of that as there are people.”

He also predicted that a microchip could keep a tally on those opinions and record them in a way that has never previously been possible.

Watch it here (it’s only 2 mins I promise):

I’m struggling currently to predict and plan for the next ten years as I witness Moore’s Law in action daily and the incredible pace at which the digital landscape shifts. In education, we turn to our students for guidance and this recent paper came from a Financial Times competition asking students from around the world to re-imagine education;   however, some of the highlights were:

  • “Bricks-and-mortar learning is obsolete, Enter pop-up classes
  • traditional college degrees might as well dissolve into thin air. As AI innovations push our social machine
  • Blended E-learning, you can study on your own, focusing time on strategic topics through a plan personalised for you.
  • AI learning assistant grades and offers feedback on your assignments, guiding you through difficult problems step by step, reteaching you concepts from scratch if necessary.
  • Mastery and project-based learning will form the cornerstones of a futuristic education system.
  • Classroom design would also be largely redefined. Interlaced with technology, with moving walls, flexible seating, standing desks, OLED surfaces all over and augmented reality, classrooms will become interactive learning hubs, ensuring each and every student is actively engaged with the learning material.
  • New Technologies: AI, AR, VR & MR  to make education a more interactive and engaging experience”

I look forward to working with the students at MGGS in the next month to gather their thoughts on re-imagining education from a digital transformation perspective to inform my upcoming strategy planning and I’ll post my findings of their predictions & expectations back here in Term 3.