Why teach creativity

To me, creativity seems like a fundamental skill. Every problem or challenge of any scope that we face requires creativity in order to overcome it.  And humans, as a group, are facing quite an array of really challenging problems today.

According to reports by Sir Ken Robinson, Dan Pink, and many others, businesses today are looking for people who are creative.  They are researching and experimenting with how to foster creativity in their workforce.  They wouldn't be doing this if there weren't an economic incentive.  Likely, it's a pretty heafty one, given the scale of resources being devoted to this issue world-wide.

Our government is facing not only a wide array of challenges on economic and foreign policy fronts, but is also facing a very real need to re-invent itself.  If government is to remain a viable entity in the long run, it must re-discover how to be relevant and affordable to the people from whom it claims to draw its validity.  This will require creativity on a scale rarely seen in our government in the last few decades (at least!).

The story continues through any sector, any group, any scope you want to review.  Creativity is a fundamental skill for any life.

Predicting the future of education

These "Classroom of the future" videos reminded me of some of the elements forecast by Brin in Earth.  I recognized our present in the universally networked world depicted as well as the integrated multi-media nature of the display.  We're nearly at the same level of sophistication with voice interaction, but not quite.  On the other hand, we're far beyond where the video anticipated we'd be in many ways.

The easy access to disparate digital resources that the video depicts is definitely a reality with the world wide web of today.  But the video did not anticipate the quantum leap in connectivity that the web really encompasses, with many online resources available at a click, transparently (ie: without having to select a source database or institution).  Unfortunately, many content providers are still trying to silo their information and keep it behind pay-walls in order to preserve their business models that are based on outdated assumptions of information scarcity.  In time, I expect, they will find that such artificially created scarcity will not be sustainable.

Integrated multimedia displays with hypertextual connections are another prediction the video landed quite near the mark.  In 1987 this would definitely have been a concept in the future.  But not, perhaps, as many years ahead as the makers anticipated, with the world wide web (again) just 5 years ahead.  Even in it's earliest stages the web was better integrated and nicer looking than depicted in these videos.  On the other hand, using a multimedia display for videoconferencing is another aspect the videos got dead right.

Voice interaction, unfortunately, isn't quite as mainstream as the other predictions in the video.  We have voice control today, but it still isn't as smooth as shown here, let alone as depicted in TV shows of the time such as Star Trek: Next Generation.  Work continues, because we still seem to think voice-based interaction with our computers is a desirable interface goal.  I wonder whether it is, though; English, in particular, is so fraught with layers of interpretation and potential misunderstanding that it would require a sophisticated computer indeed to both meet our needs and keep us safe from our own utterances.

Among the developments neither these videos nor Brin anticipated are:

• The internet of things
• Crowdsourcing of creation & curation (blogs, wikipedia, youtube, diigo, etc)

Looking forward from here, I would anticipate that in the future, we'll see education:

• Become more individualized, with the teacher assuming a role closer to that of a coach on a sports team
• Involve more connections between students, both with students elsewhere and with adults
• Move away from silo-ed content and a focus on knowing toward a more integrated view of content knowledge and a focus on doing.
• Dabble with, shy away from, return to and then fully embrace immersive virtual reality, including full-body tactile feedback suits with aural and visual output (sorry, no olfactory!)
• Develop an entirely different secondary/tertiary learning system that combines aspects of apprenticeships, mentoring, self-study, reading groups, homeschooling and more to allow for a truly individualized education created by each individual themselves; this will put the majority of colleges and high schools out of business (though slowly).

New assumptions for 21st century learning

While reviewing a presentation at the Tech Forum 2011 in New York, specifically, Rob Mancabelli and Eric Sheninger's "Leading with Technology", I loved their summary of 3 traditional assumptions of education:

1. Content is scarce
2. Teachers are scarce
3. Learning is local

all of which they claim are false (validly, I think).  Their 3 new assumptions that they suggest should replace those:

1. I am only one of many teachers, but I'm the one that connects my students to all the others.
2. My students will learn from me how to learn without me.
3. The quality of my students' networks will determine their ability to learn.

I liked this especially because it highlights, to me, that we as educators need to be building (and maintaining) our networks and showing our students how to do the same thing.  Letting them know that we have networks and involving them in the connection and collaboration that occurs within those networks is important.  

Helping them build their own network and teaching them the skills needed to maintain and grow their networks is critical.