In a recent paper* we describe three education scenarios and ask youth to respond to them. Positioned in 2033, these futures represent three distinct possibilities for what education could look like in a decade. I’m curious what others think about them, and I’ll post one per day here, as my “back to school return to reviving this blog.” What are your reactions, thoughts, and feelings to this one? I’d love to know!
Future 3: The year is 2033. Public universities and colleges around the world struggle to stay open due to sharp declines in enrolments and continuing social and economic instability. Many schools close, and those that remain become increasingly unaffordable. Students that pursue higher education usually come from wealthy families. However, a variety of companies emerge to fill gaps. These companies offer short courses that help people develop work skills, such as how to use different kinds of software and how to analyze data. Some of the teachers in these companies are individuals who found success in their industries and are well-known chefs, international authors, famous engineers, and business executives of all kinds, for example. They have huge social media followings and are celebrity instructors. These companies do not provide any kind of financial aid, and access to their courses usually comes with strings attached, such as contracts to do temp work for the company.
This scenario describes a situation in which traditional universities are rare and inaccessible for most and the “social media university” emerges to fill the gap. It anticipates a future in which technology companies, particularly social media companies, further commodify education according to neoliberal logics. This style of university is a platform-based form of digital higher education in which celebrity experts and influencers occupy the role of educator as a function of their social media followings and professional prestige. Without financial support, learners/users exchange labor for skills development, while wealthy students continue to attend more conventional institutions to pursue their interests. The notion of a social media university reflects the interest of education technology startups which feature online education experiences offered by celebrities and influencers, as we examined in this paper.
In a recent paper* we describe three education scenarios and ask youth to respond to them. Positioned in 2033, these futures represent three distinct possibilities for what education could look like in a decade. I’m curious what others think about them, and I’ll post one per day here, as my “back to school return to reviving this blog.” What are your reactions, thoughts, and feelings to this one? I’d love to know!
Future 2: The year is 2033. After a period of instability brought about by the disastrous effects of climate change, biodiversity loss, and global conflict, higher education has become totally focused on addressing these crises. Earlier efforts have been vastly scaled up to focus education resources on supporting climate justice for the most vulnerable people and places in the world. Universities have become hubs of local knowledge and places for community cultural and scientific development. In these spaces students develop climate and peoplefriendly trades and skills. They also develop their critical and creative thinking focused on decolonization and anti-racism. Learning happens through projects and through solving local problems, and learners of all ages join programs based on interest, curiosity, and community need.
The second future – the university for local community and local knowledge – pivots towards more regenerative forms of education, with a focus on systems-level solutions to imagined disasters of the next decade. With respect to anticipatory regimes, this future departs from the strict techno-utilitarian approach to embrace more relational modes of teaching and learning. Universities in this scenario have a mission grounded in justice and supporting knowledge for communities, with an emphasis on inter-generational learning relevant to specific places. This scenario is more utopian in its vision, even as it contends with a proposed future history of increasing climate and ecological catastrophe.
In a recent paper* we describe three education scenarios and ask youth to respond to them. Positioned in 2033, these futures represent three distinct possibilities for what education could look like in a decade. I’m curious what others think about them, and I’ll post one per day here, as my “back to school return to reviving this blog.” What are your reactions, thoughts, and feelings to this one? I’d love to know!
Future 1: The year is 2033. In the decade following the COVID-19 pandemic, higher education has increasingly become driven by collecting and analyzing vast amounts of student data, such as tracking student time online, physiological data, employment rates, etc. Learners attending public colleges and universities primarily pursue technical skills associated with a few streams of programs, including computer programming (such as the development of Artificial Intelligence and green technology), health, economics, finance, and business. The arts, social sciences, and humanities are no longer publicly funded. Learners can pursue such programs in expensive private universities, but only a few can afford them.
This is a future in which technical and business education dominates. This is the scenario in which higher education is almost totally oriented towards economic demands and expectations. We modeled this scenario after work in the literature which emphasizes futures in which the arts and humanities decline due to their lack of economic practicality. In such examples, the survival and growth of higher education heavily features future labor as a key indicator of institutional success, including meeting demands for skilled technologists and finance workers. Additionally, surveillance technologies are further integrated into institutional apparatuses, with data being a key management tool of student learning and outcomes. Already a concern in education at all levels, a number of education scholars have speculated about the risks of increasing use of these types of education technologies, many suggesting negative outcomes resulting from it.
What do future learning environments look like? Is online learning “the new normal?” Or, are we back to the “old normal?” What does the “new normal” look like? Never mind concepts of “normal,”… what do learners and faculty imagine future learning environments, technologies, and modalities looking like? Colleagues and I completed and are planning a series of studies around these ideas, bringing together threads in our research that examines online learning, emerging technologies, challenges facing higher education, and speculative methods. We recently published one of these and I am sharing the pre-print below.
When I prompted ChatGPT to generate an image depicting this paper it generated the image below. This image provides an interesting juxtaposition to our findings, because our findings highlight the relative persistence of the status quo and reveal a lack of more radical futures.
Here’s the paper: Veletsianos, G., Johnson, N., & Houlden, S. (2024). How do Canadian Faculty Members Imagine Future Teaching and Learning Modalities? Educational Technology Research & Development, 72(3), 1851 – 1868.. The final version is available at https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-024-10350-4 but here is a public pre-print version.
Abstract
This study, originally prompted by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on educational practices, examined Canadian faculty members’ expectations of teaching and learning modalities in the year 2026. Employing a speculative methodology and thematic analysis, interview responses of 34 faculty members led to the construction of three hypothetical scenarios for future teaching and learning modalities: a hybrid work model, a high tech and flexible learning model, and a pre-pandemic status quo model. In contrast to radical education futures described in the literature, the findings do not depart significantly from dominant modes of teaching and learning. Nevertheless, these findings offer insights into the expectations that Canadian faculty members have with respect to future teaching and learning modalities, the contextual issues and concerns that they face, the use of speculative methodologies in educational technology research, and the potential impacts remote learning trends have on the future of education in Canada.
Last week, I was at the 100 Year EdTech Project Design Summit in Phoenix AZ, and I thought it might be worthwhile to post some raw reflections here, captured throughout the days, and unedited. At the event
“Leaders, educators, futurists, designers, students, lifelong learners, visionaries – all will be invited to explore the last 50 years of technology’s impact on education, observe where we stand today, and imagine the future of education for generations to come.”
I appreciated the event starting with a student keynote panel. Some ideas I heard included attention to equity, excitement about the role of AI (i have lots and lots of thoughts on this, including how much space these conversations are taking and concern around the kinds of conversations it’s displacing), the inevitability of technology, the limits of our imagination (e.g., a comment made around how X years ago “my concern was about walking to the library and spending hours looking for an article, and so no i couldn’t have imagined the progress of tech”), emphasizing community, expanding access to tech (e.g., broadband for all), and sharing wealth and resources.
And because I’m obviously reflecting on these from my own perspective: These conversations are somewhat similar in Canada, but there’s a stark difference: The starting point there, or at least in the conversations I was part of, was typically decolonization, conciliation, indigenization, equity, and inclusion. The starting point here, or at least at this event, is technology in the service of similar ends… in other words, there’s a more pronounced technosolutionist stance at this event. Granted, that’s the focus of the event, which makes solutionism a difficult pattern of thought to escape/resist.
The slide below from Kiran Budhrani recentered some ideas around the broader issues, that don’t have to do with tech, but shape education nonetheless
This was punctuated by Bryan Alexander highlighting climate adaptation, and especially climate migrants and the impacts of that impending reality. I say reality because I’ve reached the conclusion that climate collapse is more likely than otherwise. I hope I am proven wrong.
A great question from a medical professional was the following: what do medical professionals need to know when patients (all of us) come to them with some basic knowledge of their ailments? The focus here was on skills and knowledge relating to empathy and communication on the medical professional’s part, as well as the ethical issues around AI systems that will invariably support patients (e.g., what data were they trained on? how trustworthy are they, etc etc). I also think this area relates to patients navigating the flood of information/misinformation circulating online and their use of various technologies to make sense of their ongoing and new ailments. This reminds me of Dave Cormier’s book, which argues that we ought to be preparing people to navigate uncertainty at a time of information abundance.
Much of the event focused on small group discussions around approaches that might address certain challenges. I thought that framing the role of edtech in the future in terms of scenarios was grounding and valuable. The discussions in my group were rich, and there lots and lots of thoughts and ideas about our topic.
Finally, it was great to catch up with Philippos Savvides, fellow Cypriot at ASU, who partners with and supports edtech startups around the world. I also appreciated a short tour of EdPlus (ASU’s internal-focused OPM) and learning more about their work. Rather than outsourcing online program management, like so many other institutions, EdPlus focuses on innovating and scaling ASU offerings. I believe that operations integral to the institution (and OPM is one of them) ought to stay within the institution and ought to be cultivated. I like what ASU is doing here. And through luck or foresight, it’s perhaps avoiding the entanglements of an OPM market in turbulence.
Update #1: The paper “Climate imaginaries as praxis,” showed up in my inbox a few hours after posting this, and I wish I had read it prior to the summit. Abstract reads: As communities around the world grapple with the impacts of climate change on the basic support systems of life, their future climate imaginaries both shape and are shaped by actions and material realities. This paper argues that the three globally dominant imaginaries of a climate changed future, which we call ‘business as usual’, ‘techno-fix’ and ‘apocalypse’ – fail to encourage actions that fundamentally challenge or transform the arrangements that underpin systemic injustices and extractive forms of life. And yet, to meet the challenges associated with food production, energy needs, and the destruction of ecosystems, people are coming together, not only to take transformative action, but in doing so, to create and nurture alternative imaginaries. This paper presents empirical findings about how communities in north and south India and south-east Australia are pre-figuring alternative futures, locally and in most cases in the absence of broader state support. An analysis of communities’ actions and reflections indicates that their praxes are altering their future imaginaries, and we consider how these local shifts might contribute to broader changes in climate imaginaries. At the heart of the emerging imaginaries are a set of transformations in the relational fabric within which communities are embedded and how they attend to those relations: relations within community, with the more-than-human, and with time.
Below is a republished version of an article that Shandell Houlden and I published in The Conversation last week, summarizing some of the themes that arose in our Speculative Learning Futures podcast.
3 ways higher education can become more hopeful in the post-pandemic, post-AI era
The future of education is about more than technology. (Pexels/Emily Ranquist)
We live at a time when universities and colleges are facing multiplying crises, pressures and changes.
From the COVID-19 pandemic and budgetary pressures to generative artificial intelligence (AI) and climate catastrophe, the future of higher education seems murky and fragmented — even gloomy.
Student mental health is in crisis. University faculty in our own research from the early days of the pandemic told us that they were “juggling with a blindfold on.” Since that time, we’ve also heard many echo the sentiment of feeling they’re “constantly drowning,” something recounted by researchers writing about a sense of precarity in universities in New Zealand, Australia and the western world.
In this context, one outcome of the pandemic has been a rise in discourses about specific, quite narrowly imagined futures of higher education. Technology companies, consultants and investors, for example, push visions of the future of education as being saved by new technologies. They suggest more technology is always a good thing and that technology will necessarily make teaching and learning faster, cheaper and better. That’s their utopian vision.
Some education scholars have been less optimistic, often highlighting the failures of utopian thinking. In many cases, their speculation about the future of education, especially where education technology is concerned, often looks bleak. In these examples, technology often reinforces prejudices and is used to control educators and learners alike.
Amid accelerating technology, what kind of future do we imagine for higher education? Annie Spratt/Unsplash
In contrast to both utopian and grim futures, for a recent study funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, we sought to imagine more hopeful and desirable higher education futures. These are futures emerging out of justice, equity and even joy. In this spirit, we interviewed higher education experts for a podcast entitled Speculative Learning Futures.
When asked to imagine more hopeful futures, what do experts propose as alternatives? What themes emerge in their work? Here are three key ideas.
It’s about more than technology
First, these experts reiterated that the future of education is about more than technology. When we think about the future of education we can sometimes imagine it as being tied entirely to the internet, computers and other digital tools. Or we believe AI in education is inevitable — or that all learning will be done through screens, maybe with robot teachers!
But as Jen Ross, senior lecturer in digital education observes, technology doesn’t solve all our problems. When we think about education futures, technology alone does not automatically help us create better education or healthier societies. Social or community concerns like social inequities will continue to affect who can access education, our education systems’ values and how we are shaped by technologies.
As many researchers have argued, including us, the pandemic highlighted how differences in access to the internet and computers can reinforce inequities for students.
AI can also reinforce inequities. Depending on the nature of data AI is trained with, the use of AI can perpetuate harmful biases in classrooms.
Policymakers and educators should consider technology as one part of a toolkit of responses for making informed decisions about what technologies align with more equitable and just education futures.
Emphasizing connection and diversity
In line with thinking about more than technology, the second theme is a reminder that the future of education is about healthy social connection and social justice. Researchers emphasize fostering diversity and celebrating diverse expressions of strengths and needs.
In this vision, policymakers must support education systems that regard the whole learner as an individual with specific physical, mental, emotional and intellectual needs, and as a member of multiple communities.
Acknowledge the goodness of the present
There’s lots to be gained by noting and supporting all the great things related to education that are happening in the present, since possible futures emerge from what now exists.
In 2019, researchers Justin Reich and José Ruipérez-Valiente wrote: “new education technologies are rarely disruptive but instead are domesticated by existing cultures and systems. Dramatic expansion of educational opportunities to under-served populations will require political movements that change the focus, funding and purpose of higher education; they will not be achieved through new technologies alone.”
One of the knowledge mobilization activities of my SSHRC grant on education futures was a podcast. This post shares episode 7 of 7.
First, a bit of background
The future of education is open and contested. In this podcast we approach the future of education from a storytelling perspective.Stories about the future of education are diverse, complex, and run the gamut of wild hope to doom and despair. In some of these stories techno-optimism drives what is thought to be possible. In others, education is imagined to be a regenerative cultural force. In yet others, the impact of capitalism and authoritarian systems of surveillance already taking hold in education create dystopian spaces of control and management. The stories we tell have the power to create the world we live in. Understanding the stories we tell about what is possible, and the trends in those stories, can give us insight into the present, into ourselves and each other, and the worlds we might seek to or are already in the process of creating.
What are the stories being told about the future of higher education today? Who tells them? What do these stories reveal about our values and our assumptions? What do they reveal about technology and about our universities? What do they say about the future, but also about the present? The speculative learning futures podcast,brings together diverse voices and perspectives, from artists to scholars of different backgrounds, to imagine and discuss the future of education and the role of storytelling in moving towards or away from those futures. [As an aside: More on this questions in this paper and this paper. And if you have a paper of yours that centers these questions, consider submitting it to a journal special issue I am co-editing].
In this episode, George and Shandell sit down with Mark Brown and Kathrin Otrel-Cassto bring a sense of closure to the podcast. Our guests voice similar hopes to other guests around a desire for slower, more ethical futures. We also get into the nitty gritty of what futures can and can’t do for us in the present. What are we actually doing when we imagine the future? What are the limits of this work? What are our responsibilities as publicly-funded scholars when futures methodologies become part of how we do research?
Professor Mark Borwn has over 30-years experience of working in Higher Education and has played key leadership roles in the development, implementation and evaluation of several major university-wide digital learning and teaching initiatives. Before taking up his current position, as Ireland’s first Chair in Digital Learning and Director of the National Institute for Digital Learning, Mark was Director of the National Centre for Teaching and Learning at Massey University, New Zealand.
Kathrin Otrel-Cass, Ph.D., is Professor of educational research and digital transformation at the University of Graz, Austria. Her research methods are in many cases grounded in visual ethnography. Her interest in visuality has led to the establishment of a video research laboratory at her previous workplace at the University of Aalborg in Denmark and in Graz she has built the first Austrian video case archive for teacher education. She is the coordinator of the ESERA SIG on video based research and has a published record on topics to do with visuality in educational research.
Acknowledgements
We are deeply grateful to the guests who spoke with us for each of the episodes of this series. We’re also fraeful to the Digital Public Interest Collective for their support, in dedicating the third series of the Digital Public Interest Collective podcast to education. Editing was provided by Andrea Galizia, and production advice was provided by Dr. Jaigris Hodson. The podcast was produced with funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (Grant #430-2020-00404)
