Questions around the Future of Learning
Bruce Dixon
Co-founder Anytime Anywhere Learning Foundation.
Stockholm, 2009
1

How can we best describe a 21st
Century Learner?
Numerate
• Analytic thinkers Literate
• Problem solver Articulate
• Effective communicators
Curious
• Effective collaborator
&
• Information and media literate
Passionate
• Globally aware
Successful
• Civically engaged
learners
• Financially and economically
literate
Confident
individuals
Responsible
citizens

3
3 How the demand for skills has changed
Economy-wide measures of routine and non-routine task input (US)
Learning and Technology
Mean task input as percentiles of the 1960 task distribution
World Form 2009
Routine manual
65
60 Nonroutine manual
55
Routine cognitive
50
PISA
International Student Assessment
OECD Programme for
45 Nonroutine analytic
40
Nonroutine interactive
1960 1970 1980 1990 2002
The dilemma of schools:
The skills that are easiest to teach and test
are also the ones that are easiest to digitise,
(Levy and Murnane) automate and outsource

“My goal in life is to find ways in
which children can use technology
as a constructive medium to do
things that they could not do
before..
..to do things at a level of
complexity that was not previously
accessible to children”
Prof. Seymour Papert 1998

The challenge of Re-imagining…
How do we become aware of our reality beyond our
concepts, what could school be?…..
and then take time to reflect on what we see..
“What does it take to shake
people loose?...imagination
deteriorates with experience ..we
need radical re-imagining”.
Peter Senge 2007
„Perspective is worth 80 IQ
points.‟ Alan Kay

Influences on the Future of Learning
Personalising Enabling an Leveraging
learning to expanded Increasing Digital Content
The Nature of
address view of Pedagogical in a Re-
Accountability learning
learner capacity imagined
diversity environments curriculum
Trends that move us from Reform to
Transformation

What is the real value of accountability?

Accountability & School
Improvement…
If we want 21st Century innovative learners we
need to create new metrics of innovative .
learning!
What impact does
transparency have on
assessment?
What do we mean by mutual or reciprocal accountability?

“Accountability must be a reciprocal process. For
every increment of performance I demand of
you, I have an equal responsibility to provide
you with the capacity to meet that expectation.
Likewise, for every investment you make in my
skill and knowledge, I have a reciprocal
responsibility to demonstrate some new
increment in performance.
This is the principle of
“reciprocity for accountability for capacity”
Elmore, 2002
9

Personalisation means…
Obtaining and creating knowledge at the right place, at
the right time, in the right way, on the right device, for
the right person..
Learning styles and modalities, Content
selection, assessment preferences, identifying
effective collaborative peer networks, best learning
dynamic
What if students could have at least
the same choices for learning content
as they have for book selection on
Amazon?
Better informed to make
better decisions about
students

Addressing Learner Diversity
• Identify and define prior
knowledge so learning is
appropriate for individuals and
groups.
• Adopt a flexible approach to
learning delivery by drawing on a
bank of Learning Elements or
• Apply different emphases andObjects from different sources.
mixes of knowledge processes
as appropriate to suit different
„learning styles‟.
• Identify and negotiate learning
pathways as appropriate to
students interests and
dispositions. Burrows and Kalantzis,

The PbyP learning cycle
What to use for goals?
Lifelong competencies
Arranged in Skills Ladders
Clear progression up a ladder
Can be understood and evidenced by the
learner

The PbyP learning cycle
What to use for goals?
Lifelong competencies
Arranged in Skills Ladders
Clear progression up a ladder
Can be understood and evidenced by the
learner

When, where and how might learning take
place?...
• When dos learning start and
stop? –the precious and inevitable
blend and influence of informal and
informal learning environments
• Anytime, Anywhere- no longer
limited by where or who we are
• Globalization today - is about
individuals and small groups
collaborating.
communications is the
leveler, collaboration is the

A different view of learning…
• Anyone can now learn anytime, throughout their
life
• Anyone can now learn anywhere, wherever one
has access to the Internet
• Anyone can now learn anyhow, in tacit, non-
formal and formal ways
• So, learning need not, and perhaps even should
not, be concentrated in a given period of life
(school age) and in a particular place (the school)
nor ought it to be “standardized”, “one size fits all”

3,000 people every day
3,000

Transforming the Learning Environment
14th- 19th Century 20th Century 21st Century
• Print Era a
Broadcast Era Collaborative Age
• Authors/Publishers Vendor Produced Community Generated
Content Experiences
• Books, Documents Film, Radio, TV, Video, W Mixed Media,
eb Pages
Social Networks,
Virtual Environments

The web is now…
• challenging traditional approaches to how we
learn.
• challenging our assumptions about
classrooms and teaching.
• challenging our assumptions about
knowledge, information and literacy.
What are the implications for your classroom?
Web 2.0: the “architecture of participation”
Will Richardson, 2007

Where is the intersection between
technology and pedagogy?

What are we going to let go of?
DETA (2008) “elearning for smart classrooms”, Smart Classrooms BYTES, August 2008

Content vs context
• Rapid knowledge growth:The information pace is
too rapid for the current model of learning
• Informal learning is eclipsing formal learning
• Capacity to know more is more critical than
what is currently known
• Learners will move into different—possibly
unrelated—fields over their lives
―Siemens, from Oblinger,2005

“The transformation of work requires much more than a
mastery of a fixed curriculum inherited from past centuries.
Success in the slowly changing worlds of past centuries
came from being able to do well what you were taught
to do.
Success in the rapidly changing world of the future depends
on being able to do well what you were not taught to
do”
Vision for Education: Caperton & Papert
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eLearning

Fundamental change,
or incremental
improvement;
the question is not so
much which is right,
but rather why has
there been so little
discussion about the
question?

Where do you see your school?
1 2 3 4
Incremental Improvement Fundamental Change
Incremental improvement. Continual small changes to the way school
might function to provide measurable improvement.
Fundamental change/transformation looks very different. It is not
“tweaking” at the edges; this is not doubling the length of classes or
developing cross-curricular programs. Rather than build on the
successes of the past, fundamental change requires a complete
rethinking of the nature of school and learning from the “ground up”.

Technology and Change
So technology can be used
To sustain and support what we are already
doing (conservative use – does not lead to
change)
To supplement and extend what we are
doing
(leads to improvement and reform)
To subvert and transform what we are doing
(leads to transformation and innovation)
George Thomas Scharffenberger, 2004

In too many of our schools..
the technology emperor has had no clothes!
•Trivializing teacher competence
•Technology-driven ideals
•Ill-defined expectations
•Access is a major issue….5:1, 4:1 are just better
versions of the same thing!
•Usage and Access profiles:59% < 59
minutes
•The old model of access simply is not effective
Our priority must be to better explore
the “Art of the Possible”
Edweek.org

Both proponents and opponents of educational
technology agree that the full effects of technology in
schools cannot be fully realized until the technology
is no longer a shared resource (Oppenheimer, 2003;
Papert, 1992, 1996).

The Drivers to 1 to 1…
• Equity-Narrows the Digital Divide?
• Economic-budget imperatives?
• Unlocks the possibility of personalised learning?
• Improves assessment alternatives?
• Provides opportunity for textbook replacement?
• Marketing-competitive advantage?
• Expanded pedagogical opportunities?
• Research on the impact on learning?
• Offers 21st Century Learning opportunities
-extends formal learning communities and expand global
communication and collaboration, and develop creative expression
..offering more compelling learning experiences for all students.

What learning opportunities will these influences
make possible for your school,
for your students,
and for their future?

A technology-rich learning environment can..
• offer almost unlimited opportunities to significantly
address learner diversity.
• promote new dimensions of pedagogical innovation.
• give us a platform to better understand teaching
effectiveness and leverage what personalisation
offers learners..
• challenge us to look for more appropriate and effective
means of assessment, and build better
acountabilities.
• allow us to re-imagine curriculum and what it might
mean for the 21st Century learner.
Technology increases our capacity to
innovate

Technology and Change
So technology can be used
– To sustain and support what we are
already doing (conservative use – does not
lead to change)
– To supplement and extend what we are
doing
(leads to improvement and reform)
– To subvert and transform what we are
doing
(leads to transformation and innovation)
George Thomas Scharffenberger, 2004

The teacher in a contemporary classroom
understands…
 the more powerful technology becomes the
more indispensable good teachers are
 that learners must construct their own
meaning for deep understanding to occur
 technology generates a glut of information
but is not pedagogically wise
 teachers must become pedagogical
design experts, (leveraging) the power of
technology

The Evolution of Innovation
Automated Idiosyncratic At Scale Cultural
Beliefs & Attitude
Opportunity & Possibilities
Pedagogical Wisdom
Innovation must be continuous, holistic,
iterative and accountable.

Imagine if…
• We could formatively assess students in a way
that had immediate impact on their learning.
• We could build life-long learning profiles that
accurately reflected a student’s
competencies, highlighting their strengths and
allowing us to target their weaknesses.
• We had the ability to intelligently
search for the best teaching and
learning resources as effectively
as we search for books on
Amazon.
…now we can.

Imagine if…
• We could make learning in school as
transparent as learning out of school; that
the line between formal and informal
learning faded.
• We could put a large part of human
knowledge at a student’s fingertips, in such
a way that it was meaningfully accessible.
• We could allow students to
collaborate seamlessly
anytime, anywhere.
…now we can

Imagine if…
• We could develop ways in which
children could use technology as a
constructive medium to do things that they
could not do before…
… to do things at a level of complexity that
was not previously accessible to them.
…now we can do this;
it is now possible for
all children.

www.aalf.org
bdixon@aalf.org
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