Toward Society 3.0:
A New Paradigm for 21 st
century education
John Moravec, Ph.D. www.educationfutures.com
University of Minnesota moravec@umn.edu
September 26, 2008 @moravec

Disclaimer
The “dot-zero-ization”
of everything has
become the mullet of
the 21st century.

Agenda
Societies 1.0 – 3.0
So what?
What now?

Society 1.0

Agricultural (18th century)
• Family based enterprises
• Kids learned at home
• Kids worked at home
• Kids were engaged cross-generationally
• Adults could learn from kids
• Kids contributed at all economic levels

Industrial (19th and 20th centuries)
• Industrial economy
• Job/wage/salary based enterprises
• Kids learned increasingly at schools
• Kids worked at low level, sometimes
dangerous jobs
• Kids were engaged cross-generationally as
chattel, hirelings, or de facto (and de jure)
slaves
• Kids learned from adults within division of age
and labor formats
• Kids still contributed at all economic levels

Information Age
• Interpreted data
• Hierarchical
• Siloed jobs and roles
• Chaos and ambiguity are eschewed

Society 2.0

Knowledge Age
• Interpreted information
• Personally-constructed meanings
• Socially-constructed meanings
• Chaos and ambiguity are managed

A cut-and-paste culture
• Hip-hop
• YouTube
• Blogs
• Wikis

Examples of Society 2.0 cultural
products:
• This presentation
• Frank Sinatra’s “Duets”
• Wikipedia

140

Citizen Journalists

Citizen Scientists
• Audubon society’s bird count
• SETI@Home, Folding@Home,
Stardust@Home, etc.
• Moonshot

Citizen Capitalists in Democratized
Markets
• Global markets for ideas
• Global markets for talent
• Global markets for products
• Global markets for capital

What drives Society 2.0?

Globalization
Dichotomies
• Local vs. global
• Homogenization vs. heterogenization
• Periphery vs. core

Looking back at our home in the 20th century…

Concerns
• Piracy
• Loss of literacy
• Loss of cultural heritage
…and, change, change, change, and change

Piracy is as American as…
• The Star Spangled Banner
• 19th century industrialization
• Edison’s phonograph
• Hollywood
Matt Mason wrote a great book on this (and Pirates 2.0!):
Mason, M. (2008). The pirate's dilemma: How youth culture reinvented
capitalism (1st Free Press hardcover ed.). New York: Free Press.

How do schools make the most
from a cut-and-paste society?

Society 3.0

Three drivers of Society 3.0
1. Accelerating change
2. Continuing globalization
3. Innovation society fueled by knowmads

Accelerating
change

Accelerating change,
Level of Advancement Accelerating returns
Time

What is the Technological
Singularity?
• The Singularity is the complex, seemingly chaotic
outcome of converging technologies (i.e.,
nanotechnology, molecular biology, virtual reality,
robotics, and human integration with all of the
above) … and social change.
• The Singularity is producing Trans-Humans and
within a few decades may be expected to produce
Post-Humans.

Looking back at our home in the 21st century…

Earth
Jupiter
Callisto
Europa
Ganymede

Innovation Age
• Contextually applied knowledge
• Horizontalized diffusion of knowledge
• Heterarchical relationships
• Chaos and ambiguity are embraced and
attended to

Paradigm
Domain 1.0 2.0 3.0
Fundamental Complex creative
Simple Complex
relationships (teleological)
Conceptualization of Intentional, self-
Hierarchic Heterarchic
order organizing
Relationships of parts Mechanical Holographic Synergetic
Worldview Deterministic Indeterminate Design
Causality Linear Mutual Anticausal
Change process Assembly Morphogenic Creative destruction
Reality Objective Perspectival Contextual
Place Local Globalizing Globalized

Sources of innovation in Society 3.0:

(access)

Open
knowledge is
the energy of
the 21st
Century.
– Cristóbal Cobo

Crowd
sourcing

Pre-1.0 Nomads

3.0 Knowmads

Knowmads

Accelerating change impacts the
half-life of knowledge.
• The amount of information available doubles
at an increasing rate
• The half-life of knowledge is decreasing
exponentially

So?

Society 3.0 drives Education 3.0.

Education 1.0 Education 2.0 Education 3.0
Socially constructed and
Meaning is… Dictated Socially constructed
contextually reinvented
Confiscated at the
Cautiously adopted Everywhere (ambient,
Technology is… classroom door (digital
(digital immigrants) digital universe)
refugees)
Teacher to student,
student to student,
Teacher to student and
student to teacher,
Teaching is done … Teacher to student student to student
people-technology-
(progressivism)
people (co-
constructivism)
Everywhere (thoroughly
In a building or online infused into society:
Schools are located… In a building (brick) (brick and click) cafes, bowling alleys,
bars, workplaces, etc.)
Parents view schools A place for them to learn,
Daycare Daycare
as… too
Teachers are… Licensed professionals Licensed professionals Everybody, everywhere
Hardware and Are purchased at great Are open source and Are available at low cost
software in schools… cost and ignored available at lower cost and are used purposively
As ill-prepared assembly
Industry views As co-workers or
Assembly line workers line workers in a
graduates as… entrepreneurs
knowledge economy

3.0 schools
• Produce knowledge-producing kids, not
automatons.
• Share, remix and capitalize on new ideas.
• Embrace accelerating change rather than
fighting it.

3.0 schools are not…
• based on hardware
• based on software

3.0 schools are built on mindware.

Ambient computing
O’Reilly: We really are moving beyond the era
of the PC into the era of ambient computing,
where we’re interacting with the global
network through devices that are sprinkled
throughout the world, smart objects, and I
think the next big thing is really not to do with
the Web at all. I think the next big thing has
not to do with the Web at all. I think it's
beyond the Web.

Ambient awareness is socially-distributed thinking.

Ambient education means 3.0
schools are located in:
• Bricks • Taquerías
• Clicks • Universities
• Bowling alleys • On our phones
• Coffee shops • On television
• Parks • In our
• Subway stations imaginations
…everywhere!

Caveat:
Technology is key, but…
1. Technology is not the answer.
2. Technology must be purposive.

“Technology is a word that describes something
that doesn’t work yet... We notice things that
don’t work. We don’t notice things that do.
We notice computers, we don’t notice
pennies. We notice e-book readers, we don’t
notice books.”
– Douglas Adams
JavaOne Keynote, 1999

Dr. Cobo will discuss e-competencies on Saturday.
[ ]

A global race for educational innovation…

So what?

Society 1.0 schools cannot teach 3.0 kids.

No matter how hard
we try to cover up
19th century
institutions, they
will still be 19th
century institutions.

Lasting legacy of Society 1.0:
USA in the 21st century
• Emerging knowledge/innovation economy is stunted
• Integrated activities between adults/kids are highly
limited
• Kids and adults learn less and less from each other
• Adults anxious about/fear learning from kids
• Kids separated from adults, following legacy
industrial economy model
• Kids work mainly at menial tasks
• Kids still contribute to all economic levels, but at far
lower levels than possible, feasible, and desirable

Key point
Schools should not use
new technologies to
teach the same old crap.

We all co-invent the future.

We’re all white belts.

Let’s start now.

The New Paradigm of Society 3.0
• Increasing importance of creative human capital
• Increasing rates of change
• Increasingly inaccurate predictions
• Increasing need to create preferred futures
• Increasing sense that kids must share creation of
new futures with adults

…also…
• Today’s kids participate in an increasingly globalized
world
• Industrial society has given way to the knowledge-
based society
…which is already starting to transition to an
innovation and creativity society (3.0!)

So, shall we live in the past or create the
future?
• In which paradigm do we place our kids?
• In which paradigm do we place adults?
• Where do each of us fit?

To move from legacy millstones to new
futures we must all learn to…

Leapfrogging…
• means leadership rather than catching up.
• means using advanced, purposive technologies to
assist students and teachers
• technologies permit moving from memorization to
creative and innovative knowledge production
• greatly enhancing human capital

Leapfrogging just ahead of change
J’ J
Level of Advancement
Time

“New” workforce:
21st century– Global Leapfrog
• Emerging knowledge/innovation economy can get a quantum boost
• Integrated activities can partner kids with adults
• Adults are eager to learn from kids
• Kids and adults learn more about each other
• Kids and adults partner and collaborate, teaching to and learning from
each other
• Kids work increasingly at creative tasks
• Kids still contribute to all economic levels, but with better distribution of
effort than in the past

Leapfroggers also think…
• Kids should mirror the creative workforces first and foremost
• Functionality should be emphasized first and foremost
• Technology supports reliable functionality
• Each kid and adult is a creative
• Each kid and adult is an innovator

The future we create can…
• Help change schools to create the future
• Help lead the world in educational change
• Help bring children and youth into the knowledge
workforce
• Help kids and adults work together creatively

“Innovate, baby, innovate!”

No failures.

Thank you!
Education Futures
www.educationfutures.com
Leapfrog Institutes
www.leapfroginstitutes.org