NMC Horizon Project Summit 2013 (Future of Education, Day 2): Fun and Wicked in Austin

Wicked problems, a high-tech Shark Tank, a survey of ideas that matter, and fun provided the foundations for an inspiringly overwhelming second day of the 2013 New Media Consortium (NMC) Horizon Project Summit on “The Future of Education” here in Austin, Texas.

Lev Gonick, Vice President, Information Technology Services and CIO at Case Western Reserve University, laid the foundations for the discussion of wicked problems by reminding summit participants that those challenges are complex and ambiguous; require disruptive thinking; and require innovative solutions that actually change the nature of the problems and the contexts in which they operate. They are not generally subject to perfect solutions, but they can be fun to tackle. And that’s where Gonick, summit graphic facilitator David Sibbet (President and Founder of The Grove Consultants International), and NMC Founder/CEO Larry Johnson led us in an exercise designed to identify wicked problems we thought would be fun to address in the world of teaching-training-learning.

By early afternoon, we had identified a core set of 10 of those wicked problems in learning:

• Reducing risk aversion in education
• Finding ways to set aside time for learning innovations
• Rethinking roles and identities for students, faculty members, and administrators
• Reinventing education
• Creating successful all-device interfaces in learning
• Addressing the need for social and emotional development in curricula
• Reinventing online learning
• Addressing the challenges and benefits of learning from around the world
• Fostering an ecosystem for experiential learning
• Defining ethical boundaries and responsibilities in learning

There were a variety of other playful ideas, including one inspired by one participant’s mention of laws in several countries (Costa Rica, Estonia, France, Greece, and Spain) guaranteeing internet access to every citizen: advocating for a constitutional right to internet access as strong as the constitutional right to bear arms.

Joining the discussion on reinventing online learning, I was impressed by the range of options compiled during that brief segment of the daylong proceedings:

• Start with a goal of creating engaging online course that address subjects to be taught; don’t just transfer onsite courses to online settings
• Include lots of choices, e.g., collaborative and individual study, and synchronous and asynchronous, that provide learner-centric experiences
• Use social media to engage learners, and foster plenty of interaction
• Design courses that move learners out of a learning management system and into online communities that continue to exist after courses formally conclude
• Engage in blended learning by using asynchronous courses to serve learners world-wide, and build in live online and onsite interactions whenever possible
• Partner with other teaching/learning organizations
• Strive for more authentic learning opportunities
• Provide more project-based learning opportunities that produce learning objects
• Involve learners from all over the world so that the learning experience is enhanced by increased exposure to diverse perspectives
• Entice faculty into online learning by creating faculty communities of learning to draw upon the knowledge base of that faculty
• Develop flexible formats for crediting learners’ accomplishments
• Capture and document teaching and learning for repurposing
• Provide more just-in-time learning experiences

Comments from all of the breakout discussion groups were to be compiled this evening so discussions on the final day of the three-day summit could be used to propose plans of action in addressing these various wicked problems.

Interspersed throughout the activities conducted during the second day of the summit were wonderful presentations on a variety of “ideas that matter,” and the culmination of that process was the Shark Tank competition in which eight predetermined competitors were each given 10 minutes to describe an education-tech initiative under development and make a pitch for support (including a $2,500 cash award) from the New Media Consortium.

It was a winning exercise for everyone. The eight competitors involved in the first round (round two, with three survivors, was scheduled to be conducted at the beginning of the final day of the summit) had an opportunity to finely tune their project pitches, and audience members had an opportunity to learn about eight wonderful cutting-edge proposals that combine creativity, learning, and collaboration in ways designed to further our approaches to educational successes.

A sampling of the proposals provides an enticing glimpse into the state of tech and learning innovations:

• Learning from experience through the Scroll Ubiquitous Learning Log
• The One Million Museum Moments social media tool providing museumgoers and museum professionals an opportunity to document their museum experiences
• A learning analytics project centered on “X-Ray Analytics”
• The Taking IT Global project designed to cultivate future-friendly schools and foster global collaboration in addressing the world’s greatest challenges
• The development of digital technology supporting educational software simulators and other products through Axis3D
• Global collaboration among students through the Global Efficient Cook Stove Education Project
• The FLEXspace community of practice, centered on an interactive database that serves as a flexible learning environment exchange
• Capturing learners’ information and analytics through Citelighter, a free social media tool that allows learners to store, organize and share research data and other educational information

The entire round of presentations left many of us not at all envying the tough choices the judges had to make, and we’re looking forward to seeing how finalists Citelighter, Taking IT Global, and X-Ray Analytics fare when the summit resumes in the morning.

NMC Horizon Project Summit 2013 (Future of Education, Day 1): Challenges and Plans for Action

You would, based upon onsite discussions throughout the first day of the 2013 New Media Consortium (NMC) Horizon Project Summit on “The Future of Education” here in Austin, Texas, have been in good company walking away feeling optimistic this evening.

Summit graphic facilitator David Sibbet (President and Founder of The Grove Consultants International) and NMC Founder/CEO Larry Johnson didn’t waste a minute before establishing that the 100 of us from kindergarten through 12th-grade schools, colleges and universities, libraries and museums, and a handful of other organizations from all over the world, have a clear mandate over the next few days:

• Identify some worthy challenges that deserve to be solved, and pilot a process that we can use to move an action agenda forward

Our playing field remains the intersection between technology, learning, creativity, and the people at the center of those fields. The common element that continues to draw us together is a passion for exploring the technology that continues to evolve all around us and the trends and challenges we and those we serve are facing. And the approach was a mixture of attentiveness, reflection, humor, and focus on what the metatrends—“a global and overarching force that will affect many multidimensional changes; for example, environmental impacts on business, individuals and countries,” according to an online sustainability dictionary—within education are.

Much of our time this afternoon was spent reviewing the 10 metatrends that were documented through the conversations at the 2012 Horizon Project Advisory Board retreat. There was also extensive conversation around a variety of metatrends that didn’t make that list but may be worth exploring as we identify the worthy challenges and develop the process for developing the proposed action agenda.

It’s worth summarizing some of the metatrends previously identified to set a context for what comes next: the work of the world is increasingly global and collaborative; people expect to work, learn, socialize, and play whenever and wherever they want to—and they can draw from a global mobile network (the Internet) to foster learning; concepts of open content, data, and resources, combined with changing view of ownership and privacy, have an impact of much of what we do; and the Internet is challenging us to rethink learning and education while refining our notion of literacy.

Metatrends that may be included on a revised list by the time the conference ends two days from now were varied and intriguing:

• The need for good data to be used in learning (learning analytics)
• The end of credentials as we know them; one summit participant even mused about what would happen if we put expiration dates on academic degrees
• The growing importance of the maker subculture and how it might reflect a new arts and crafts movement that does not at all eschew the use of technology in creation
• The continuing expectation that people have that they will be able to learn, work, and play whenever and wherever they want to engage in those activities
• New business models for learning
• Redefining literacy
• The impact of a commitment to openness in disseminating information
• The end of physical boundaries of work in a world where our work and non-work lives are increasingly intertwined
• Natural User Interface (NUI)
• Increasing awareness of the importance of informal learning
• Commitments to global/collaborative interactions

There was also frank discussion about how “complexity” is a theme that seems to flow through almost every other theme we were exploring—a theme that itself almost seems to serve as a meta-metatrend that helps to make sense of the other disparate themes under discussion.

Our list-in-progress, Johnson reminded us toward the end of the afternoon, is not definitive—nor is it meant to be. It’s a starting point for discussion and action, and the real work will be continued within the overlapping communities we serve, and with the active participation of members of those communities.

“We have 100 people in the room, and I hope we have 100 perspectives,” he said.

And then the immediate future under the nurturing of the New Media Consortium was outlined for all of us:

• A new NMC K-12 Ambassadors Program is about to unfold through a very quick search to identify 25 top innovative educators from around the world; their mandate will be to provide insight into the world of kindergarten through 12th-grade education and how the NMC can support them. This might eventually lead to similar ambassador programs for museums and libraries worldwide.
• The existing NMC Horizon EdTech Weekly App for Apple devices is about to be supplemented by a similar app for Android devices.
• And in a movement I personally have long supported, the NMC community that has developed through the these new annual meetings is going to be supported year-round through establishment of an NMC Commons, “an Enterprise Hive social business community platform to improve member services, support collaboration among colleagues, and enhance the production of the NMC Horizon Report series.”

“This room is going to be the first sub-community on that group,” Johnson assured us.

The formal discussions ended as late afternoon melted into early evening, but the exchanges of ideas continued well into the night as we gathered for a reception that allowed us to engage in small-group discussions.

There still is much to do before we reach the goals that Johnson had outlined earlier in the day. But at least one thing is clear: the future of education may be an incredibly complex topic to explore over a three-day period, but the community that NMC staff is nurturing is one that is more than willing to be active participants in helping shape that future in the most positive of ways.

Horizon Report Retreat (Pt. 2 of 3): Reflections, Reinvention, Transformation—And Watching Evolution Happen

The world of technology, education, and creativity is changing so quickly that it’s as if we are sitting in a Darwinian doorway and watching evolution happen, a colleague at the recent New Media Consortium “The Future of Education” Horizon Project Advisory Board retreat in Austin, TX observed.

And that pretty much sums up how it felt to be at the second day of that three-day retreat with nearly 100 very creative educators from academic institutions, museums and museum organizations, companies involved in the development and diffusion of new technology, libraries, and other game-changers in teaching-training-learning.

To try to capture the level of discourse that flows through and from a gathering like that one is like trying to fully capture a profoundly moving dream hours after waking up. Except that there was no sleeping going on there. That was a fully-engaged group of dreamers who knew that their (our) dreams document and even have the ability to shape the world in which we live, breathe, and work. A group of people who are deeply passionate about and engaged in how technology and creativity affect training-teaching-learning. And one that never for a moment seemed to lose sight of the human element of an industry driven and affected by the rapid rate of technological change.

Convened to reflect on what 10 years of Horizon reports have produced;  to consider ways of reinventing the annual flagship report on technology in higher education and its various subsidiary versions (taking specific looks at technology in museums, technology in kindergarten through 12^th-grade education, and even regional variations on these themes; and to foster discussions about how those reports will continue to transform the ever-increasing world of teaching-training-learning, we began Day 2 with encouragement from NMC Founder/CEO Larry Johnson to stretch ourselves into an idealized future. To identify a set of big ideas capable of guiding people in the larger world for years to come. And to find ways to keep the Horizon Report relevant in a world that seems to change as quickly as sand shifts under our feet in a pounding surf.

There was talk of libraries as learning centers; the ubiquitous nature of mobility in learning at a time when the use of mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets is absolutely exploding at a global level; the need to seek a new form of literacy—“deluge literacy”—to help learners cope with the deluge of information they face on a daily basis; and discussion of a TED talk about building an architecture for participation—lubricating the wheels for collaboration—a creativity process capable of inspiring innovations and change from the ground up. And there was a poignantly compelling reminder that “global” doesn’t necessarily mean “universal.”

You could sense, moment by moment, that this was a group with dreams of inclusivity rather than exclusivity. A group focused on how technology is changing the way we learn, but also keeping technology in a position subsidiary to the human element of teaching-training-learning. And a group intensely, passionately engaged in responding to learners’ needs and looking for ways to effectively and engagingly incorporate technology into the learning process.

It’s obvious that the hundred of us there were all attending, participating, and sharing ideas in the same conference/retreat at very significant levels. And yet because of the masterful way the event was facilitated by David Sibbet, President and Founder of The Grove Consultants International, and the way face-to-face and online communication was supported (through a very active Twitter backfeed under the hashtag #nmchz; I contributed via @trainersleaders), it’s possible to assert that we all attended and participated in 100 different, highly personal, and overlapping conferences where the levels of engagement were increased by our abilities to listen, talk, take notes, exchange tweets, and read those tweets during breaks and after hours while we were all onsite together.

At one of the break-out discussion sessions, I found myself at a table with colleagues from Brazil, Colombia, Denmark, Egypt, Puerto Rico, Shanghai, Spain, and the U.K. During rides to and from the conference hall, I was with an Australian who works for the BBC, in Manchester. You can’t physically be in these situations and settings without viscerally understanding how small the world has become in many ways. And how inspiring and transforming it can be to even be able to spend a few minutes listening to the various perspectives an opportunity like this reveals. As we watch evolution unfold.

Next: Reflection and Inspiration in Six-Minute Bites

Horizon Report Retreat (Pt. 1 of 3): Reflections, Provocations, Lightning, and Thunder

At the opening reception for the New Media Consortium’s “The Future of Education” Horizon Project Advisory Board retreat here in Austin, TX, one of the opening keynote speakers (Lev Gonick) said the Consortium has gathered 100 thought leaders from 20 countries to reflect on what the Horizon Report accomplishes; to provoke; and to think about the future.

The wonderful provocations began even before any of us took a seat to listen to a series of introductory comments and wonder how we magically became transformed into “thought leaders.” We were treated to printed signs around the room that summarized metatrends documented through 10 years of Horizon Reports, and those trends ought to be posted on the physical and virtual doors to every learning space around the world, and conveyed to every trainer-teacher-learner who is helping shape the learning industry today:

Horizon Metatrend #1: People expect to work, learn, socialize, and play whenever and wherever they want to.

Horizon Metatrend #2: The Internet is becoming a global mobile network – and already is at its edges.

Horizon Metatrend #3: The technologies we use are daily more cloud-based, and delivered over utility networks.

Horizon Metatrend #4: The world of work is increasingly global and increasingly collaborative.

Horizon Metatrend #5: The Internet is constantly challenging us to rethink learning and education.

Horizon Metatrend #6: Real challenges of access, efficiency, and scale are redefining what we mean by quality and success.

Jim Vanides, Senior Program Manager for Hewlett-Packard, Skyped in with a wonderful wake-up call that included reminders about how the mixture of great technology and great pedagogy is a recipe for success, and that the Horizon Report itself is a fantastic model for gathering and sharing information.

EDUCAUSE Director Malcolm Brown drew from Jim Brown’s Harvard Business Review article “Change by Design” to talk to about “wicked problems”—those problems whose causes are complex and ambiguous—to remind us that when we have a problem, we also have an opportunity. The two, he suggested, always co-exist. We deal with wicked problems by engaging in design thinking, he suggested, and we benefit from the primary elements of design thinking: they are strategic, human-centered, fully innovative, and team based—benefitting from drawing together people ,with a variety of expertise (as the Horizon Report process does every year through the use of an exceptionally well-facilitated wiki (managed by Chief Executive Officer Larry Johnson and his NMC colleagues) as the vehicle for discussions on technology, learning, and creativity. The process, Brown explained, includes three phases: inspiration, ideation, and implementation.

“Design thinking, in our context, starts with the Horizon Report,” he explained.

And then there was David Sibbet, President and Founder of The Grove Consultants International, who was present at the birth of the New Media Consortium in Hakone, Japan in August 1992. A gifted graphic facilitator, Sibbet spoke and documented, through his words and images on large sheets of paper at the front of the room, about the legacy of Horizon reports. As any good facilitator would, he coaxed out thoughts from attendees about what the reports and involvement in the shaping of those reports have done for all of us:

• Serving as annual springboards for conversations
• Providing a collective workspace for Advisory Board members
• Offering a robust methodology for the activities we document
• Helping us work locally, think locally, and connect to a larger (global) community
• Pulling us into a learning ecosystem (what a lovely term; wish I’d thought of that one!)
• Serving as a strategic learning tool—exposing individual best practices—so we can translate trends to end users

As the evening drew to an end, Gonick delivered one final summary of what the annual report accomplishes: “It’s a challenge document.” So as we began leaving the room, we had our challenge before us: Now we begin discussing the work we have yet to do.

In the early hours of the morning, I found myself unexpectedly sitting up in bed. Enjoying one of the most brilliantly beautiful lightning and thunder storms I’ve ever witnessed. There were ripping bursts of light. Room-shaking blasts of thunder. And it struck me that I couldn’t imagine a more visceral physical manifestation of what conferences and collaborations like this generate in the most positively disruptive of ways. I finally did get back to sleep. But rose again early this morning. Because I know there will be plenty of time for sleep later. Much later.

Next: Reflection, Reinvention, and Transformation at the Horizon Retreat