ALT Learning Technologist of the Year: Team Award 2009

1. Learning Futures workshopBuild the future here... Professor Gilly Salmon & Sandra Romenska Beyond Distance Research Alliance University of Leicester, UK European Foundation for Quality in E-Learning: UNIQUe Award Winner ALT Learning Technologist of the Year: Team Award 2009

2. Create the future… • “Few will have the greatness to bend history, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation.” Robert F Kennedy 6th June 1966 Salmon & Romenska

3. We are the generation of educators who… • Have the tools • Have the techniques • Have the vision Salmon & Romenska

4. Start creating academic learning futures

5. Learning Steps for Today • Learn how to create visions for the future quickly and collaboratively. • Discover possible, probable and desirable futures for learning. • Learn how to identify workable ideas for creating desirable futures. • Have F*N. Salmon & Romenska

6. Principles for today’s work Salmon & Romenska

7. It was the best of times... It was the worst of times... From Tale of Two Cities - (1859) by Charles Dickens. It’s the first line of the book Foreshadowing is a technique used by authors to provide clues for the reader to be able to predict what might occur later in the story. Red Herrings A hint that is designed to mislead the ‘audience’ is referred to as a red herring. An example of foreshadowing is the self-fulfilling prophecy - that directly or indirectly causes itself to become true Salmon & Romenska

8. We need to foreshadow…We need to avoid red herrings • Red herring cards • Fluffy Cloud cards Salmon & Romenska

9. Red herrings for learning “Content is King” “Everything you need for e-learning in one box…” “Build it and they will come…” “Academics are resistant” . Salmon & Romenska

10. Indistinctly prophetic…. “E-learning makes e mail look like a rounding error” “Undergraduate are used to working online” “ Open Educational resources will attract remote students to our university” “Working online is levelling for students and teachers”

11. Warm up: What if? 1. What if ... there were only half of the number of campus based- colleges, schools and universities in the world compared to now? 2. What if ... all educational establishments had twice the numbers of students compared to now? 3. What if ...all students were allowed to attend to university only for the first year of their degrees 4. What if ...all educational resources are openly published on the web? 5. What if ...all formal supervised exams were banned? 6. What if all students brought the latest high tech laptop or personal networked devices with them to their class? 7. What if...there was no paper in the world 8. What if the internet/web crashed/melted down... Salmon & Romenska

12. ExternalEnvironment The university Foresight Impact on learners’ experience Evidence for change Pedagogical drivers Technological choices Business cases Insight Hindsight Salmon & Romenska

13. Looking back for looking forward… HINDSIGHT How has learning changed in recent years What happened to learning that you expected? What happened differently from your expectation? INSIGHT What are the current trends, enablers, disruptions and barriers? FORESIGHT How can we use this knowledge to prepare for the next 10 years? Salmon & Romenska

14. White Heat of Technology Professional Distance Blend Communities of Practice CPD Campus Based Work Based Vocational Universities Primary Schools Secondary Informal learning The Tree of Learning Salmon & Romenska

15. learning futures thinking Salmon & Romenska

16. Learning futures Scenarios Salmon & Romenska

18. makING a story A spark – issue of concern, question, problem. Occurrences Participants Environment/setting Outcomes Uncertainties Salmon & Romenska

19. TASK 1 – Choose a theme Salmon & Romenska

20. TASK 2 – think OF A story Ask questions : “What will happen next”? Salmon & Romenska

21. TASK 3: Add context, INSIGHT AND HINDSIGHt STEEPLE: Social Technological Economic Environment (natural) Political Legal Ethical Salmon & Romenska

22. Task 4 – involvement:Actors, stakeholders and agency Salmon & Romenska

23. COFFEE breakFuture Prediction… We will continue at 16:20 Salmon & Romenska

24. Dilemmas, Paradoxes, Trade-offs • Dilemma – choice between equal options. • Paradox – sequence of actions/statements, that leads to a contradiction. • Trade-off – situation where losing something means gaining something. Salmon & Romenska

25. Consistency Inconsistent Hindering Supporting Inducing Salmon & Romenska

26. TASK 5 – wrap it up Salmon & Romenska

27. TASK 6 – present Salmon & Romenska

28. What next? Your turn… Salmon & Romenska

29. Be the change you want to see in the world Mahatma Ghandi Never doubt the power of a small group of people to change the world. Nothing else ever has. Margaret Mead Thanks for taking part Every society honors its live conformists and its dead troublemakers." Mignon McLaughlin No budgets or humans were harmed in the making of this presentation Salmon & Romenska

30. Beyond Distance Research Alliance Learning Futures Festival Online 2010 Positively Disruptive 7-14 January 2010 www.le.ac.uk/beyonddistance/festival KEYNOTE SPEAKERS Dr Stephen Bax, Professor Phil Candy, Aly Conteh, Dr Chris Davies, Stephen Downes, Professor Ian Jamieson, Professor Josie Taylor, Tessa Welch Festival registration: £75 / closing date: 23 December 2009 European Foundation for Quality in E-Learning: UNIQUe Award Winner ALT Learning Technologist of the Year: Team Award 2009

31. Images: 4. http://www.flickr.com/photos/34631569@N00/2759997701/ 6. http://www.leadership.prn.bc.ca/?m=200903 15. http://clubwah.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/umbrella.jpg 15. http://www.ewashtenaw.org/government/departments/cmhpsm/provider-homepage/images/Compass%20pic 16. http://lambiek.net/artists/c/cortes_mario.htm 17. http://www.virginmedia.com/movies/movieextras/top10s/top-ten-movie-robots.php?ssid=7 19. http://www.nfptech.com/images/content/pagebuilder/11626.jpg 20. http://www.paradoxes.co.uk/site_files/escher-hands.jpg 21. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wind_vane_05643.jpg 23. http://www.pachd.com/free-images/food-images/coffee-cup-01.jpg 24. http://www.mimfreedom.com/christmas2/Images-Christmas/bigstockphoto_Christmas_Presents_Wrapped_By__1015849.jpg 28.http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/images/2008/04/15/the_ferris_wheel_from_the_santa_mon.jpg 31. http://magento- themes.joomlart.com/jm_purity/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/5e06319eda06f020e43594a9c230972d/a/r/argus-qc-2185-quick-click-5mp-digital-camera-2.jpg Salmon & Romenska

32. Learning Futures workshopBuild the future here...(hand-outs) Professor Gilly Salmon & Sandra Romenska Beyond Distance Research Alliance University of Leicester, UK

33. Overview • Learning futures is a foresight methodology – it helps make sense of an uncertain future. • The focus is on making informed decisions. • The focus is on making democratic decisions. Salmon & Romenska

34. Rationales for Learning Futures 1 • The world is more complex than that envisaged when many of our institutions emerged. These institutions are faced with major new challenges and pressures. • It is tough to be a leader in a time of such uncertainty. • Decisions made today will have effects years into the future. What will the world look like then? Salmon & Romenska

35. Rationales for Learning Futures 2 To motivate change. To guide choices. To generate a vision and an action-plan for realisation. Salmon & Romenska

36. To sharpen the capacity to deal with the unexpected. To improve decision-making. To understand trends in the context of their influence on an individual, organisation, business sector or region. To detect emergence of new opportunities and to create strategies for achieving goals. Rationales for Learning Futures 3 Salmon & Romenska

37. Key Assumptions for Learning Futures • The future is not pre-determined or predictable. • If it were, there would be no point in taking action today, because it would have no effect on the future. • Full information about the future is never available. • It makes sense to look for ways to understand the future to deal with uncertainty. Salmon & Romenska

38. Learning Futures Methods They help understanding a situation. Engaging in Learning Futures thinking enhances creativity. They are process/activity focussed. They are built on perceptions and opinions. Salmon & Romenska

39. Learning Futures 1 • A characteristic, aptitude or process that attempts to widen the boundaries of perception by: • assessing the implications of present actions, decisions etc. • detecting and avoiding problems before they occur (early warning indicators). • considering the present implications of possible future events (proactive strategy formulation). • envisioning aspects of desired futures (normative scenarios). Salmon & Romenska

40. Learning Futures Process of connecting together various driving forces, trends, and conditioning factors so as to envisage alternative futures. Thinking about the future is something that we all do. Salmon & Romenska

41. Types of Futures • Possible - “might” happen (future knowledge) • Plausible – “could” happen (current knowledge) • Probable - “likely to” happen (current trends) • Preferable - “want to” happen (value judgements) Salmon & Romenska

42. External Environment The university Foresight Impact on learners’ experience Evidence for change Pedagogical drivers Technological choices Business cases Insight Hindsight Salmon & Romenska

43. Looking back for looking forward… HINDSIGHT How has learning changed in recent years What happened to learning that you expected? What happened differently from your expectation? INSIGHT What are the current trends, enablers, disruptions and barriers? FORESIGHT How can we use this knowledge to prepare for the next 10 years? Salmon & Romenska

44. Learning Futures Approach of CALF One approach to Learning Futures is to see them as stories about how the world might look like in the future. They are descriptions in the form of a story, of possible developments that can lead from a current state of affairs to a future state. Salmon & Romenska

45. Learning Futures are stories about the future that are informed, plausible and based on analysis of the interaction of a number of factors. They are a means to represent a future state in order to understand and plan action in the present in view of possible and desirable futures. Learning Futures Approach of CALF 2 Salmon & Romenska

46. Creating a Learning Future The process of creating Learning Futures considers: A spark – issue of concern, question, problem. Occurrences Participants Environment/setting Outcomes Uncertainties Salmon & Romenska

47. Occurrences in Learning Futures • Occurrence is something done or something happening. It is an answer to the question “What is happening? What is he/she/they doing?” • Occurrences involve actors and stakeholders. Those who perform or cause the actions are actors. They answer to the question “Who?” • Those, who are affected by the actions are the stakeholders. “Whom? To whom?” Salmon & Romenska

48. Occurrences in Learning Futures An occurrence has a probability and an impact associated with it. Probability can range from 0 (not happening) to 1 (certainty) and means likelihood that something will happen. Impact is the effect – extent of change, brought about by something happening. It usually has a subject – that which is affected, upon which an occurrence has an impact. For example, a meteor hitting the planet is an occurrence with low probability but high impact. So was the crush of the financial markets or the collapse of the Soviet Union. Salmon & Romenska

49. Occurrences in Learning Futures When building a Learning Future, you can generate alternatives by considering the probability and the impact of the events you have included. Think of low probability - high impact events and how to prepare for them. Salmon & Romenska

50. Put participants in your story Participants can be: Individuals/organisations affected by an Issue. Individuals/organisations who make something happen. They have relative degrees of power and interest in bringing change. Consider groups with high power/low interest and vice versa. Salmon & Romenska