What does the future hold? (Some papers on "future studies")

(Last set of required readings from the first year seminar in the ETEC program at UH Manoa) 

Wyzard, C., Rice, K. & Snelson, C. (2011). The future in educational technology research. In T. Bastiaens & M. Ebner (Eds.), Proceedings of World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications 2011 (pp. 3240-3243). Chesapeake, VA: AACE.
Retrieved from http://www.editlib.org.eres.library.manoa.hawaii.edu/p/38320

What should the research priorities of educational technologists be in the next five years?  A group of 18 scholars in educational technology and related fields contributed to this knowledge base study in order to establish a sense of what is important to people who are working in this area.  The areas that are identified won't surprise anyone who hasn't been living under a rock.  It references ideas outlined in the 2010 National Technology Education Plan, that calls for examination of some vestiges of industrial education: for example, seat time requirements and age based classes.  Also, it mentions a need for deeper understanding how learning environments and learning outcomes are shaped by emerging technologies.  This is a great reference for us as we are thinking about our own research and checking in with broader sense of what is important and meaningful for us to be exploring.  

Facer, K. R., & Sandford, R. (2010). The next 25 years? Future scenarios and future directions for education and technology. Journal Of Computer Assisted Learning, 26(1), 74-93.

This paper is a comprehensive look at a number of ways of looking at future studies in educational technology.  Of great interest are the principals that the authors outline: 1) challenge assumptions, 2) the future is not determined by technologies, 3) thinking about the future always involves values and politics, 4) education has a range of responsibilities that need to be reflected in any inquiry into or visions of its future.  Of all of these, the notion of challenging assumptions seems to be the most valuable, and perhaps the most challenging. In many instances, we are unsure what are the dominant assumptions that are driving outlook towards technology.  This framework will be helpful in the work that I am doing developing an online course for educators about social media.  This area is not future studies--it is very current—but if you had asked educators six years ago if this would be something that would be a valuable area of inquiry for teachers, you would have been hard pressed to find supporters.  

Later in the paper the authors explore scenarios (which our professor likened to horoscopes in that they are so vague that they could end up telling almost any story). 

The authors then offer a number of challenges, followed by recommendations.  They are all things that I would like to keep in the forefront of my mind, so I will list them here:

Challenges:

·             Should education continue to be organized around the unit of the individual learner?  

·             Should "the school" retain its dominant position in the assumptions about educational futures?

·             Should preparation for competition within a knowledge economy remain a primary goal for education?

Recommendations:

·             Work towards a design of a "curriculum for networked learning"

·             Work towards the creation of open, flexible and networked relationships across diverse educational institutions, both formal and informal

·             Work towards the development of a mentoring and networking workforce

Finally, the authors leave the readers with the encouragement to keep our minds open about what the future might hold.  It almost seems like an ironic end to a paper that is predictive and exploratory about "futures", but the message is a good one.  If we let ourselves, as a field, become too confident in our sense of what the future holds, we will miss the opportunity to be flexible and adaptive as it unfolds. We miss the chance to invent it, and not just respond to it.

Hard-to-do Science

I just came across this quotation in a reading for Statistics class: 

Easy-to-do science is what those in physics, chemistry, geology, and some other fields do. Hard-to-do science is what the social scientists do and, in particular, it is what we educational researchers do. In my estimation, we have the hardest to do science of them all....We face particular problems and must deal with local conditions that limit generalizations and theory -building—problems that are different from those faced by the easier-to-do sciences. (Berliner, 2002)

 This whole concept of the messiness of the social sciences has been really hitting me this week (thanks to my coursework and my work work).  The good work of figuring out how to best help people learn is such a challenging endeavor that we might just never figure "it" out because "it" is different in every situation, for every student, for every task and developmental stage.  That is part of what makes teaching such a great thing to do-- it is challenging, rewarding, fun, and you never arrive.  You just always try to get better.  I am still trying to come to grips with what this means for me as an educational researcher.  Because of the messiness of it all, it seems almost silly to hang my hat on any one question (for a dissertation).  I thrive on dealing with dozens of questions a day-- how will I focus on one (or a couple) questions for over a year, or more?

Perhaps part of the answer to that quandary lies in the essence of "local conditions".  What are some local conditions about which I could contribute to a group's collective understanding of how to make things better?  Schools trying to serve a public purpose? Schools involved in a consortium of online learning?  All of these are specific, local issues that defy generalizations, but still could be meaningful (and somewhat generalizable) environments to be able to say more about.