What the Future is Bringing Us (2015)



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 * (2004) Information and Communication Technology (ICT) planning document developed by David Moursund. The goal was to facilitate the development of a sequence of 1-credit (quarter hour system) graduate-level joint preservice and inservice courses to be taught at the University of Oregon.


 * (2000 to 2003) Golden Oldie News Oct-December 2000 up through Jan-March 2003. These materials were moved from an old Oregon Technology Education Council (OTEC) site developed by David Moursund. Most of the links in the referenced articles no longer work.


 * (1987 Futuristic Math Education Scenarios).


 * (1974 to 2001) All of David Moursund's editorials published in Learning and Leading with Technology from its inception in 1974 until he retired from ISTE in 2001.

BigDog is a rough-terrain robot built by Boston Dynamics that walks, runs, climbs and carries heavy loads. BigDog is powered by an engine that drives a hydraulic actuation system. BigDog has four legs that are articulated like an animal’s, with compliant elements to absorb shock and recycle energy from one step to the next. BigDog is the size of a large dog or small mule; about 3 feet long, 2.5 feet tall and weighs 240 lbs. See more pictures of social robots at http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=pictures+social+robots&qpvt=pictures+social+robots&qpvt=pictures+social+robots&FORM=IQFRML.



See MIT's Electric Cheetah Robot video at http://www.engadget.com/2014/09/15/mit-darpa-cheetah-robot/.



The Cray-2 supercomputer was the world's fastest supercomputer until 1990. But even with a performance of up to 1.9 GFLOPS, the liquid-cooled, 200-kilowatt machine ranks behind a number of "modern" portable, battery-powered Smart phones when it comes to GFLOPS ratings.

Year 2015 Table of Contents



 * "All education springs from some image of the future. If the image of the future held by a society is grossly inaccurate, its education system will betray its youth." (Alvin Toffler; American writer and futurist; born October 3, 1928.)


 * "Don't worry about what anybody else is going to do. The best way to predict the future is to invent it. Really smart people with reasonable funding can do just about anything that doesn't violate too many of Newton's Laws!" (Alan Kay; American computer scientist and educator; born May 17, 1940.)

Introduction
All of education is future oriented. Through informal and formal education, students are being prepared for their futures. Of course, a major goal of education is to preserve and pass on the culture, values, history, and so on from the past. Ideally, this is done in a manner that helps prepare students for their futures as members of local, regional, national, and world societies.

Technology Forecasting Quoting from Wikipedia:


 * Primarily, a technological forecast deals with the characteristics of technology, such as levels of technical performance, like speed of a military aircraft, the power in watts of a particular future engine, the accuracy or precision of a measuring instrument, the number of transistors in a chip in the year 2015, etc. The forecast does not have to state how these characteristics will be achieved.




 * If a decision maker has several alternatives open to him, he will choose among them on the basis of which provides him with the most desirable outcome. Thus his decision is inevitably based on a forecast. His only choice is whether the forecast is obtained by rational and explicit methods, or by intuitive means.

Forecasting is an important field of study and of human intellectual endeavor. Continuing to quote from the Wikipedia page cited above: "The virtue of the use of explicit methods is that they can be reviewed by others, and can be checked for consistency. Furthermore, the forecast can be reviewed at any subsequent time. Technology forecasting is not imagination."

Special Message for Teachers Consider establishing a "futures" time period each week, in which you engage your students in an exploration of possible futures they will live in and how the subject(s) you are teaching are helping to prepare them for these possible futures. One way to do this is to select a topic from this year's list, or other annual lists published on this website. Engage students in a discussion of what they know about the topic. Perhaps point them to some material to read. Engage them in a discussion of how the content you are teaching fits in with preparing them for life in a world in which the forecasts on this website may well come true.

Another approach is to encourage your students to bring in hard copy materials and Web links that contain forecasts of the future. Each week a different small team of students could assume responsibility for leading the weekly "futures" session.

Still another approach is to raise the following question with your students near the beginning of any new unit of study: "What changes are going on around the world that are having a major impact on this unit of study?" The idea is to emphasize change and the understanding that you are helping your students to get an education that prepares them for a changing world.

Teachers working with students may also be interested in having the students research and report on one or more "futures predictions" from 5 to 10 years ago, or perhaps when they were in first grade, or the year they were born, and so on. They can find out which predictions have become part of our world today and which ones failed to materialize, and why or why not in each case.

Looking Forward
This section contains relatively recent forecasts of future technology that are important to our current and future educational systems. For the most part, the newest entries are at the top of this section.

Cloud Computing
Quoting from http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2372163,00.asp:


 * In the simplest terms, cloud computing means storing and accessing data and programs over the Internet instead of your computer's hard drive. The cloud is just a metaphor for the Internet.

Cloud computing is a major change agent in the field of Information and Communication Technology and a multi-billion dollar industry.


 * Kharif, Olga (8/29/2015). How to jump from cloud to cloud. Bloomberg Businessweek. Retrieved 8/30/2015 from http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-27/switching-cloud-providers-standards-sought-for-container-software.

This article provides some insight into the massiveness of adoption of cloud computing. It also provides a forecast about efforts to provide standards in this industry that will make it easier for customers to change from provider to provider. Quoting from the article:

In 2010, when Netflix was still early into its shift from DVD rentals to online movies and shows, it started using Amazon.com’s data centers. Video streaming’s popularity was growing fast, and Amazon Web Services, the retailer’s cloud computing division, had the capacity to handle the load. Now that Netflix streams 100 million-plus hours of video every day, it’s sticking with Amazon partly because of Amazon’s scale and features, and partly because switching vendors “would be a significant multiyear effort,” says Yury Izrailevsky, Netflix’s vice president for cloud and platform engineering.

…

To address compatibility concerns, the Linux Foundation and two industry groups have begun working on common standards. Amazon and Microsoft are leading the Open Container Initiative, founded in June. The Cloud Native Computing Foundation, formed in July by companies including Google, IBM, Intel, EBay, and AT&T, is focusing on orchestration software. “By putting together this community and creating a common environment, we hope to open up the ability to run in a multicloud world,” says Craig McLuckie, a group product manager at Google.

Education is a Complex, Multi-variable Endeavor
It is easy to come up with ideas about how to improve our educational system. However, most people who propose ways to improve our educational system do not seem understand how complex the system is, and how the various aspects of the system interact with each other.

The following article provides some insight into this challenge.


 * Sifferlin, Alexandra (September 7-14, 2015). How to make schools better for kids. Time. Retrieved 8/30/2014 from http://time.com/4011265/marijuana-brain-volume/.

This short article make seven suggestions:


 * 1) Ditch traditional homework.
 * 2) Make recess mandatory.
 * 3) Screen (all) kids for mental illness.
 * 4) Prioritize diversity.
 * 5) Turn discipline into dialogue.
 * 6) Let students customize their curricula.
 * 7) Start classes after 8:30 a.m.

Each of these ideas has research support. However, the appropriate integration of all of these ideas, along with many other suggestions about how to improve education, has not been studied in an integrated fashion.

IBM Announces Breakthrough in Chip Technology

 * Neuman, S. (7/9/2015). IBM announces breakthrough in chip technology. NPR. Retrieved 7/24/2015 from http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/07/09/421477061/ibm-announces-breakthrough-in-chip-technology.

The width of the "lines" in chips has systematically decreased over the years. IBM has just announced that it has produced "a prototype chip with transistors that are just 7 nanometers wide, or about 1/10,000th the width of a human hair. The smallest transistors currently in use are twice as big."

The article indicates that commercial production of these chips—containing 20 million transistors in a fingernail-sized chip—is at least two years away.

Some 2025 Technology Predictions

 * Cava, M (4/16/2015). 2025 Tech Predictions Both Thrilling and Scary. USA Today. Retrieved 4/16/2015 from http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2015/04/16/2025-tech-predictions-thrilling-and-scary-data-ubiquity-security-concerns/25740105/.

This article draws on a report from the Institute for the Future: Information Generation: Transforming the Future Today. An Executive Summary of that report is available as a free PDF at http://www.emc.com/information-generation/resources/IFTF_EMC_InformationGeneration_ExecutiveSummaryReport.pdf.

Quoting from the article:


 * The institute's report identifies five "key directional shifts" in the coming decade.


 * The first is the information economy, which will find the data we generate from workouts and shopping sprees either being securely cached at our directive or else sold, donated or traded for financial or social gain.


 * Commerce in the data arena will be able to do everything from literally enrich us to helping society at large via the secure transfer of genomic data.


 * Related in many ways is the second shift, which will find a mushrooming army of connected devices – from cars to toasters – that will relay information and trends to each other and, via the Internet, the companies that manufacture them.

Future of MOOCS
While the hype about Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCS) has decreased, they are gradually becoming a regular component of higher education. The following article provides a short summary of the situation:


 * Kolowich, S. (4/10/2015). How 'elite' universities are using online education. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved 4/11/2015 from http://m.chronicle.com/article/How-Elite-Universities/229233.

The article notes that "Despite their flagging hype, MOOCs remain very popular. Top institutions will probably continue to build them."

Possible Futures of Education
During the past year Information Age Education has published 22 newsletters on various aspects of the future of education. These are all available free online in the complete collection of IAE newsletters. In addition, Education for Students’ Futures, a free book containing these 22 newsletters is available online.


 * PDF file.
 * Microsoft Word file.

Jobs and Robots
The capabilities of robots are steadily increasing. This topic is explored in the following IAE Blog entry:


 * Moursund, D. (2/13/2015). Robots are here and lots more are coming. IAE Blog. Retrieved 4/10/2015 from http://i-a-e.org/iae-blog/entry/robots-are-here-and-lots-more-are-coming.html.

Personal Computers and Health
We are living during a major trend of replacing hired personnel by a combination of computer technology and education of users so that they can make effective use of the technology. In banking, for example, we have long had machines for the deposit and withdrawal of money. In grocery stores we now have computerized machines so customers can scan their purchases for self-checkout. In medicine we have had thermometers, pedometers, blood pressure measuring devices, blood-sugar measurements, and so on for a long time.

We can play computer games designed to help maintain and/or increase our mental capabilities. See [http://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/mayo-clinic-computer-use-helps-keep-aging-brains-sharp/ Mayo Clinic: Computers use helps keep aging brains sharp. ] See the IAE Blog entry Does brain training work? for a general discussion of use of computer games in braining training.

Institute for the Future's Ten-year Forecasts
Each year the Institute for the Future holds a conference in which it presents and discusses 10-year forecasts. The 2014 forecasts presented at their May 1-2, 2014 conference are available at http://www.iftf.org/our-work/global-landscape/ten-year-forecast/2014-ten-year-forecast/. Quoting their website:


 * The 2014 Ten-Year Forecast Annual Retreat explored the landscape of change over the next decade by inviting attendees to contemplate ten projects that—if successfully undertaken today—could change the paradigm in their fields in the next ten years. These bold projects are already taking shape in the dark underside of the internet, in the foundations of our global cities, in the no-man’s land of our prisons, and in the microbes of our bodies and our planet. They are rapidly recoloring our world.

Very Far Future Forecasts
Timeline for the Far Future is a Wikipedia entry containing some very far future forecasts. Quoting from the website:


 * While predictions of the future can never be absolutely certain, present scientific understanding in various fields has allowed a projected course for the farthest future events to be sketched out, if only in the broadest strokes. These fields include astrophysics, which has revealed how planets and stars form, interact, and die; particle physics, which has revealed how matter behaves at the smallest scales; evolutionary biology, which predicts how life will evolve over time; and plate tectonics, which shows how continents shift over millennia.




 * The timelines displayed here cover events from roughly eight thousand years from now to the farthest reaches of future time. A number of alternate future events are listed to account for questions still unresolved, such as whether humans will become extinct, whether protons decay, or whether Earth will survive the Sun's expansion into a red giant.

A New Form of Computer Memory

 * Simonite, T. (12/30/2014). New Form of Memory Could Advance Brain-Inspired Computers. MIT Technology review. Retrieved 5/26/2015 from http://www.technologyreview.com/news/533526/new-form-of-memory-could-advance-brain-inspired-computers/.

Quoting from the article:


 * Researchers at IBM used what’s known as phase-change memory to build a device that processes data in a way inspired by the workings of a biological brain. Using a prototype phase-change memory chip, the researchers configured the system to act like a network of 913 neurons with 165,000 connections, or synapses, between them. The strength of those connections change as the chip processes incoming data, altering how the virtual neurons influence one another. By exploiting that property, the researchers got the system to learn to recognize handwritten numbers.


 * Phase-change memory is expected to hit the market in the next few years. It can write information more quickly, and pack it more densely, than the memory used in computers today.