(Fwd) KnowledgeWorks Foundation 2020 Forecast: January Update

Happy New Year everyone..... this outfit usually puts out really good info. There are several links in
the newsletter that you may find some value in.

Cheers!

jeff miller
indianapolis

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Subject: KnowledgeWorks Foundation 2020 Forecast: January Update
From: "KnowledgeWorks Foundation" <EducationMap@kwfdn.org>
Send reply to: "KnowledgeWorks Foundation" <EducationMap@kwfdn.org>
To: <jeff@inleadsol.com>
Date sent: Tue, 6 Jan 2009 09:07:24 -0500

KnowledgeWorks Foundation 2020 Forecast:
January Update
Dear Friends -
Happy New Year from KnowledgeWorks Foundation! After describing so many dilemmas
facing our society in our last update, we want to make this month's news full of the promise of
the New Year. So grab a mug of something warm and enjoy our first update of 2009.
This month's focus is on the ways in which the economy will change over the next ten years.
And the news is good. Though we are facing a recession and volatility now, the availability of
new design technologies might change all of that. Websites that offer product customization
mean that anyone can produce personalized goods. Lightweight fabrication equipment, such
as 3-D printers, is available for purchase or rental, and will eventually be cheap enough for
home models. Social networks allow artists and tinkerers to share ideas and improve upon
ideas.
There are abundant opportunities to reinvent learning and teaching in light of the economy of
the future. If our students can create new things easily and give life to their ideas, they can
engage in experiential, tangible learning activities that let them play with, experiment on,
manipulate, and hold in their hands the products of their labor. Hands-on, authentic learning
promises to enable students to make meaning out of previously boring and abstract lessons.
The 2020 Forecast proposes that these new technologies and new ways of approaching
learning will give rise to new abilities. Students will naturally engage in more processes of
creativity and innovation, deepening essential problem-solving skills. They will leverage their
considerable skills in online communication to collaborate on projects with real results, and
perhaps discover new interests along the way. They will become creators of knowledge
instead of just consumers. They are going to do this whether we teach them to do so or leave
them to their generation's devices, but if we take advantage of these opportunities and guide
them, today´s students will embody the entrepreneurial spirit that can drive our economy to
unprecedented levels of prosperity.
This new economy will not be organized around the assembly lines that served as the model
for the factory schools of the 20th century. What kind of school organization can we envision
as the appropriate model for the new economy of customized goods made in small shops by
networks of artisans?
This past holiday season, many Americans were busy buying gifts for each other, but
tomorrow's learners will be able to buy, borrow, or make them. The sneak preview of this new
driver of change, the Maker Economy, will be expanded upon on our blog shortly. Stay with us!

KnowledgeWorks Foundation brings you this monthly update on the
progress of our work to empower communities to improve education.
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KnowledgeWorks Foundation, 1 W. 4th St., Ste. 200, Cincinnati, OH 45202.
Copyright © 2008 KnowledgeWorks Foundation. Empowering Communities
to Improve Education.TM www.kwfdn.org - All Rights Reserved.

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