Predictions about the future of digital education are everywhere and it can be hard for educators, learners, parents, developers and policymakers to know how to respond. Futures thinking and futures methods have become increasingly important as a way of critically engaging with imagined, predicted and real technology developments in education.
This course gives you the opportunity to develop and use futures thinking skills to consider the trajectory and implications of digital technologies for the future of learning and education. We will ask: what predictions and promises are being made about the future of education? What emerging technologies are on the horizon in a range of fields and sectors, and what might they mean for education? How can we positively shape digital futures for education and learning?
The answers to these questions are highly context-dependent: the future of technology and education is volatile and it can change fast. For this reason, the course introduces and applies futures thinking and methods to three key themes, which are updated regularly to reflect emerging concepts and technologies. A significant part of the course is also structured around student-created and peer-reviewed Open Educational Resources. Each resource takes one of the themes or issues from the course as a jumping-off point for exploring what digital futures for learning might be like.
Keywords: Futures thinking; futures methods; digital innovation; future of learning; open educational resources
The course is divided into four blocks.
Block One involves becoming familiar with futures thinking and futures methods through reading, discussion and activities; and reading around the three core themes to consider and discuss ideas associated with each. These themes change regularly, but in previous years have included trust, resistance, representation, mess, failure, entanglement, privacy and surveillance, interfaces, participation, visibility and sustainability.
Blocks Two and Three are research, writing and Open Educational Resource (OER) development periods, supported by tutor feedback, tutorials and sharing insights and progress. During these weeks, you will choose your topic in discussion with your tutor, engage in research to develop a strong position on the topic as it relates to education futures, and gain experience of writing a position paper and creating an OER. OER production gives you the opportunity to consider how to translate your research and topic into an engaging, hands-on learning experience for others, create valuable materials that can be re-used after the course, and develop useful skills in open licensing and digital content creation.
The final block, Block Four, involves you in engaging with and evaluating the OERs of your peers, and synthesising the outcomes of your OER development for final submission. During this block the course themes come to life in unique ways, as each course participant shares what they have made and receives peer feedback to help improve and finalise their OER.
“My approach on this course is that of co-creation. Each time the course runs, the way that students interpret and imagine the future of learning becomes part of the shape of the course. In its design and its practice, Digital Futures for Learning refuses to pin the future down to a single vision or voice, and this is so important for keeping learning futures open, hopeful and impactful in the present.”
- Jen Ross, Course Organiser
The way this course is taught balances the development of new skills and insights, experiments with futures methods, and supports you to apply these to a topic you care about. Your learning will have an impact through the creation of an Open Educational Resource, which you can choose to share and make more widely available after the course ends. You’ll have a chance to become knowledgeable about your topic of focus, and engage in depth with the topics of your peers.
There are discussion spaces, including some live tutorials, and regular prompts to help you think about what you are reading and encountering, consider questions that really matter for the future of learning and education, and share ideas with peers. On this course we take time to think, and we co-create a space where we can collaboratively reflect and creatively respond to what can sometimes feel like a constant barrage of new technologies, demands and predictions.
There are two assignments in this course:
Position paper (40%):
You will write a position paper which extends the themes from Block 1 in a direction which is of personal or professional interest and relevance to you.
Open Educational Resource (60%: 50% tutor assessed, 10% self-assessed):
You will design, develop and present an Open Educational Resource for your peers, based on your position paper topic. You will receive formative feedback from peers, and have an opportunity to modify your Open Educational Resource and write a reflective commentary and allocate a self-assessment mark before final submission. The Open Educational Resource may be theoretical and exploratory, involve a critical perspective on a new technology or environment, or be a problem- or issue-based resource. It can use interactive elements, as well as textual, visual, audio or multimedia communication across a single or a range of environments. The main requirement of the resource is that it engages the rest of the class in considering, in a scholarly way, issues relevant to the course.
These assessments are intended to evaluate your understanding of futures thinking and the course themes. It is an opportunity for you to demonstrate that you can transform theoretical knowledge into a practical, coherent, and impactful artefact that you can – if you choose – share more widely. This can be a great way to have a broader impact on digital education.
On completion of the course, you will be able to:
- Critically analyse and situate new and emerging trends and technologies;
- Identify and conceptualise social, political and other factors influencing technological innovation in education;
- Critically engage with the potential of emerging technologies for learning;
- Demonstrate practical skill in the deployment of futures thinking for learning purposes.
Examples of Open Educational Resources created by students on this course: https://digitalfutures.de.ed.ac.uk.
Facer, K. (2016) ‘Using the Future in Education: Creating Space for Openness, Hope and Novelty’, in Lees, H. E. and Noddings, N. (eds) The Palgrave International Handbook of Alternative Education. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, pp. 63–78.
Pew reports on the Future of the Internet, Pew Research Center. http://www.pewinternet.org/topics/future-of-the-internet/ .
Houlden, S., & Veletsianos, G. (2022). Impossible Dreaming: On Speculative Education Fiction and Hopeful Learning Futures. Postdigital Science and Education. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-022-00348-7