The Future Matters

​Shameless plug - registration and the call for presenters is now open for our 25th Annual Technology Conference.

​As I think back to that first conference 25 years ago, I can still remember having each participant grasp long strings of yarn to introduce the radically innovative concept of being connected to a network. There was this brand new thing called the World Wide Web and something called Mosaic would soon make its debut as the first graphical browser.
Just as it was difficult then to imagine the changes that the world would see over the next 25 years, it is not possible to know what the next 25 years will bring. I do feel fairly safe in predicting that the amount of information and the rate of digitalization will only increase. As @jcasap pointed out this past week at the TASA Midwinter Conference, that brand new iPhone X is the oldest technology my grandchildren will ever know.
Another important point Jaime made was that the education system is not broken - it worked for the thousands of administrators in the room, and it was his own personal vehicle out of poverty. What has changed, and continues to change is the digitalization of the context in which education takes place. Organizations like ISTE and movements such as Future Ready Schools and Education Reimagined provide powerful frameworks for the systemic changes needed to adapt to the changing context.
It's also important to remember that the future is not some nebulous time that will eventually come - it is here. right. now. @lgracey does a presentation called The Future is Now - she will be presenting it this week at #TCEA19 - where she emphasizes that many of the technological and societal changes we think of as futuristic are already here - we can't afford to wait to begin preparing learners.
Within each of our circles of influence - classroom, campus, PLN, whatever spheres we work in - we must do what we can to develop the capacities of the learners we influence to adapt to a future that is already here.