Exploiting emerging technologies to enable employability quality of life

George SiemensJuly 8, 2015

HERDSA2015Melbourne

The ‘new’ workPerpetual learningMindsets of individualsEmerging technologiesThe changing higher education landscape

The ‘new’ workPerpetual learningMindsets of individualsEmerging technologiesThe changing higher education landscape

McKinsey Quarterly, 2012

Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, The Economics Daily, Largest industries by state, 1990–2013 http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2014/ted_20140728.htm .

Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, The Economics Daily, Largest industries by state, 1990–2013 http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2014/ted_20140728.htm .

Australia’s future workforce? (2015)

Enrolment: “perfect storm of challenges ahead”

University Business, January 2015

“If the ladder of educational opportunity rises high at the doors of some youth and scarcely rises at the doors of others, while at the same time formal education is made a prerequisite to occupational and social advance, then education may become the means, not of eliminating race and class distinctions, but of deepening and solidifying them.”

President Truman, 1947

Income inequality: “The defining challenge of our time”

Pell Institute, 2015

Technological change is the engine of economic growth. Yet, it also has a potentially dark side. We do not mean pollution, crowding, and other disamenities. Rather we mean that technological change creates winners and losers and can sometimes have adverse distributional consequences that may foment social tension

“The contingent faculty trend appears to mirror trends in the general labor market toward a flexible, ‘just-in-time’ workforce, with lower compensation and unpredictable schedules for what were once considered middle-class jobs”

(House Committee on Education and the Workforce US House of Representatives 2014)

40.4% of US workforce are now in non-traditional “contingent” jobs

US Government Accountability Office Contingent Workforce: Size, Characteristics, Earnings, and Benefits (2015)

US Government Accountability Office Contingent Workforce: Size, Characteristics, Earnings, and Benefits (2015)

Australia’s future workforce? (2015)

“35% of existing UK jobs at high risk of replacement in next twenty years, 30% in London

40% of UK jobs are low or no risk, 51% in London

Lower-paid jobs over five times more likely to be replaced than higher-paid, almost eight times as likely in London”

Deloitte 2014

No correlation between automation and job loss in manufacturing sector. Indications are that use of robots increases wages and demand of skilled workers, while crowding out unskilled.

Graetz & Michaels

“First, as technology substitutes for labour, there is a destruction effect, requiring workers to reallocate their labour supply; and second, there is the capitalisation effect, as more companies enter industries where productivity is relatively high, leading employment in those industries to expand.”

Frey & Osborne (2013)

Frey & Osborne (2013)

Australia’s future workforce? (2015)

NY Times: How the recession reshaped the economy (2014)

The new economy

The ‘new’ workPerpetual learningMindsets of individualsEmerging technologiesThe changing higher education landscape

Learning a living

(The Learning Economy)

The ‘new’ workPerpetual learningMindsets of individualsEmerging technologiesThe changing higher education landscape

Mindsets

Focus MindfulnessComplexity & ambiguityBeing humanAdvances in art, quality of lifeComputational/mathematic/data thinkingEntrepreneurialExperimental

Harvard General Education

Prepares students for civic engagement.

Teaches students to understand themselves as products of—and participants in—traditions of art, ideas, and values.

Prepares students to respond critically and constructively to change.

Develops students’ understanding of the ethical dimensions of what they say and do.

Report of the Task Force on General Education: Harvard University (2007)

The ‘new’ workPerpetual learningMindsets of individualsEmerging technologiesThe changing higher education landscape

Self-regulated, self-selected, self-directed learning

Social media, MOOCs, community knowledge spaces

Wearables, Ambient, VR, IoT

The ‘new’ workPerpetual learningMindsets of individualsEmerging technologiesThe changing higher education landscape

Complexification of higher education

Learning needs are complex, ongoing

Simple singular narrative won’t suffice going forward

The idea of the university (and learning) is expanding and diversifying

Because we will frequently change employment and interests

we need a flexible education system

The future will have more, not less, universities

Transition our relationship with students

From 4 yours to 40 years

Personalized learning models

Keller Plan (Personalized System of Instruction)Static learner profile (old school)Objective based (adaptivecourseware)Intelligent tutors (CMU OLI, cognitive tutor, ALEKS)Personalized (outer-loop, i.e. Knewton)Smart Sparrow (teacher at center)

Smart Courses

Missions not majors

Stanford 2025

Concluding hypothesis

The next several decades will alter work and life, undoing impact of industrialization and returning individuals to work/life integration and quality of life.

We will all become perpetual learners, creatives, entrepreneurs, authors of humanity’s future.