Listening to all the news this week about the CES 2014 got me a little excited. Hearing about operating systems and internet connected cars, new 3-D visual, 3-D printing, and wearable gadgets of all sorts got me thinking about how all this technology will impact learning. CES 2014 took the concept of ubiquitous computing to a new level with vendors unveiling wearable gadgets that do all sorts of fancy things like monitor you physical state, sleep patterns, temperature, location, etc. So what does this mean for learning professionals? I don’t know yet. I imagine however that a few things are clear about the future of learning…

PREDICTION 1

The term “Knowledge” is due for a new definition. I think knowledge traditionally is almost synonymous with data. However in the “information connected” world, knowing capitals of cities, long math formulas, or dates in history are not great indicators of knowledge. Knowledge in the future will be less about facts and more about “know-how” — knowing how access, organize, apply, and leverage data. Everyone will have access to information and the facts and in the future knowledge will be more about what you do with

PREDICTION 2

Learning industry will focus on information organization systems and schema rather than learning management systems. I think this goes a step beyond content curation. Learning professionals will have create experiences for learners to something with all that data I mentioned in prediction 1. We will have make sure learners get the right information at the right time and we will have to figure out the best schema for organizing data so that the learner can access it when the need to apply it. The we will have to help learners know how to identify good sources of data and to know when they shoudl question the data they recieve.

PREDICTION 3

The English language will continue to evolve to accommodate our new behaviors and expressions due to technology. #selfie #hashtag #Googling #mooc #curation #refollow #phablet #bitcoin #retweet #twerk (just kidding)

What do you think? What emerging technology do you think is going to change the learning industry? Do you think we are already there? Is the future already here?