Knowledgeworks Foundation Maps the Future

January 11, 2007 2:44 PM

The Knowledgeworks Foundation in Ohio has joined forces with The Institute for the Future to create an "Education Map of the Decade," a fascinating look at "the forces affecting education and our economy"

The map seems to predict promise and peril in almost equal measure. On the one hand, it foresees a "watershed democratization of learning" fueled by technology. On the other, it anticipates growing threats to the learning of children in poverty as the "market-based learning economy" continues to take hold.

The map presents a pretty complicated terrain: it lays out multiple trends and external forces that might well shape the direction of public education, but it does not present any particular narrative of the future. Rather, it's a tool that allows its users to to project multiple possibilities for the coming decade. The bottom line: We are facing very profound changes that might fundamentally alter public schools as we know them. It is our task as educators to create the best possible future under these conditions.

Check out the map here. It's not very easy to navigate at first, but the Knowledgeworks Website provides lots of helpful resources to get you started.