Futurology

It is somewhat ironic to be behind the times with respect to the 'Beyond Current Horizons project', but I didn't realise that the paper that I wrote with Victoria Carrington for the 'Knowledge, creativity and communication' strand of this project, 'Forms of literacy' was available online yet - I came across it when I was looking for something else. It was a fun paper to write - we were given the brief to think about how literacy might change in the next 10 - 20 years. These kinds of futurology activities are notoriously innacurate but can raise points for reflection about the way in which elements of the present context may or may not shape the future. That's what I found of most interest in the Beyond Current Horizon project and I recommend reading Carey Jewitt's succinct overview of the trends outlined in the papers in the 'Knowledge, creativity and communication' strand.

2020 and beyond

Envisioning the future is always risky and so I admire Nesta Futurelab for attempting to do just that in their report '2020 and beyond'. They offer some fascinating thoughts on what might lie ahead in terms of technologies and discuss the implications for education. Lots of food for thought. I was a little dismayed, however, to read on page 25 that I might have to don 3D glasses in order to get my furniture flatpack up – I always hated those 3D glasses we had in the 60s and 70s (they made me feel travel sick) and I would have liked them to have disappeared down history lane. Anyhow, I am hoping in the hyper-techno future that IKEA will sell robots that you can take home in order to put their impossible furniture up.