Future Of: Learning
FutureOf is a series of events dedicated to discussing how our interests and industries will be shaped in the future. These aren’t talks, they are conversations. Kind of like TED Talks, only you can talk back.
On a Tuesday evening in early May, a group of eager professionals of varying ages gathered in the very cozy and immaculately curated quarters of Adelaide Street’s Tokyo Smoke to discuss the future of learning.
“Entrepreneurs are interesting learners, they learn very quickly; they learn to survive.” — Aislinn
Aislinn Malszecki, a strategist on the entrepreneurship programs team at MaRS, kicked off the conversation with this quote: “Entrepreneurs are interesting learners, they learn very quickly; they learn to survive.” Launching into a discussion of future AR and VR technologies, what classrooms would look like if they weren’t pedagogical autocracies, and why educational systems should prioritize the personalization of learning, Aislinn led the group through a vision of the future where learning is not just more immersive, but also more experimental.
Right now, Aislinn explained, we think about artificial intelligence devices as robots that can perform menial tasks and will likely integrate into the labour market over the next few years. But what if they could help us establish new, non-linear ways of learning? What if advanced technology could assist us with our lifelong journey of education and self-understanding?
Most of us agreed. “Our education system is set up for a society that is evaporating,” explained Aislinn. If we’re moving from a labour and service-based market to an innovative idea economy, these systems need to be able to adapt. We need to leverage the technologies we’re building in order to bring our systems of learning into the present and the future.
People are messy, they’re creative. Why can’t our systems of learning be too?
It’s time for the new generation of educators to step in and offer purpose-based, community-supported, personalized learning techniques that rely on (and therefore trust) algorithms and other technologies to facilitate — hopefully turning schools (and offices, for that matter) into creative makerspaces and hubs for innovation.
If this happens, perhaps we’ll learn to love learning again.
