Required Readings:
Beyond Technology: The End of the Job and the Beginning of Digital Work.  By Alan C. November.  A brief synopsis of current issues regarding "jobs" and the ways education must deal with the workplace of the future, from one of the first Christa McAuliffe Award winners and a leading educational consultant.

Education and Community: Four Scenarios for the Future of Public Education.  Commissioned by the NEA, the Global Business Network, a leading "non-denominational" thinktank, came up with four scenarios on what education (and society in general) might be like in the United States a decade into the new millenium.  This document gives a wonderful synopsis of the concept of scenario planning and brings up some interesting issues to ponder.

Supplemental Readings:
Technology and Education: Future Visions.  This is a publication of the Office of Technology Assessment, which is now defunct (thanks alot, Congress!).  The report contains several scenarios for the future of education based on technology's impact.  It also includes a great deal of basic research findings.  This is a .pdf file; you will need the Adobe Acrobat reader to view this.  Click here to get Acrobat Reader. 

Edgier Cities.  Joel Garreau's follow-up picture of a Brave New World based on his findings from Edge City, his best known work on the outer urban environments of the 70's and 80's.  An interesting and provacative article originally published in Wired magazine. 

Wondertree and Virtual High Learning Community.  Okay, so this isn't really a scene from the future, but it is probably a good example of what education could (should?) be like in the future.  It's actually an amazing place, or so I've been told.  I hope to visit there on my next trip out to the West coast.  Wondertree is a community centered high school in Vancouver, BC, and is also home of Virtual High. 

The End of the Job.  An article which first appeared in Fortune magazine, it is an intriguing piece on the concept of "job" as social artifact.  Perhaps more intriguing is that fact that this actually appeared in Fortune magazine.  Here at UM, you can use MIRLYN (our library system) to print copies of this article using the Core Journals Project.  From the Sept. 14, 1996 issue of Fortune, written by William Bridges, author of Job Shifts. 

The Future Isn't What It Used To Be.  This is a handout/short reading by David Thornburg, an educational consultant and speaker on issues of technology in education.  If you ever get a chance to see him, do it!  His site is a great source on issues of the future of education and how technology might play a role in this. Another Acrobat file.  Click here to get the Acrobat Reader.

Education 2015.  This site is the product of a conference held at Bangor University in Wales in 1994 to discuss what learning in the future might look like.  You'll need some extra bandwidth for this site... it consists of many movies and recordings made at the conference.  An interesting site...