Presentation
Imagining Canada's Future
Stephen Downes, Nov 17, 2015, SSHRC Fall Conference: Imagining Canada's Future, Ottawa, Ontario

Talk I gave at SSHRC's Fall Forum called Imaging Canada's Future. No slides for this one; I worked off a set of notes. I introduced some overall thoughts about talking about the future, described some of the 'same old ways' we think about the future and meeting future needs, and then suggests that what we should really be learning from the 21st century is that knowledge is complex, fluid, changing, and not usefully described in terms of rules, facts, principles, and outcomes. To support this I quoted from a number of the presentations attendees had just seen, including one showing that we learn language by 'learning the rhythm', and another showing that spatial skills are the best predictor of mathematical ability.

[Link] [Audio]