SHIFT HAPPENS

The video Shift Happens, created by Karl Fisch, and modified by Scott McLeod; Globalization and The Information Age is a excellent introduction to the changing paradigms of today's world. 

There is a great deal of information about population dyanamics, technological advancement and the changes in communication that our students currently face and continue to deal with in the future.  The most telling stat that I tend to direct students attention to is the number of job changes that most people will go through as technology and the job market will be in a constant state of flux well into the future.  The ability to learn, unlearn and relearn will be the most valuable skill students will need to develop as they will be in a constant state of adjustment as jobs change, are replaced by technological advances and allocated throughout a global economy.

It is also important for educators to understand that we are preparing students for a world that we cannot predict and  for jobs and technologies that have not yet been invented.  Therefore, the one skill we can prepare them with, is the ability to LEARN.

Shift Happens is great conversation starter. Some of the questions I use based upon the students I am working with include:

• What are your initial reactions to what you saw in the presentation?
• How do you see these changes is your own lives? personally? as a student?
• What are the most important skills students will need to move into this type of future?
• How does this change the way schools should be doing things? teachers? students?
• How can educators prepare you for a future that we can not predict?
• What support mechanisms will you need as you move forward?
• Do these concepts create fears, worries, apprehensions for you? Why?
• What does this type of change mean for us socially? 
• Does this future create an impersonal world?
• How will mankind maintain the speed of life that is created, almost demanded with this type of technology?
• How will this type of technology affect adaptations in our evolutionary progress as humans?
• What further developments lie on the horizon?
• Is there anything left to invent?

Fo more information on Shift Happens go to Change Agency.