People will look at old Dilbert comics in 50 years and will no longer understand why they are funny. The word “nerd” will simply be a “funny arcane word” like the word “flapper”. In this presentation we look past the time where technology was the domain of the elite few and instead technology skills become basic skills that all educated people must posses. We will look at how a completely new set of courses, curricula, books and teaching methods are needed to reach the point where we all possess necessary technology skills. Examples will be drawn from the new undergraduate Informatics program at the University of Michigan as well as the graduate programs in the School of Information.
The presentation will be a very out-of-the box look at how we need to take technology and move it into the mainstream so we need to revise the old saying to be “reading, writing, and technology”. The examples and topics covered will range from the practical and pragmatic design of real courses, books and curricula to the more fanciful imaginary long-term transformation in education that I feel must and will take place over the next 50 years. It should be interesting.
I submitted this abstract to the Merlot/Moodle Moot conference in July.