The Future of Work

this bit of research on the Gartner site; while it dates back to August has some interesting speculation about the Future of Work.
“People will swarm more often and work solo less. They’ll work with others with whom they have few links, and teams will include people outside the control of the organization,”
“In addition, simulation, visualization and unification technologies, working across yottabytes of data per second, will demand an emphasis on new perceptual skills.”
-       Tom Austin, Vice President and Gartner Fellow
Gartner points out that the world of work will probably witness ten major changes in the next ten years. Interesting in that it will change how learning happens in the workplace as well. The eLearning industry will need to account for the coming change and have a strategy in place to deal with the changes.

via upsidelearning.com

So much of this applies as much to teaching and learning possibilities.
"De-routinization" of work (or teaching) could return to autonomy to teachers, already implied in Downes. Work swarms and teaming fit in at PLENK 2010 but seem less likely candidates for the entrenched academic mind.
And on down the list. Just because it could happen doesn't mean it will though.

Posted via email from Meanderings

Class dismissed

Adjunct blogger, David Ruccio teaches economics, blogs ~ links, excepts, keen commentary thereon, invariably illustrated to perfection ~ and never fails to come with the best of images: art, photos (frequently of public art), cartoons, graphics, illustrations, sketches, charts,and so on. I may be a lit person. but most of the blogs I reach for (figuratively speaking) are by historians or economists. David's is worth following for either copy or images alone ~ both is a twofer treat ...

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Class dismissed via occasional links & commentary by David Ruccio on 11/5/10

In the brave new world of the cost-cutting corporate university, students can stay in their pajamas and earn course credits. Right in their dorm rooms, by viewing on-line courses.


It may not be learning. Or learning much. But students are able to accumulate course credits, and therefore consume what the new corporate university is supplying.


The New York Times reports that universities are teaching thousands of students who never have to step foot in a classroom to earn course credits in Economics, Spanish, Psychology, and so on. And they're not the usual distance-learning students, students who for some time have been offered the opportunity to purchase the education commodity without setting foot on a college or university campus. No, these are on-campus students who, because of budget-cuts, are being forced to purchase course credits by taking-on-line courses.


A single professor, sitting in an office (at home or on campus) can "teach" thousands of students, many more than can fit in a lecture hall, via a relatively simple computer hook-up. Students stay in their rooms, without ever meeting the professor or other students in the course, and attempt to learn the material via on-line lectures and exams.


On-line education represents a fundamental change both in the labor process (it is a form of speed-up) and in the commodity being produced (since one of the distinctive features of consuming the commodity higher education is that students have to work—alone, with the professor, and with other students—to realize the use-value of learning).
It is the future of higher education—and the end of the university as we have known it.

explaining the profession

One view of how it looks from the inside, at least among the tracked and tenured...

"College professors take a lot of heat from the general public, and we deserve much of what we get; and humanities professors get the worst of it. And arguably, English professors the worst of that: we represent, apparently, the absolute nadir of contemporary culture.

I said that to some degree we deserve it; what I did not say, you’ll notice, is that it’s true. Untrue, but we deserve it? Well, yes: I think that college professors as a group, and English professors as a high-visibility (and high-risibility) subset, have done a terrible job of explaining just what it is that we do, and actively countering the most pernicious caricatures of our work that circulate in the larger culture."

Read the rest of The Tender-Hearted Professor at the fake chinese rubber plant blog

Organizing for Power, Organizing for Change

Lisa Fithian has been working for nonviolent social change since the mid 1970’s. A student, labor and community organizer on a broad range of issues over the years, she writes,

"I am so glad you found this website, Organizing for Power, Organizing for Change. It’s full of information, resources, photos, stories and more from past movements, campaigns and actions. I hope it will be useful to you as an organizer, student, activist, journalist or researcher.

This website is based on the notes I use for training. They reflect lessons from 35 years of organizing. I feel very privileged for all the opportunities I’ve had to learn. Weaving together work within and between the student, environmental, labor, immigrant, anti-war and global justice grassroots movements has made me a very wealthy woman (not financially unfortunately!).

These training notes are now divided up onto tabs corresponding to what I call the “building blocks” for change."

Read more at Organizing for Power, Organizing for Change

BYOP: CAW Survey video on ExtraNormal

Today opens the 2nd (and last) month for taking the CAW Survey. Don't let it stall midway through. If you haven't already, take it now. 20,000 have, but there are millions of us. Millions minus 20,000 slackers and procrastinators. Don't be one. Do you need a ribbon, a badge or a gold star?



Video heads up courtesy of AFTFACE. Please share ~ re-blog, forward, backlink, bookmark, review, vote for it on BuzzFlash, like and share on Facebook, and so on. Do you need a tutorial? That can be arranged.