The Future Isnt What is Used to Be ''

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The Future Isnt What is Used to Be ..

• 2006 Spirit of the North Conference
•    Northern Region Caucus of the
• Canadian Federation of Students
• Thunder Bay, Ontario
• November 11, 2006
•    
• Keynote Presentation
•      by
•    Stephen Murgatroyd, PhD
•          Research Associate, Contact
  North/Contact Nord

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Contact North/Contact Nord thanks Canadian
Federation of Students for the opportunity to
share some ideas about the future learning is
all of our future.

• Why not visit the Contact North/Contact Nord
  Access Centre in your community details on our
  website

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About Contact North/Contact Nord

• A unique collaborative network of 14 educational
  institutions who partner to deliver quality
  education and training through distance education
  throughout Northern Ontario
• CN/CN provides the e-learning and support
  infrastructure in 66 northern communities (with
  20 more being added with funding from the
  Government of Ontario as part of its historic
  6.2 billion investment in post-secondary
  education)
• Served some 5,000 individuals in 2005 with a wide
  range of courses and programs 600 full and
  part-time courses
• Recognized globally as a leader in synchronous
  distance education a leading user of integrated
  video, audio and web-based learning
• Supported by Ontario Ministries of Training,
  Colleges and Universities and Education
• Celebrating its 20th year of operation.

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What This Presentation Looks At..

• Six Challenges facing Canada
• Changing resources with which to tackle these
  challenges
• New roles for learning and organizations
• Challenges for students

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Six Challenges 1 Canadas Economic Challenge

• Economic prosperity in Canada looks to be strong
  and sustainable.
• It will be challenged by
• Shifts in commodity pricing gas, oil, wood
  products, minerals and changing demand for
  products and services
• The growth of the Brazilian, Russian, Indian,
  Chinese and other competing economies (known as
  the BRICs economies)
• Slowing of Canadas competitive position
  already in decline
• Shifting demographics which will lead to a shift
  in demand
• Low levels of Canadian productivity
• Low levels of investment in learning across
  Canada and by businesses
• Technological challenges to dominant industries
  which will test how nimble our firms and
  organizations are

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Six Challenges 2 Canadas Poor Record on
Innovation

• Canada is poor at innovation now ranked 18th
  out of 24 in innovation index and 33rd out of
  35th in patents/population
• Key challenges are
• Poor returns from public sector investments
  strong, world class research, poor
  commercialization
• Poor level of investment from private sector in
  RD both in terms of their own work and in terms
  of supporting public RD
• Insufficient number of highly qualified people in
  the workforce (6.4/10,000 versus 15/10,000 in
  Finland)
• Lack of focus for innovation we are a small
  country, we cannot do everything well we need
  to find our spots and really go for them
• Productivity weaknesses mean we need to do much
  more to encourage the adoption of best practices

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Six Challenges 3 Demographics

• Canada is heavily reliant on immigration to
  sustain our current standard of living we will
  need to target immigrant skills, fast track
  professional accreditation and increase the
  volumes
• Canada is engaged in a war for talent with
  other nations with similar demographic challenges
  (US, EU) and we need to do much more to attract
  and keep this talent requires investments in
  communities, arts and culture, health care
• Population will age, creating higher costs for
  social programs (especially health and security)
  and new challenges for our communities

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Six Challenges 4 Our Aboriginal Strategy

• Canada has yet to settle a series of land claims,
  honour treaty rights, act on agreements reached..
• Aboriginal youth fastest growing demographic
  sector, other than ageing boomers if historic
  trends continue, levels of disaffection could be
  high
• Aboriginal illness rates 3x those of other
  Canadians unacceptable in 21st century a real
  challenge for all of us
• Aboriginal educational performance is also low
  relative to their Canadian counterparts

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Six Challenges 5 Environment

• Global warming will have an impact on us all, and
  Canada is facing special challenges
• Canada (especially Alberta) major polluters
• Canada has growing water supply issues already
  having an impact and is made worse by oil sands
  projects
• Canada has significant issues with a growing
  number of endangered species
• Canadas plan (sic) for environmental
  stewardship is very weak, no matter who is in
  government

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Six Challenges 6 The North

• Canadas 36m people (by 2030) will be
  concentrated in cities in the south
• Northern Ontario currently has some 786,000
  people
• 103 of the 134 First nations in Ontario are
  located in Northern Ontario.
• Northern Ontario is home to 140,000 francophone
  individuals 30 of Ontarios Francophones live
  in the north
• Population of Northern Ontario will decline from
  6 of the Ontario population to 2.1 by 2030 -
  with a growing of the population being seniors
  and aboriginal. A loss of 100,000 personswith
  increased costs of social support, education
• Access to post secondary education already
  problematic. Today almost 212,000 Northern
  Ontario residents aged 15 years or older do not
  have direct access to a college or university
  campus in their community this will become more
  so as institutions struggle with their viability,
  especially in terms of their outreach campus
  activity

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Six Keys To Responding to these Challenges
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Six Keys to Our Future

• Learning
• Benevolence..
• Culture of Commerce
• Action Networks
• Technology
• Community

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Learning

• Critical to our collective future is an
  investment in learning for both public
  institutions and private enterprise
• How many learners matters
• What they are learning matters
• How they are learning matters
• Grow high school completion, increase
  post-secondary participation/completion rates,
  expand accessibility to affordable education
• Target 15/10,000 with degrees in science,
  technology and engineering and 30 of the
  workforce engaging in a learning activity
• See learning as an investment in the
  socio-economic future of Ontario strengthen
  supports, incentives and make it affordable
• Leverage technologies to make sure all in Ontario
  have access, not just some

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Benevolent Society

• We need to be careful about our culture when
  times are tough there is a tendency to look at
  me rather than us
• Canada has a strong social conscience and sense
  of benevolence this will become key, both to
  the sustainability of our society, but also to
  the differentiating Canada from many others
• Canada also needs a strong arts and humanities
  base arts and cultural organizations help keep
  communities together and the humanities will be
  key in helping us to connect with and support
  immigration
• Need to grow our instruments of benevolence non
  profits, charitable organizations, social giving
  and use the power of social networks to support
  those in greatest need.
• In particular, rethinking health care needs to
  link to a different pattern of funding and
  benevolence..

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Culture of Commerce

• Business is key to our future we do not have a
  great culture of commerce in Canada
• We need more educational programs focused on the
  skills of commerce
• More encouragement and support for entrepreneurs
  and risk takers, more opportunities to incubate
  good ideas
• More needs to be done to help sustain and develop
  business and business networks, especially in
  rural and remote communities
• Its critical to the future of the north that it
  finds more commercial opportunities in value
  added products and services the Internet makes
  trading possible from anywhere at anytime..

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Action Networks

• Effective change requires effective networks
  which in turn require effective infrastructure
• Networks like the medical devices network that
  helps to connect small and medium enterprises
  throughout Ontario whose work is to build and
  create devices that support the medical needs of
  patients
• Networks like the Ontario Mining Action Network,
  which aims to support the use of best practices
  in mining in terms of efficient and safe mining,
  support for mining communities and education
• Networks for social change/action, networks for
  community and economic development, networks to
  support learning all are key to our different
  future they are a means of ensuring that
  knowledge moves quickly amongst communities of
  interest and communities of practice
• We need to build future focused networks to help
  shape the future and we need to think about
  community centric networks e-networks which
  use learning technologies to support social
  change are powerful

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Technology

• Technology will change rapidly semantic web,
  robotics, devices not just computers
• Technology will transform health and education,
  as well as commerce if we provide the basic
  infrastructure and support the continuous
  development of skills and competencies
• We need to embrace technology, deal head on with
  the ethical issues it gives rise to and challenge
  our institutions to adopt and adapt to the
  possibilities that technology brings
• See technology as an opportunity to enhance
  quality

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Community

• Margaret Thatcher famously said there is no such
  thing as community. We need to prove her wrong.
• As the north shrinks we need to strengthen
  community through simple devices
• Support for local schools and local health
  services
• Support local stores that also become service
  centres
• Support distance education in the community
• Challenge the community to be a network that
  cares for all
• Look for cultural and arts opportunities within
  communities they act to strengthen the spirit
  of communities

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What does this all mean for education,
educational institutions and students?

• Big Ideas for Change

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Some Radical Ideas

• Make the north the home of the biggest
  broadband pipeline channel Internet-based
  businesses, services, e-government and e-learning
  in the north in such a way as to pioneer new
  methods, based on advanced technologies. See
  e-learning as the norm, not oh also..
• Use educational institutions as business and
  social incubators for innovation - spur
  innovation in value added forestry, mining and
  agricultural sectors - stimulate rurally located
  entrepreneurship (ruralpreneurship)

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• Change how we teach-learn - focus less on
  content and more on processes for learning,
  problem solving, networking challenge learners
  to solve real problems, X Prize for College and
  University..
• Commit to a radical new approach to aboriginal
  learning learning circles involving students,
  elders and teachers partnering to learn in a
  different way using stories, new learning
  technologies and gaming
• Commit to educational institutions being a part
  of the culture of commerce reward, encourage
  and enable edupreneurship by the institutions,
  groups within the institution and students

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• Think global develop learning passports which
  connects the north to global distance learning
  networksbring worlds the best to Timmins,
  Thunder Bay, Moosonee
• Look at credit for work-based learning build on
  the investments people make in their development
  and recognize credit where credit is due..

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• Make learning affordable offer solutions to the
  affordability issue by providing fast track
  routes to degrees (shorter less expensive, no
  loss of quality), different kinds of financial
  support and incentives for skill development
  see learning as an investment, not a cost
• Dont define quality as abstract standards -
  but do so in terms of fitness for use
• Keep the successful immigrant graduates in Canada
  offer citizenship to those who obtain a PhD in
  Canada..

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What Does All This Mean for You?
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Six Implications for Students..

• Look seriously at the future become a futurist
  - dont believe all that you read or hear, find
  out you have the skills..
• Study what other jurisdictions are doing
  differently and successfully take a close look
  at Finland, UK, Singapore.. Adopt a jurisdiction
  and really get to know it..
• Pick an industry sector that is key to our future
  and get to know it whatever it is, start to
  track trends and patternsbio-energy, fuel cells,
  nanotechnology, gaming technology
• Pick a northern community that you dont come
  from, and get to know it its dynamics,
  challenges, trends, culture listen, understand,
  learn
• You are already involved in one action network
  (CFS) look at another and see what you can
  learn from them learn how networks work,
  develop best practices
• Look systematically at alternative models of
  education, learning and training ask yourself
  what the combination of technology and a
  different kind if relationship with an
  instructor could do to make education
  accessible, affordable while at the same time
  improving quality..

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A Challenge for the CFS

• What is the CFS position on access, affordability
  and learning systems for individuals in northern
  communities that do not have direct access to a
  campus?
• Policy / position on remote access and distance
  education
• Policy / position on affordability, incentives
  and access
• Policy / position on technology support for
  remote communities and broadband networks
• Policy / position on quality and distance
  education

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When you come to a fork in the road take it..
Yogi Berra

• Actions speak louder than words..

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