When people talk about the effects of automation and artificial intelligence on the economy, they often fixate on the quantity of human workers. Will robots take our jobs? Others focus instead on threats to the quality of employment—the replacement of middle-class occupations with lower-skill, lower-wage ones; the steady elimination of human discretion as algorithms order around warehouse pickers, ride-hailing drivers, and other workers.
What’s less understood is that artificial intelligence will transform higher-skill positions, too—in ways that demand more human judgment rather than less. And that could be a problem. As AI gets better at performing the routine tasks traditionally done by humans, only the hardest ones will be left for us to do. But wrestling with only difficult decisions all day long is stressful and unpleasant. Being able to make at least some easy calls, such as allowing Santorini onto Kickstarter, can be deeply satisfying.
Work and productivity are two correlate which do not always run the same line. You might be totally engaged in your work but this does not necessarily mean you are being productive. Productivity is more of a qualitative mindset, a thinking framework that requires much more than just physical engagement, it calls for an emotional and affective investment and this is probably why psychologist Shawn Achor views happiness as a source of inspiration for productivity (watch his talk The Happy Secret to Better Work to learn more).
Work and productivity are the central themes of the TED Talks we are sharing with you today. The insights shared in these talks will definitely challenge the conventional and common way people conceptualize work. More importantly, ‘these talks offer unconventional, and uncommonly useful, advice on leading, working and making the most of each day.’
There have been a lot of predictions about the future of work, particularly around the growth of an automated work presence and how people might be replaced by or work alongside artificial intelligence. But what impact will the future of work have on the future of learning?
The #DLNchat community recently explored this question of work and learning, and while there was some disagreement about how much society can predict about specific jobs in the coming decades, there was agreement about how higher ed institutions can help prepare its students for whatever careers lie ahead.
Twenty million students started college this fall, and this much is certain: The vast majority of them will be taking on debt — a lot of debt.
What's less certain is whether their degrees will pay off.
According to the survey Freelancing in America 2018, released Wednesday, freelancers put more value on skills training: 93 percent of freelancers with a four-year college degree say skills training was useful versus only 79 percent who say their college education was useful to the work they do now. In addition, 70 percent of full-time freelancers participated in skills training in the past six months compared to only 49 percent of full-time non-freelancers.
Abstract The work presented in this report attempts to explore other realms about the future(s) of work beyond the strongly driven narrative of digital transformation. We have addressed one particular grassroots community, the Maker Movement, which is de facto enabling new models of education, collaborative work, and manufacture. Movements like the Maker Movement can be inspirational of policy making in areas of great complexity and uncertainties as work, employment, jobs are. We suggest that debates about futures of work need to mobilise the imagination, insights and expectations of wide ranges of society. Policy making should be nurturing necessary studies, experiments and conversations until some resilient ideas are found.
U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos recently told the Wall Street Journal that schools need to change because by the time current kindergarteners reach the job market, 65 percent of jobs will be newly invented. The XQ Initiative to reinvent high school claims that the “jobs of tomorrow will look totally different than those of today or the recent past.” A special report in Education Week on the future of work says that “technological change, globalization, and climate instability are happening at an accelerating pace all across the world.”
These warnings of dramatic change are increasingly being used to promote advocates’ favored solutions for improving schools, and the results are trickling down into real classrooms — not just through the expansion of established career and technical education programs, for example, but with calls to upend traditional schooling altogether.
Dig into these claims about our changing economy, though, and you end up knee-deep in mixed messages and muddled statistics. While there is good reason to think that America’s job market will look different in the years to come, some of the data being used to make that point in the education world is overstated or misleading.
That’s leaving educators and policymakers wondering how best to prepare students, especially since one commonly promoted strategy, expanding the use of technology in schools, may be promising but is largely unproven as a way to improve learning.
A test-driven standardized model of education trains children for a world that no longer exists. Accelerating advances in technology are eliminating any job that is routine, leaving millions of young adults vulnerable. This is the Future of Work? What do we need to do to prepare children for this world?
Un vídeo que resume de manera cruda la realidad no del futuro, sino de un presente que la mayoría no quiere aceptar. No habrá lugar en el mundo laboral de los próximos 10 años para jóvenes que sólo tengan educación secundaria. Y muchos profesionales que ahora cursan carreras laborales en las universidades probablemente no sean empleables cuando egresen. ¿Que están haciendo las universidades y el estado al respecto?
A: Not yet… (at least not all of it). " I’ve been thinking about how technology is and will impact the world of work. Thanks to NPR’s Planet Money calculator: Will Your Job Be Done By A Machine? and perhaps an empirical search on automation in teaching literature I’ve been reviewing for George … I might have robots on my mind. The calculator says my professional role is not likely to be fully replaced, but I have my doubts."
The report, released today, highlights the emergence of a new global skills gap where gender, class, geography and age can have a huge impact on whether a person is able to harness new technologies or not. It also presents strategies for ensuring all groups of people can develop these skills.
Certainly, all the world around, everybody relies on technology more than they imagine or want. This is an interesting report to explore the challenges of this new reality.
Since we’re in the midst of the transformative impact of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the time is now to start preparing for the future of work. Even just five years from now, more than one-third of the skills we believe are essential for today's workforce will have changed according to the Future of Jobs Report from the World Economic Forum. Fast-paced technological innovations mean that most of us will soon share our workplaces with artificial intelligences and bots, so how can you stay ahead of the curve? Start by adopting a commitment to lifelong learning so you can acquire the skills you will need to succeed in the future workplace.
When you show your work, you are forced to communicate what you did and how you did it in a way that others understand. It becomes a chance to reflect on your work but also clarify misconceptions and catch any blind spots.
If you look at the entire metacognition cycle mentioned in the video, you’ll notice that the last part of metacognition is the reflection piece. When students are sharing their journey, they are more reflective on their process and better able to plan a new approach in the future.
Continuous learning, cultural awareness, change expertise, adaptable and effective communication and the ability to learn from failure. These are just some of the capabilities that participants in KnowledgeWorks’ convenings on the future of work identified as being important for graduates. Finding resources to solve problems, time and project management, reflective leadership and a sense of responsibility to the broader community also promised to help all young people thrive no matter what future of work emerges.
That question – what future of work will emerge – is unanswerable, making it critical to help young people, along with other education and employment stakeholders, plan for multiple possible futures. From today’s vantage point, we can identify two critical drivers of change shaping the future of readiness for further learning, work and life: the rise of smart machines and the decline of full-time employment. But we cannot yet know what extent of technological unemployment we will face or how much support individuals will have in navigating the changing employment landscape.
Humankind is facing unprecedented revolutions, all our old stories are crumbling, and no new story has so far emerged to replace them. How can we prepare ourselves and our children for a world of such unprecedented transformations and radical uncertainties? A baby born today will be thirtysomething in 2050. If all goes well, that baby will still be around in 2100 and might even be an active citizen of the 22nd century. What should we teach that baby that will help them survive and flourish in the world of 2050 or the 22nd century? What kind of skills will they need in order to get a job, understand what is happening around them, and navigate the maze of life?
Unfortunately, since nobody knows what the world will look like in 2050 — not to mention 2100 — we don’t know the answer to these questions. Of course, humans have never been able to predict the future with accuracy. But today it is more difficult than ever before because once technology enables us to engineer bodies, brains, and minds, we will no longer be able to be certain about anything — including things that previously seemed fixed and eternal.
President Emmanuel Macron together with many Silicon Valley CEOs will kick off the VivaTech conference in Paris this week with the aim of showcasing the “good” side of technology. Our research highlights some of those benefits, especially the productivity growth and performance gains that automation and artificial intelligence can bring to the economy — and to society more broadly, if these technologies are used to tackle major issues such as fighting disease and tackling climate change. But we also note some critical challenges that need to be overcome. Foremost among them: a massive shift in the skills that we will need in the workplace in the future.
In today’s day and age, Google, Twitter and Pinterest are three of the largest employers in the United States and internationally. Are students gaining the skills that one might need to eventually apply to one of those tech giants, if they chose to do so? In the year 2017, what hard and soft skills should students be developing in order to succeed in the 21st century workplace? What about in the year 2020? 2050?
Let’s stick with the “now,” for a moment. In a recent interview, EdSurge explored which skill sets lead to career success for students—but we didn’t talk to anyone in K-12 or higher education. In fact, we interviewed three individuals—Alexandrea Alphonso, Ryan Greenberg, and Trisha Quan—from each of those aforementioned tech companies.
While the thoughts and feelings of each of the folks we interviewed do not represent the opinions of their employers, each of these technology leaders offered their thoughts in this exclusive Q&A on equity and access, areas that formal education didn’t prepare them for, and their advice for teachers working to prepare students for an ever-changing workplace.
A test-driven standardized model of education trains children for a world that no longer exists. Accelerating advances in technology are eliminating any job that is routine, leaving millions of young adults vulnerable. This is the Future of Work? What do we need to do to prepare children for this world?
Un vídeo que resume de manera cruda la realidad no del futuro, sino de un presente que la mayoría no quiere aceptar. No habrá lugar en el mundo laboral de los próximos 10 años para jóvenes que sólo tengan educación secundaria. Y muchos profesionales que ahora cursan carreras laborales en las universidades probablemente no sean empleables cuando egresen. ¿Que están haciendo las universidades y el estado al respecto?
One question has fascinated me my entire adult life: what causes some people to become world-class leaders, performers, and changemakers, while most others plateau? I’ve explored the answer to this question by reading thousands of biographies, academic studies, and books across dozens of disciplines. Over time, I’ve noticed a deeper practice of top performers, one so counterintuitive that it’s often overlooked. Despite having way more responsibility than anyone else, top performers in the business world often find time to step away from their urgent work, slow down, and invest in activities that have a long-term payoff in greater knowledge, creativity, and energy. As a result, they may achieve less in a day at first, but drastically more over the course of their lives.
For many attending the Future of Work symposium on Wednesday, there wasn’t any question whether automation is going to take over jobs—but rather when, and how education should respond.
Hosted at Stanford University, the day-long event brought together dozens of minds who are thinking about what careers and skills students need to prepare for, and how an increasingly digital higher-education system will need to adapt to help get them there. Speakers including edX CEO Anant Agarwal, associate dean and director of Stanford’s Diversity and First-Gen office Dereca Blackmon, and Deborah Quazzo, a co-founder of investment firm GSV, shared their ideas on what that might look like.
Here are a few major themes we heard throughout the day:
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