Futurelab have just published an interesting report called 2020 and beyond in which they predict some technology trends and raise issues for education.

It’s certainly a very worthwhile read, but I think they have skipped over the social aspect of all these technologies. Sharing, collaborating, tagging and having open conversations are the hallmarks of the current rash of Web 2.0 (yes, I know, I hate the term too) technologies. As Futurelab suggest, they’re going to start revolving around a single, possibly biometric, identity instead of you having to log in to everything with 100 different passwords. But the real key to the massive influx of data into our lives, which is already happening and will continue to at a pace, is the social filtering and tagging of it, in whatever future form that might take. I think the Photosynth project is a really good example of that potential.

As a educational experience, learning that your small contribution has a social ripple-effect is incredibly valuable in terms of good citizenship, sustainability, social-issues, creative collaboration, politics, development and aid, sport and the list goes on and on. Whilst that will be, to some extent, enabled by the technology, much of it has already happened. There is a whole generation of sharers out there coming through education, what will they do when they encounter the top-down, individualistic approaches that we currently see so prevalent in educational institutions?