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"Empirically, it's not just for other people that you need to start small. You need to for your own sake. Neither Bill Gates nor Mark Zuckerberg knew at first how big their companies were going to get. All they knew was that they were onto something. Maybe it's a bad idea to have really big ambitions initially, because the bigger your ambition, the longer it's going to take, and the further you project into the future, the more likely you'll get it wrong. I think the way to use these big ideas is not to try to identify a precise point in the future and then ask yourself how to get from here to there, like the popular image of a visionary. You'll be better off if you operate like Columbus and just head in a general westerly direction. Don't try to construct the future like a building, because your current blueprint is almost certainly mistaken. Start with something you know works, and when you expand, expand westward. The popular image of the visionary is someone with a clear view of the future, but empirically it may be better to have a blurry one. "

"Classroom of 2020: The future is very different than you think ERIN MILLAR"

"Focus Forward films highlight exceptional people and world-changing ideas that are impacting the course of human development, changing our lives for the better. We are looking for professional quality 3-minute stories about visionaries and thinkers and in some cases everyday folks who have brought a quantum leap to human progress by their efforts and inventions. Your film may encompass anything from jaw-dropping medical advancements to renewable energy breakthroughs; open-source architecture to the development of wireless technologies in Third World countries; computer programming wizardry to sci-fi-worthy robotics; or any other sphere of art and knowledge that inspires you. We're especially interested in the accomplishments of inventors, engineers, educators, surgeons, scientists, techies, artists, programmers, backyard tinkerers-i.e. anyone making a difference, utilizing their skills and vision to innovate, share their work, and help sow the seeds of a brighter future."

"I'm putting the finishing touches on my paper on badges for our panel tomorrow at the Digital Media and Learning Conference in Chicago, "Democratic Futures": http://dml2013.dmlhub.net/ In preparing I'm aided by two invaluable resources by Sheryl Grant and Kristan Shawgo, both part of our HASTAC and our DML bicoastal teams. They have put together a scholarly, annotated bibliography of 160 or so separate articles, studies, and op ed pieces on badges, representing the full spectrum of views: http://hastac.org/digital-badges-bibliography "

"Aldous Huxley vs. George Orwell "Amusing Ourselves To Death" is a very cool infographic showing a comparison between Aldous Huxley's view of the future from "Brave New World" and George Orwell's fears or vision expressed in "Nineteen-Eighty-Four". Enjoy!"

""Educon is both a conversation and a conference." It is an innovation conference where we can come together, both in person and virtually, to discuss the future of schools. Every session will be an opportunity to discuss and debate ideas - from the very practical to the big dreams."

While the structure of a charrette varies, depending on the design problem and the individuals in the group, charrettes often take place in multiple sessions in which the group divides into sub-groups. Each sub-group then presents its work to the full group as material for future dialogue. Such charrettes serve as a way of quickly generating a design solution while integrating the aptitudes and interests of a diverse group of people. Compare this term with workshop.

"In fifty years, if not much sooner, half of the roughly 4,500 colleges and universities now operating in the United States will have ceased to exist. The technology driving this change is already at work, and nothing can stop it. The future looks like this: Access to college-level education will be free for everyone; the residential college campus will become largely obsolete; tens of thousands of professors will lose their jobs; the bachelor's degree will become increasingly irrelevant; and ten years from now Harvard will enroll ten million students."

"In his new book To Sell is Human, author Daniel Pink reports that education is one of the fastest growing job categories in the country. And with this growth comes the opportunity to change the way educators envision their roles and their classrooms. Guided by findings in educational research and neuroscience, the emphasis on cognitive skills like computation and memorization is evolving to include less tangible, non-cognitive skills, like collaboration and improvisation. Jobs in education, Pink said in a recent interview, are all about moving other people, changing their behavior, like getting kids to pay attention in class; getting teens to understand they need to look at their future and to therefore study harder. At the center of all this persuasion is selling: educators are sellers of ideas."

"Can you go to college on your computer? Some say yes, and others respond with a resounding no. But one thing is for sure: there is a boatload of public money to be vacuumed off an overcrowded, underfunded educational establishment desperate for at least the appearance of a quick fix. "

"The Mozilla Foundation has a vision of a web literate planet. We've built some tools to help with this and now we're asking the question: What are the skills, competencies and literacies necessary to read, write and participate in the Web - now and in the future? We've already started the thinking but we want to go further and develop a web literacy standard that we can all align with and teach to. And we need your help. "

"On Loving (and Leaving) LearnBoost Rafael Corrales, co-founder and CEO of one of my favorite education technology startups, LearnBoost, recently announced that he has stepped down from the helm of the company and has moved on to join a venture capital firm. I admit: I'm fairly devastated by this news. I have long been a supporter of LearnBoost, first covering its official launch back in August 2010 when I was still a tech blogger for ReadWriteWeb. There I covered many of the startup's tech and product updates - including, for example, the development and open-sourcing of its crowdsourced translation interface - even though the editors were always quick to tell me not to cover ed-tech startups. ("Nobody cares, Audrey.") Nevertheless, when I was assigned to write the end-of-year story "Top 10 Startups of 2010," I put LearnBoost on the list alongside other exciting new startups from the year, including Instagram, Flipboard, Quora, Square, and Hipmunk."