session overview

Learning, yearning and earning: why 21st century learning is transforming schools, organisations, companies and markets

Stephen Heppell, CEO Heppell.net and Professor, Bournemouth University

As we enter 2010, it is interesting to reflect on the last ten years since the new millennium began.  It has indeed been a remarkable decade: schools have begun to sprint away from the factory schools of the last century, companies are closing their training facilities and embracing a new future as agile learning organisations, universities are exploring exhibition and collaboration as underpinning entitlements for learners, Olympic athletes are understanding that excellence is only medal worthy when it is paired with ingenuity, and everywhere - from TV chefs to dancing celebrities - learning finds itself centre stage.

And learning is looking like a key differentiator, both in the marketplace and in the public service battle between emerging and established economies. For many this is happening so fast that it is hugely confusing. Just a moment ago, surely, content was king? And now somehow community is sovereign. A moment back, knowledge was delivered, and wisdom received. Now, knowledge is constructed, and deconstructed, in social networks and 180 degree relationships exchange wisdoms. Of course, technology is at the heart of this apparent revolution - but already for our young post-Google generation email is unfashionably what your dad does, technology lives in a pocket, and life in an Office sounds like a sentence.  Technology moves rapidly too.

Drawing on a host of major projects and three decades of experience, this closing keynote aims to make sense of it all and to build a clear roadmap for the future. Miss it at your peril.