Photo: Courtesy of Rosan Bosch, from her WLS keynote in 2018.

What´s up?

For two years now global society has been in a global lock-down. While the Corona pandemic still rages around the world and will continue to do so for some time to come, the local Future Learning Lab staff has been at work re-setting our ambitions, our websites and our invitations. What you find in the current website is an entirely new approach to our networking. For those of you who are familiar with either the World Learning Summit or the Future Learning Lab that hosts it, you will find a new level of integration. On this site that you are now browsing, we will cultivate all projects and ideas, including the thinking and processes behind the World Learning Summit. We will maintain the WLS site strictly as a summit site for that particular event. We will build the future of the network within the Future Learning Lab.

All of which means that the Future Learning Lab expands beyond the center we have maintained at the University of Agder for a decade to become a truly virtual meeting space, where individuals and institutions beyond the University of Agder can sign up, engage, and claim stakeholder interest in a more globally oriented and networked Future Learning Lab.

On several pages we have uploaded historical info on what we are and why.

What we seek is a “network of networks”, to paraphrase Manuel Castells. We invite you to attach your own centers, labs and networks to a global and common hub and agenda.

Now what?

Future Learning Lab will continue to explore an agenda of “future learning” by combining perspectives from pedagogy, practical education and institutional concerns with the wider sociological understanding of how we learn in a globalized and digitalized society.

What we seek is a conversation, a sharing of experiences, and an arena we we can meaningfully engage in critique, comparison and solutions-oriented dialog. It is that simple and at the same time that advanced. Universities and colleges are too geared towards publications read by few, paying too little attention to the original idea of a university . which was (and ought to be) a fostering of societal competence, open reflection, and a joining of expert knowledge with everyday life and its concerns.

If this rhymes with you, then simply sign up. It´s that simple. We can foster and cultivate this dialog together.