The future seems almost impossible to predict.  How can we know what our kids will face when they are adults?  How can we know which skills are essential?  How can we know what tools and technologies will look like in the future?  How can we stay current?

These are the kinds of questions I deal with almost on a daily basis.  They are usually more of a lament than anything else and too many educators see the rate of change and improvement as an obstacle. 

Perhaps we need to flip this question around.  Instead of asking what will be new in the future, perhaps we can ask what will be constant in the future?  Are there constants that we have today that were not there 20 years ago?

What do we expect to remain constant as the future unfolds?

• I expect people to write using word processing technology rather than pen and paper.
• I expect an ability to collaborate with anyone to remain a premium skill.
• I expect an ability to find, understand, validate and utilize information to remain a premium skill.
• I expect an ability to effectively communicate with others to remain a premium skill.
• I expect the web to become more powerful and yet very backward-compatible.
• I expect the Internet to persist througout the lifetimes of every human being alive today (and perhaps much, much longer).

When we try to establish what kinds of technologies we should provide every classroom, we should keep these in mind.  If our chosen technologies enable learners in the classroom to develop these skills and practice using these tools, it will be difficult to go wrong over the long term.

Since this blog post represents 20 minutes of thinking this way, I'm sure my points are not complete.  What things about today's environment do you expect to persist over the long term?