GEFRI mid-2026 update released
New data shows persistent readiness gaps The mid-2026 update of the Global Education Futures Readiness Index (GEFRI) provides a…
AI, coloniality, and educational sovereignty
The rapid adoption of generative AI in education has often been framed through the language of “readiness.” Institutions are…
The crisis is not artificial intelligence; It is institutional imagination
The cover of a recent international report on artificial intelligence in education captures the crux of the problem schools…
The tool was never the problem: Phone bans, AI, and the failure of control
A new study in the U.S. on school phone bans gives us some food for thought. Researchers examining the…
AI as anti-democratic infrastructure (and what education can do about it)
Alex Karp (2026), CEO of Palantir, recently framed AI as a force that will reduce the power of “highly…
Second channel resilience: Preserving educational coördination in low-connectivity environments
Field notes I thought it would be interesting to share some research notes from an exploratory inquiry into whether…
Cómo las grandes empresas tecnológicas están colonizando silenciosamente la educación
Los educadores enfrentan una creciente sensación de preocupación frente a la inteligencia artificial. Nuevas herramientas ingresan a las aulas…
2025 GEFRI finds wide readiness gaps and a global innovation bottleneck
The Global Education Futures Readiness Index (GEFRI) 2025 end-of-year snapshot shows a world that remains unevenly prepared for education…
How Big Tech is silently colonizing education
Educators face a growing sense of concern about artificial intelligence. New tools enter classrooms faster than policies can adapt.
Gamificamos el hacer trampa con IA …con un poco de ayuda de los duendes
En Education Futures, creemos que el aprendizaje ocurre mejor cuando la curiosidad se encuentra con un poco de travesura—algo…
We gamified cheating with AI … with a little help from goblins
At Education Futures, we believe that learning happens best when curiosity meets a bit of mischief, something often experienced…
Is AI making organizations lazy? (The answer is “yes”)
In an earlier post, I asked if AI is making humans “cognitively lazy.” The answer, I argued, is not really.
Is AI making humans “cognitively lazy”?
AI has renewed debate about learning, memory, and creativity in an age of cognitive offloading. Cognitive offloading means using…
School access and gender parity in Sub-Saharan Africa: Through the lens of GEFRI
Education is one of the most powerful levers for social progress and economic development. Yet across Sub-Saharan Africa, access…
Motivation is something we create with students, not something we do to them
Thomas Arnett’s piece “AI can personalize learning. It can’t make students care” makes a compelling case that adolescent motivation…
Question everything
This article was adapted into a chapter in Build a Positive Rebellion: Create New Education Futures (available in print…
What the GEFRI data tells us that we didn’t expect
How ready is the world for the future of education? The Global Education Futures Readiness Index (GEFRI) provides the…
Teachers at the crossroads
This article was adapted into a chapter in Build a Positive Rebellion: Create New Education Futures (available in print…
Is the end nigh for white collar workers?
It’s almost amusing (if it weren’t so tragic) how each new wave of AI panic gets dressed up as…
Activism as learning: When students teach the system a lesson
What if we viewed activism not as learning’s most authentic expression? Students learn more from raising their voices than…
Break the rules that break us
In classrooms built for quiet, success often means staying inside the lines, even as the world outside demands we…
The missing planet
A school day begins with a bell. Students move from worksheets to whiteboards while forests burn and rivers shrink…
Global Education Futures Readiness Index (GEFRI)
Client: n/a Location: Global Year: 2025 Focus: Education futures, data visualization, global benchmarking Link: https://gefri.educationfutures.com A global index to measure…
How did we get from “schools kill creativity” to “AI kills critical thinking in schools?”
Rethinking the real crisis When Sir Ken Robinson delivered his now-iconic TED Talk in 2006, proclaiming that “schools kill…
Announcing the GEFRI public beta
Benchmarking education futures readiness with GEFRI The Global Education Futures Readiness Index (GEFRI) is now available in public beta.
Learning together, teaching together
The trouble with separating learners by age silos In most schools today, students are grouped strictly by age, progressing…
Learning at the edge of networks
Interactions in a network drive new knowledge creation In early 2020, as COVID-19 swept across the globe, the world…
Invisible learning is an organic process: Breathing, taking root, and becoming one’s self
This article was adapted into a chapter in Build a Positive Rebellion: Create New Education Futures (available in print…
Quantum computing and the future of education
Navigating opportunities and challenges Quantum computing represents a shift in how we process information, rooted not in classical binary…
No more boxes: Learning in ecosystems
Learning “outside of the box” is cliché. Forget the box! Most formal education divides life into compartments: math at…
Learning at the intersection of agency and self-efficacy
At the heart of meaningful education is a powerful idea: learners thrive when they are trusted to shape their…
Kids are people, too
Most schools are built on control. Students are told when to sit, when to speak, what to study, and…
In the absence of hope, we must build communities of trust
Education faces a crisis of purpose. In many places, unfortunately including my home country of the United States, learning…
1.0 schools cannot teach 3.0, 4.0, 5.0 … kids
In one classroom, a student copies notes about a centuries-old war. Outside that school, they build game mods, edit…
Does the modern university end at AI?
AI Trends in Higher Education,” hosted by Emerald Publishing and the Higher Education Teaching and Learning Association (HETL), March…
Educating for a shared planet
This article was adapted into a chapter in Build a Positive Rebellion: Create New Education Futures (available in print…
Building futures we cannot yet imagine
Education is teaching yesterday to children who will live in tomorrow. While medicine rewrites genomes and technology engineers intelligence,…
Toward creative futures, beyond standardization
This article was adapted into a chapter in Build a Positive Rebellion: Create New Education Futures (available in print…
Genuine equity demands creative schools
Education systems that narrowly define success solely in terms of conformity and compliance inherently perpetuate inequity. This restrictive approach marginalizes students…
The future belongs to nerds, geeks, makers, dreamers, and knowmads
The future belongs to curious, passionate individuals unafraid to take intellectual risks, not to those who are passively obedient…
Don’t value what we measure; measure what we value
Our mainstream education systems are caught in a damaging obsession with measurement, yet they consistently measure the wrong things.
We cannot manage knowledge
The problem with information management in knowledge systems Education often mistakes knowledge for information, reducing learning to the storage…
Reality is not optional: Defending education from disinformation, weaponized postmodernism, and the erosion of truth
Recent developments illustrate how easily facts can be dismissed when they become politically inconvenient. Donald Trump’s return to the…
La realidad no es opcional: Defender la educación de la desinformación, el posmodernismo utilizado como arma y la erosión de la verdad
Este artículo fue adaptado como capítulo en Construir una rebelión positiva: Crear nuevos futuros educativos (disponible en versión impresa…
Degrees are obsolete by design … when knowledge has the shelf life of a banana
This article was adapted into a chapter in Build a Positive Rebellion: Create New Education Futures (available in print…
Authentic learning comes from freedom, not from being pushed into a predetermined path
This article was adapted into a chapter in Build a Positive Rebellion: Create New Education Futures (available in print…
Schools must be havens of uncommon safety and extraordinary respect
Education is failing its most fundamental test: preparing people to be human in a complex, interconnected world. Schools claim…
The future of digital learning communities: Beyond algorithms
The modern internet is aging, and the cracks are showing. For nearly three decades, we have built online spaces…
Bad use of technology is a symptom, not the problem
When technology appears to fail in education, we’re quick to blame the tools: “The platform is outdated,” “The AI…
Pre-active higher education leadership for a world in disruption
Last week, I had the privilege of presenting the closing keynote at the International Meeting on Educational Innovation and…
Manifesto 25
Client: n/a Location: Global Year: 2025 Focus: Education futures, self-directed learning, advocacy, alternative education, democracy A bold call to…
Manifesto 25: A blueprint for reclaiming education
January 1, 2025 marks the official release of Manifesto 25, a visionary document calling for urgent action to transform…
Deception by design: Education’s role in countering disinformation
Misinformation spreads quickly and often hides behind the façade of critical thinking. The U.S. is learning this the hard…
A comparative analysis of AI in education policy frameworks and initiatives
The integration of artificial intelligence into educational settings is rapidly transforming the landscape of teaching and learning. As AI…
Reclamando la educación para instituciones democráticas inclusivas
Esta mañana, la Real Academia Sueca de Ciencias otorgó a Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson y James A. Robinson el…
Reclaiming education for inclusive, democratic institutions
This morning, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James A. Robinson with the…
AI and open educational resources
David Wiley’s recent post at Improving Learning got me thinking about the rise of “generative OER” for content creation…
Who are knowmads?
The world belongs to nerds, geeks, makers, dreamers, and knowmads. Over 20 years ago, I crafted the knowmad concept while…
Improved training for climate finance readiness
Client: Adaptation Fund Location: Global Year: 2024 Focus: Climate finance readiness, capacity building, instructional design Development of modular training…
Coach Digital: Nepal
Client: Government of Nepal (Center for Education and Human Resource Development) Location: Nepal Year: 2024 Focus: Digital coaching, foundational teaching…
Teachers as knowmads in the era of AI
In recent talks in Argentina, Spain, and Colombia, I delved into the competencies essential for “knowmads” in the age…
Did AI replace the need for STEM learning?
In an increasingly AI-driven world, understanding the transformation of skills and competencies is crucial for steering our educational and…
Seconds beyond the inflection point
This study from McKinsey has some interesting observations: “Current generative AI and other technologies have the potential to automate…
Embracing a tomorrow beyond automation
Over the past decades, I’ve explored the evolving landscape of learning and work in the 21st century. The imminent…
Schools are still struggling with the question: Is it okay for students to use technologies?
After decades of wondering if calculators, phones, or Wikipedia have a place in schools, the next target is obviously…
Demonstrating AI-powered student feedback for low-resource environments
Client: World Bank Education Global Practice Location: Global (focus on low-resource and displaced learner contexts) Year: 2023 Focus: AI…
Charting the uncharted: Navigating the intersection of disruptive tech and education
We find ourselves in an era where the languages of technology—bytes, pixels, and algorithms—have become as fundamental as the…
Shifting toward a knowmadic public policy: An agile proposal
Knowmads are not confined by the classic structures of a fixed workplace or set of tools. They are agile,…
Innovating physical & virtual learning spaces: Fostering the growth of modern knowmadic learners
In this technological era, we cannot shy away from speaking about knowmadic people, not just learners, but workers, community…
The power and potential of EdTech: Using AI as a study tool … and maybe more
As reported in The Verge, Quizlet, came up with AI features to assist students using their tools. The notion sounds compelling,…
Embracing the AI storm in learning
Manifesto 15, conceptualized in 2015, is a forward-thinking document outlining a vision for the future of education. It proposes…
Coach Digital: Sierra Leone
Client: Ministry of Education, Sierra Leone (with World Bank support) Location: Sierra Leone Year: 2023 Focus: Digital coaching, foundational…
Disruptive technologies and global transformations
The past year was crucially important for the world to work on building better futures for education as societies…
Mapping disruptive technologies and the future of education in the Prague Region
Client: Prague Innovation Institute Location: Prague, Czech Republic Year: 2022 Focus: Strategic foresight, education policy, digital transformation Commissioned by…
Building a global education policy academy
Client: Education Global Practice, World Bank Group Location: Global Year: 2022-2025 Focus: Platform development, professional learning, policy capacity building…
Engaging youth to solve global grand challenges
Client: Education Global Practice, World Bank Group Location: Global Year: 2020-2025 Focus: Experiential learning, digital platform development, global challenges education…
International education in the era of COVID-19
Note: This article originally appeared in Sociální Pedagogika | Social Education, 8(1), 38-42. (CC-BY) International education has always been…
Digital landscape review and prototyping of technologies for teacher coaching
Client: World Bank Group Location: Global (with focus on LMICs) Year: 2020 Focus: Digital learning, platform selection, educational technology…
“No future” if we do not make serious efforts to invest in and modernize education
Czech media maverick Bohumil “Bob” Kartous asks, can steam engines carry us into the virtual world? For nearly 30…
Ihanainen’s affordances of pedagogy
Pekka Ihanainen, a Finnish teacher educator, is one of the most abstract, conceptual thinkers I have ever known. He…
John Moravec: Evolving our understanding of education and helping humans to be more ‘human’
Oli Anderson interviewed Education Futures‘ John Moravec for Design Decode, a project exploring design for improving the human experience.
New book: Emerging education futures
Education Futures is pleased to announce the release of the book, Emerging education futures: Experiences and visions from the…
What do we know about digital citizenship in Mexico?
Education Futures founder John Moravec lead a diagnostic review the Secretary of Public Education’s digital citizenship program in Mexico,…
Understanding digital citizenship in Mexico
Client: Secretaría de Educación Pública (SEP), Mexico (with Fundación Ceibal) Location: Mexico Year: 2018 Focus: Digital citizenship, education policy,…
Building a Leapfrog University
In 2006, the University of Minnesota engaged in a strategic repositioning process to transform it into one of the…
Plan Ceibal 2020: Future scenarios for technology and education
I am pleased to have collaborated with Matías Mateu and Cristóbal Cobo on the publication of research regarding the…
Designing campus futures
A few months ago, I received an invitation for a dream gig. Simon Fraser Universityat Burnaby, British Columbia is…
Cheating the death of imagination: Teaching the unknowable
The idea of a Technological Singularity has been discussed and debated intensely since the early 1990s. Coined by Vernor…
John Moravec embarks on global tour to redesign education
Education Futures founder Dr. John Moravec has embarked on a global tour to redesign mainstream education systems. Moravec asks,…
Invisible learning: The (r)evolution outside of the classroom
Who gets to decide what kids learn? For whose benefit is all this, really? We make learning visible for…
Educational innovation in Puebla
Education Futures and Fundación Ceibal (Uruguay) are pleased to share the outcomes of their 2-month research project for the…
The future of digital technologies in Uruguayan primary education
Client: Agencia Nacional de Investigación e Innovación (ANII) and Fundación Ceibal Location: Uruguay Year: 2016 Focus: Educational technology, community…
Educational innovation in Puebla
Client: Secretaría de Educación Pública del Estado de Puebla Location: Puebla, Mexico Year: 2016 Focus: Educational innovation, participatory policy…
John Moravec at the World Bank Youth Summit: Knowmadic futures for youth
Youth are the main consumers and participants in education. Despite intimate knowledge of the successes and failures of modern…
Why Pokémon Go and Minecraft in the classroom are very bad ideas
It’s “back to school” season in the United States and Europe, and the social media universe is ablaze with…
A theory for invisible learning
Note: This is the second of a three-part series on a new theory for invisible learning. When Cristóbal Cobo…
Approaches for enabling invisible learning
Note: This is the final article of a three-part series on a new theory for invisible learning. Invisible learning…
The need for invisible learning
Note: This is the first article in a three-part series on a new theory for invisible learning. Five years…
Designing the future of research libraries and special libraries in Knowmad Society
Paper prepared for Congreso Amigos 2015, Ciudad de México John W. Moravec, Ph.D. Founder, Education Futures LLC [email protected] October…
Creative classrooms in Patagonia
Education Futures founder, John Moravec, had the pleasure of visiting with the Ministry of Education in the Province of…
Manifesto 15: Evolving learning
Like many of us, I did some reflecting over the New Year. It seemed it was time to re-center,…
Manifesto 15
Client: n/a Location: Global Year: 2015 Focus: Learning futures, global education reform, learner agency A global call to rethink…
Minnevate!
Client: Minnesota Association of School Administrators (MASA) Location: Minnesota, United States Year: 2013–2014 Focus: Educational leadership, strategic foresight, community…
Knowmads on Umbrales
Last week, the Peruvian television program “Umbrales” (TV Perú) broadcasted a program on knowmads in Peru and Latin America.
Rise of the Knowmads: John Moravec at TEDxUMN
Knowmads are nomadic knowledge workers –creative, imaginative, and innovative people who can work with almost anybody, anytime, and anywhere.
Report from the European Democratic Education Community 2013 Conference
Note: This article was originally published in Other Education, vol. 2, no. 2 (2013), pp. 113-115, and is reprinted…
The biggest problem in mainstream education is that it does precisely what it is designed to do
In many the conversations about design thinking in schools, we tend to assume that mainstream education is poorly designed.
Knowmad Society released
I am very pleased to share that the print edition of Knowmad Society is released, and it is beautiful!…
Defining the “Knowmads” of work and education in the 21st Century
Read this special issue of On the Horizon for free until 20 June 2013. United Kingdom, 20 May 2013…
Matt Novak takes us on a Paleofuture look into our hopes and fears
“I firmly believe that by studying yesterday’s futures we can get the most honest look at any given generation’s…
The university of the future: Marching toward obsolescence?
A couple weeks ago, Carlos Scolari interviewed me for a project on pedagogical innovation and disruptive practices in higher…
Six things I learned at the Pioneers Festival
Last week, I attended the two-day Pioneers Festival in Vienna. Housed in the Hofburg imperial palace (an “impossible to…
Christel Hartkamp: “Children are like slaves of the modern age”
Editor’s note: This provocative commentary originally appeared in Heb jij iets geleerd vandaag? – Een Sudbury school perspectief op…
The Singularity and schools: An interview with Vernor Vinge
Last week, I spoke with Vernor Vinge [Wikipedia | Web site], a retired San Diego State University professor of…
Teacher 3.0: Sharing, creating, and connecting knowledge
In this year’s issue of Villa Onderwijs by APS, Erno Mijland and Rob Mioch present their views of what…
Nine key characteristics of knowmads in Society 3.0
A knowmad is what I have previously termed a nomadic knowledge and innovation worker – that is, a creative,…
Knowmads in Society 3.0
Remember nomads? In the pre-industrial age, nomads were people that moved with their livelihood (usually animal herding) instead of…