Monday, January 28, begins Educause Learning Initiative 2008 Annual Meeting in San Antonio, TX. Conference planners accept that

We live in exponential times:

2.7 billion searches are performed on Google each month.

The number of text messages sent and received each day exceeds the population of the planet.

The amount of unique, new information generated worldwide this year will be more than in the previous 5,000 years.

Graduates can expect 10–14 career changes in their lifetimes, some into fields that don’t even exist today.

Many of these changes are catalyzed by technology, which continues its own rapid pace of change.

And that's only the beginning, setting background for speakers. I especially appreciate sentiments assumed for these two of ELI's four purposes:

How will we update our definitions of learning as well as rethink many of our assumptions about teaching, learning, and our profession?

What unique capabilities does IT offer to help colleges and universities ensure today’s learners are successful (whatever success may mean in this context)?

What does any of this mean to student and teacher Tableteers, UMPC and other mobile PC users?

Teacher, how might one most effectively prepare in school for a life of exponential change?

How do you know you aren't misdirecting students when no one knows what life in 2010, let alone 2020, will offer?

I'm glad that society uniquely expects the social institution of education (including schooling to some extent) to provide questions, not answers. I wonder what questions ELI will offer?

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