Icdk outlook No. 04, May 2019 The Future of Education

3.4 
Summing up: The future of learning 
What does the future of work mean for learning and educational content in the US?
The signals indicate that the new demands for educational content are to some 
degree driven by the debate surrounding the future of work. If machines and 
automation leaves routine-based tasks obsolete, the future of education can be 
21
Illanes et al. of McKinsey Global Institute, 2018 
22
Caminiti, CNBC, 2018 
Minecraft Education – powering up STEM with a popular video game 
As part of Microsoft, the game Minecraft has become one of the biggest games 
in the world, with more than 70 million monthly users (
Business Insider
). 
Minecraft has a quite simple interface and is largely based on pixelized building 
blocks that can be used to create and build all sorts of things in a virtual 
universe. This sparked the idea: Why not to use it for educational purposes? 
Minecraft: Education Edition is thus an educational version of the very popular 
game. It enables children to learn STEM skills, to be creative builders, learn 
math or even computer science. Despite launching in 2016, Minecraft Education 
Edition is already available in 115 countries and has more than 2 million 
licensed users. The game is an example of a gamified and new way of teaching 
STEM-related skills as well as soft skills such as creativity at a young age. 

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Danish Agency for Science and Higher Education 
20 
viewed as a future of new ways of learning. A new instructional paradigm is called 
for to acquire the necessary soft skills in demand in the future. Technology is 
already there to facilitate a smooth implementation of new ways of learning and 
industry calls for new skillsets. The educational alternatives that are emerging in 
the San Francisco Bay Area are recognizing this change, and they are thus trying 
to change the content of education through closer collaboration with corporations 
and by utilizing technology to increasingly make learning more active.
It is hard to predict whether or how the established universities will follow in the 
future, but some trends are already showing, such as more online learning and 
corporate partnerships.
Primary schools are increasingly integrating software skills and computational 
thinking into learning models and companies too seem to realize the need for new 
skills in the future and especially life-long learning. Investments in re-skilling of 
workers is a trend where it seems that we have only seen the tip of the iceberg.

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