The implications of the future internet are that it will have a kind of machine knowledge of the individual user, so searches for information may be customized, and services (and advertising) may be tailored to the particular users. In a ubiquitous setting (with wifi and mobile devices and ambient intelligence), people could have their needs (digital and beyond) met in a variety of ways.

If that sounds claustrophobic to some (as it does to M. Andrejevic in his insightful book iSpy: Surveillance and Power in the Interactive Era), this new model has potential implications for future learning.

Learning Efficiencies?

Talk on the street is that learning may be “just in time,” or just before learners need the information. Decision support systems may strengthen human choice-making. Individuals may learn how to interact with people from other cultures and in other languages after having interacted with digital artificially intelligent robots in immersive spaces.

Customized Learning

Curricula could be shaped based on the learner profile and machine knowledge of how people with similar backgrounds have done.

Learner identities may be fixed across platforms and spaces, so learners may be credited for their virtual achievements and experiences.

Maybe the learning will be co-created between machines and people, with real-time inputs from learners integrated into the curriculum.

This sounds like a lot of information being exchanged and interacted in the ether. It also sounds like there may be security challenges and possibly even mixed / missed multi-channel signals in a complex learning environment.