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The purpose of this paper is to emphasize the role of education as the formal means for preparing people for the future, outlining the need for interdisciplinary and systemic use of new learning technologies to re‐align with present learning needs.

Using the lens of Miller's Living Systems Theory, such a collaboration between learning scientists, educators, and policy makers is now both possible and necessary because of emerging learning technologies.

Using these learning technologies across the curriculum throughout a learner's life will assist them to adapt within increasingly fast‐paced, interconnected, and complex systems.

Administrators should collaborate with teachers, organizations, learning scientists, and students, themselves to integrate these new learning technologies in substantive new ways that enhance future conciousness.

The paper provides a potential bridge between the abstract notion of future consciousness and the proliferating use of new learning technologies. Educational leaders may find here ideas for situating their institutional visions, missions, and strategic directions.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the main forms and components of future consciousness, to identify the important values for enhancing future consciousness, and to describe a variety of educational strategies for heightening future consciousness.

This paper presents a historical review of the development of future consciousness and a psychological review of recent theory and research on its components and benefits, and argues for a teaching philosophy and strategy based on positive psychology and the development of virtues and wisdom.

Future consciousness is multi‐dimensional and involves all the major capacities of the human mind. A set of different forms of future consciousness has evolved over time, encompassing practical and social intelligence, mythic narrative, rationality and emotionality, science fiction, and future studies. Psychologically, future consciousness involves human emotion and motivation, learning and memory, all major forms of cognition, and self‐identity. Psychological processes that contribute to expansive, optimistic, and creative future consciousness can be effectively taught. The development of virtues necessary for enhanced future consciousness can be facilitated through future‐focused self‐narrative activities.

This paper provides a succinct and comprehensive review of the major historical forms of future consciousness and its basic psychological components, and develops an educational approach to teaching future consciousness based on this comprehensive review. The approach is unique in that it is grounded in comprehensive historical research, contemporary psychology, and recent thinking in the study of the future, and creates a virtue and wisdom based approach to teaching future consciousness that subsumes and transcends all traditional educational approaches.

The purpose of this article is to outline a vision for digital stories of development, or online personal learning environments, which may eventually replace what we currently call “electronic portfolios” in education.

This is a conceptual article that provides a lifelong, life‐wide perspective on electronic portfolios based on the authors' research, focusing on some of the issues that need to be addressed to make this vision a reality.

Based on the concept of “lifetime personal web space,” this online archive of a life's collection of reflections, memories, digital artefacts and memorabilia, both personal and professional, has the potential to change the current paradigm of electronic portfolios, mostly institution‐bound, and focus instead on the individual or the family as the center for creating a digital archive, which can be used in a variety of contexts across the lifespan, from schools to universities to the workplace. Finally, this archive can be used to develop personal histories and reflective narratives to preserve our stories for future generations. A possible scenario is followed by the challenges faced when developing this service for widespread dissemination. This is not a formal research paper with analysis, discussion or results. The paper is meant to provide a vision or future direction for electronic portfolios that could be stored in the internet “cloud” for a lifetime and beyond.

This paper encourages individuals as well as institutions to explore new ways to construct electronic portfolios in the Internet “cloud” so that the owner of the portfolio has access across their lifespan. This paper could also be used by Web 2.0 developers to improve the development of tools, making them more useable and accessible across the lifespan, from early readers to the elderly.

This paper provides a future vision of the potential for cloud computing to be used as a lifetime store of memories and digital memorabilia, as well as a broader vision of the electronic portfolio process across the lifespan.

The purpose of this paper is to explore future consciousness, in particular the desire for adventure and change, in light of the literature and ideas around academic development in higher education teaching and learning, and with a particular focus on supporting staff in their engagement with technologies in new ways.

The article builds on and extends recent work by the authors Barnes and Tynan; and Tynan, Lee and Barnes, as well as that of other researchers and theorists. A case study approach is adopted, in which the narratives or “stories” of academics at an Australian university relating to issues surrounding learning technologies are analysed. The themes that emerge from the preliminary analysis are synthesised to draw out barriers and potential solutions from the participants' perspectives, especially with regard to their self‐identified future professional development needs, and particularly in relation to their adoption and sustainable use of educational technologies.

The authors believe that successfully engaging with the goals of innovation and sustainable futures in the age of Web 2.0, the networked society and the millennial learner depends on a concerted effort at all levels of the tertiary/higher education sector.

While the preliminary findings of the study may have limitations in terms of their generalisability to institutions and countries beyond the context of the case study, they will no doubt provide a starting point for further research.

It is hoped that the study will serve as a think piece for educational leaders interested in facilitating long‐term initiatives and strategies aimed at cultivating a desire for change and adventure among academic staff, to “reinforce proactive behavior, self‐efficacy, and internal locus of control” in encouraging them to engage with their own futures.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight trends affecting student writing and studying in the twenty‐first century and, as a consequence, the changing nature of literacy in this digital era.

The paper uses Thomas Friedman's concept of “flattener” technologies that are creating new levels of access and participation around the globe to emphasize changes that learners and schools need to use to become literate. Making use of a vignette followed by discussion of the research relevant to these developments, the features and distinguishing characteristics of these literacies are explored.

Six overarching recommendations for capitalizing on present and future innovations in technology and communication that provide new potential for twenty‐first century learning and future consciousness are made: competence; convergence; curriculum; customization; collaboration; and connectivism.

The paper provides an overview and insight into some of the many changes and challenges impacting on the world of education due to the large‐scale availability and use of digital text and digital media. The exploration of strategies to capitalize on the media rich environments in which our students live is compelling and evidence‐based.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a conceptual framework for understanding and integrating future consciousness at a global level.

This paper makes a case for transcendence beyond routine ways of teaching and learning by developing a holistic framework to examine educational practices and means.

Based on the ancient Indian Ashrama system, and borrowing from Taoist philosophy, a four segment Tao cycle framework is proposed to engage people across a transcendent learning arc.

This integrative conceptual framework is a possible lens through which the individual may project their own development throughout the life cycle. It offers a potential alternative, non‐Western diaspora for enhancing future consciousness.

The purpose of this paper is to identify and explore the dynamics of an emerging form of teaching and learning – social network knowledge construction – associated with the use of social networks, particularly 3D virtual world environments such as Second Life. As social network technologies not only frame the way individuals interact and learn, but actually impact on a learner's thinking process and development of future consciousness, new pedagogies are needed to effectively integrate these communication mechanisms into the learning environment.

The paper discusses the purpose and potential use of these networks in the teaching and learning process. Distinguishing features of social network knowledge construction as an emerging pedagogy are identified.

Strategies for incorporating a variety of identified social networks, both in and out of virtual worlds, for teaching and learning are noted.

The focus of this emerging pedagogy is framed within the social networks surrounding Second Life, in particular, although the pedagogical framework could be applied across any set of social networking or virtual world applications.

The paper provides critical information currently required by the early to mid‐adopters of social networks and virtual worlds for teaching and learning.

This paper identifies an emerging form of pedagogy that has yet to be fully discussed in the literature, and supports the present issue's emphasis on future‐focused learning.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the extent to which a marketer’s own priorities as a consumer infiltrate workplace decision-making and how this contamination influences the creation of potential value for the end consumer. The “black box” of the organisation is opened to investigate potential value creation at an individual/manager level of analysis.

The authors gathered in-depth qualitative data from amongst marketing managers and directors in the UK, Australia and the USA. The authors theorised these data through boundary theory to develop an integrated producer-as-consumer potential value creation model.

The paper reveals the dynamic interplay in marketing/production decision-making between the individual’s consumer-self, manager-self and the external interface with the organisation.

The producer-as-consumer potential value creation model illuminates the complex role of the firm and its individual managers in the creation of potential value and identifies contingencies that result in a spectrum of possible potential value creation outcomes. These contributions are positioned within the marketing value creation and co-creation literatures.

Marketing organisations/managers may find this research useful when considering the benefits and drawbacks of integrating managers’ consumer-self insights into workplace decision-making and the creation of potential value for the end consumer.

This paper moves value creation/co-creation theory forward by revealing the dynamic potential value creation process and presenting a fluid representation of producers-as-consumers, at individual manager level. This paper is of interest to academic and marketing practitioner audiences.

Introduced into the literature a decade ago, grit originally defined as perseverance and passion for long-term goals has stimulated considerable research on positive effects primarily in the academic and military contexts, as well as attracted widespread media attention. Despite recent criticism regarding grit’s construct and criterion-related validity, research on grit has begun to spill over into the work context as well. In this chapter, the authors provide an overview of the initial theoretical foundations of grit as a motivational driver, and present newer conceptualizations on the mechanisms of grit’s positive effects rooted in goal-setting theory. Furthermore, the authors also draw attention to existing shortcomings of the current definition and measurement of grit, and their implications for its scientific and practical application. After establishing a theoretical understanding, the authors discuss the potential utility of grit for human resource management, related to staffing and recruitment, development and training, and performance management systems as well as performance evaluations. The authors conclude this chapter with a discussion of necessary and potential future research, and consider the practical implications of grit in its current state.