Education Futures advocates for an education system that trains students to be "knowmads". A Knowmads is a "creative, imaginative, and innovative person who can work with almost anybody, anytime, and anywhere".
Knowmads have nine characteristics:
- Are not restricted to a specific age
- Build their personal knowledge through explicit information gathering and tacit experiences, and leverage their personal knowledge to produce new ideas
- Are able to apply their ideas and expertise contextually in various social and organizational configurations
- Are highly motivated to collaborate, and are natural networkers, navigating new organizations, cultures, and societies
- Purposively use new technologies to help them solve problems and transcend geographical limitations
- Are open to sharing what they know, and invite the open access to information, knowledge and expertise from others
- Develop habits of mind and practice to learn continuously, and can unlearn as quickly as they learn, adopting new ideas and practices as necessary
- Thrive in non-hierarchical networks and organizations
- Are not afraid of failure — and see their failures as learning opportunities
This concept of the skills or traits required of students and/or future workers is very consistent with my view, as described in this post "How to Survive the End of the Industrial Age".
