Most educators say that they want their students to be college-ready or career-ready. In this talk, S. Craig Watkins explains why educators should focus, instead, on what he calls “future ready” skills for a society and economy undergoing historic shifts.  

The focus on future-readiness recognizes that legacy notions of career and work are increasingly anachronistic and that in today’s society the most important skills are the ability to leverage data, technology, and creative thinking to identify challenges and design solutions.  Rather than investing in more technology, schools will be better served investing in curricula that help students think creatively about a data-driven world and more inventive applications of technology.

Watkins is the Founding Director of the Institute for Media Innovation (IMI) and the incoming Ernest S. Sharpe Centennial Professor in the Moody College of Communication at The University of Texas at Austin.