What should we read next? A survey

What should we read next for our online book club?

We recently finished Vernor Vinge’s Rainbows End (2006), a science fiction novel imagining changes to education and technology over the next few decades.  Now we’ll turn back to nonfiction, and here’s where you get to help choose.  Possible titles appear from a variety of fields bearing on the future of education: technology, education, economics, policy, history, and criticism.

If you’re new to our book club, know that since 2014 we’ve been reading books covering different ways of approaching education, technology, and the future.  Titles have included media history, near-future science fiction, education economics, anti-authoritarian schooling, changes in higher education, sociology of class, the emerging world of automation, and the 21st century’s most important work of economics.  As our book club progressed, some of the authors have been guests on the Future Trends Forum; scroll down and see.

You can vote using the shiny widget right below this paragraph.  You can cast ballots for up to three (3) titles.  For more information about the would-be readings, the big list of books with links and descriptions appears just after the survey tool.

Polls will stay open for a week, after which I’ll select the next reading.

Here’s that giant list of nonfiction books:

• Mark Carnes, Minds on Fire (publisher; Amazon) (2014).  The co-creator of the Reacting to the Past education game movement explains it.  Inside Higher Ed article.
• Allan Collins, Richard Halverson, Rethinking Education in the Age of Technology: The Digital Revolution and Schooling in America (2009) A Columbia Teachers’ College Press book about how education can change to best respond to technology.
• Martin Ford, Rise of the Robots (2015).  A popular and accessible consideration of where automation might take us.  (thanks to Jeff Mehring)
• Peter Frase, Four Futures: Life After Capitalism (publisher; Amazon) (2016).  A bold quartet of futures, each a world powerfully reshaped by technology in different ways.  Based on this 2011 article.
• Claudia Goldin and Lawrence F. Katz, The Race between Education and Technology. (publisher; Amazon) (2010). Explores how education changes to prepare students for technological shifts.
• Jonathan Knee, Class Clowns: How the Smartest Investors Lost Billions in Education (2016).  A history of massive and failed investment into education enterprises.  One quick review. (thanks to Michael Johnson)
• Rajiv Jhangiani, Robert Biswas-Diener, Open: The Philosophy and Practices that are Revolutionizing Education and Science (2017).  Explores open educational resources, open notebook science, and open access scholarship.  Note that this book is available as a free download.
• John Markoff, Machines of Loving Grace (2015).  A meditation on the future of automation based on examining human-computer interaction.
• Branko Milanovich, Global Inequality (2016).  The most influential and up to date book on economic inequality worldwide.
• Angela Nagle, Kill All Normies (publisher; Amazon) (2017).  A history and analysis of the lunatic fringe of online culture, from 4Chan on.
• Chris Newfield, The Great Mistake: How We Wrecked Public Universities and How We Can Fix Them. (publisher; Amazon). (2016)  Focuses on the defunding of American public higher education.  Professor Newfield was a guest on the Future Trends Forum this summer.
• Cathy O’Neill, Weapons of Math Destruction (official site; Amazon) (2016).  A careful and very popular critique of the problems arising from big data, data analytics, and applying algorithms to increasing areas of human life.
• Will Richardson and Rob Mancabelli, Personal Learning Networks: Using the Power of Connections to Transform Education. (publisher; Amazon) (2011) A serious look on connected learning, co-authored by a Future Trends Forum guest, and in its third edition.
• Jeff Selingo, College Unbound: The Future of Higher Education and What it Means for Students. (author’s page; Amazon) (2013). A critical examination of higher ed in transformation by one of the field’s leading journalists.  Selingo was a Future Trends Forum guest this summer.
• Strauss and Howe, The Fourth Turning (1997).  This is the big book about American generational theory, an ambitious interpretation of this nation’s culture, and a tool for getting at the future.  It’s very much in the news now, as people seek to apply its model to either Trump or his opposition.
• Richard Susskind and Daniel Susskind, The Future of the Professions  How Technology Will Transform the Work of Human Experts (2016).  (thanks to Joe Murphy for the suggestion)
• Peter Temin, The Vanishing Middle Class: Prejudice and Power in a Dual Economy (Amazon; publisher) (2017).  A cutting-edge examination of economic inequality in the United States.
• Fred Turner, The Democratic Surround: Multimedia and American Liberalism from World War II to the Psychedelic Sixties (publisher; Amazon) (2013).  A deep dive into the origins of multimedia technology as a democratic and psychological project.
• Zeynep Tufekci, Twitter and Teargas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest (MIT: 2017).  (thanks to Kyle Johnson)
• Benjamin Wittes and Gabriella Blum, The Future of Violence: Robots and Germs, Hackers and Drones—Confronting A New Age of Threat (2015).  A thorough investigation into emerging technologies and their implications for war, crime, and security.

You can vote in this poll, and also add thoughts in comments below.  You can support up to three titles.

I’m looking forward to your choices!

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