Reimagining Civic Learning in Future Cities

Published On Sun Jun 02 2024

Future-Present Learning in Place: Postdigital Learning at the Scale ...

This paper critically reflects on future-present learning in place situated in the context of postdigital learning at the scale of the city. The terms ‘future-present’ and ‘postdigital’ are used to attempt to encapsulate re-imagining possible futures of civic learning in urban places, situated within a technology-infused future learning city environment. Acknowledging a high level of uncertainty, it is argued here that we must re-imagine and investigate alternative visions of what might be possible or desirable to implement a smarter, more effective and efficient learning in place in near-future learning cities, to plan and adapt for how this future could play out, and mitigate challenges that may arise.

Speculative Vision for Civic Learning

Seeking to step out from ‘business as usual’ interpretations and taking a lead from innovative projects, literature and media debates, a speculative vision is outlined for a civic learning network to provide seamless, low friction learning in a smart future city. Context is placed on the importance of the web of knowledge as the foundation of any system of civic learning implementation, the role of the open social web to support citizen participation, and the potential responsibilities of platform infrastructure as part of their relationship to future technosocial contracts and citizen digital epistemic rights.

Technology such as augmented reality smartphone camera image recognition, textual recognition, geocoded location data, sensors, beacons, QR codes or SMS notifications all offer mechanisms for knowledge related to place to be delivered to a user’s smartphone while they are in place.