As of now, life is an open book test. And when I say now, i don't mean right this minute, I mean as of the last few years.

I was listening to someone talk about this on a podcast the other day. I can't remember which one. But it struck me as an amazingly accurate appraisal.

The digital age creates amazing findability, and it's only going to get better. Of course, a fast car needs a very skilled driver. Access to huge amounts of information requires a new set of information skills - critical thinking, comprehension, becomes essential.

In the old days, schooling was about remembering stuff. Even when I was at school, the more you could memorise the better you did. But with the rise of the internet, and in particular Google, why remember something when you can look it up just as quickly. From here on knowledge is a dime a dozen. Instead, analytical ability and creativity are what will get you work.

And so, I predict that in the next decade, education will become less about teaching content, but about training brains - learning how to learn and building cognitive fitness.

After all, as progress grows exponentially it becomes pointless to teach specific knowledge. The specific film and video making skills that I learned in my BCA from 2001 - 2003, were obsolete by 2004. The general philosophical issues about storytelling were still useful, however the 'training' was useless. I ended up just buying some new gear and looking stuff up on the net.

Who knows what the state of psychological science will be by the time i finish this psych course.

The world of open book tests can be a bit frightening. It necessitates life long learning. But it makes for a very strong meritocracy.