I’m an unabashed science fiction nerd. My bookshelf is an embarrassment of riches—dog-eared copies of Le Guin’s “Always Coming Home,” Butler’s entire Xenogenesis series, and all three volumes of Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars Trilogy. For years, I kept these works carefully separated from my professional life as a learning experience designer, as if enjoying speculative fiction somehow made me less serious about educational technology. But I’ve come to realize that my science fiction obsession isn’t just a guilty pleasure—it’s actually made me better at my job.

These visionary authors offer more than entertainment or escape—they provide crucial insights into how we might reimagine learning environments, challenge our assumptions about educational technology, and create more inclusive and effective learning experiences. And let’s be honest: in a field that can sometimes get bogged down in learning management system specifications and engagement metrics, we could use a little more imagination

Applicable Themes

In reflecting on how science fiction has shaped my practice as a learning experience designer, I’ve found myself returning to certain themes again and again. These aren’t comprehensive, but they represent some of the key ways speculative fiction has helped me reimagine what learning experiences could be. Each theme emerges from different authors’ approaches to knowledge, technology, and human potential, offering unique lenses through which to examine our own assumptions about learning design.

Theme 1: Technology Choice and Purpose

In Le Guin’s “Always Coming Home,” we encounter a future California society that has made deliberate choices about which technologies to embrace and which to leave behind. Their learning practices span mentorship, oral traditions, and more, and their technology serves their cultural values rather than reshaping them. Similarly, Becky Chambers’ “A Psalm for the Wild-Built” presents a world that has fundamentally restructured its relationship with technology, building around well-being rather than efficiency.

• What technologies truly serve our learning objectives?
• How might we design systems that reflect conscious technological choices rather than reflexive adoption?
• When do our tools enhance learning, and when do they create unnecessary barriers?
• What would our learning platforms look like if we built them around well-being rather than efficiency?

Theme 2: Knowledge Evolution and Transmission

Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars Trilogy shows us how knowledge adapts across generations in a new environment. From the first hundred settlers’ expertise sharing to the development of new universities and apprenticeship systems, we see the evolution of learning systems that must balance preservation with adaptation. Their struggles to integrate Earth-based knowledge with Martian realities mirror our own challenges with educational technology design.

• How do we design learning systems that can evolve with their communities?
• What role should preservation of knowledge play versus adaptation?
• How might we better integrate technical and social learning?
• What can we learn from the ways knowledge naturally flows through communities?

Consider how our current learning management systems might change if we designed them not just for immediate needs but for generational knowledge transmission.

Theme 3: Language, Communication, and Learning

Miéville’s “Embassytown” explores how language shapes thought and reality, while McHugh’s “China Mountain Zhang” examines how educational systems can encode cultural values and reinforce hierarchies. Through their different lenses, both works reveal how the structures we build for learning can either expand or limit our ways of thinking and knowing.

• How does the language we use in our platforms shape learning?
• What implicit biases are we building into our educational technologies?
• How might we design for multilingual and multicultural learning environments?
• What happens when we privilege certain ways of knowing over others?

Theme 4: Adaptability and Resilience

Throughout Butler’s works and Robinson’s Mars Trilogy, we see how learning must adapt to radical environmental and social changes. Their characters design knowledge-sharing systems that remain functional through upheaval and transformation – a perspective increasingly relevant as we design educational technologies for an uncertain future.

• How do we design learning systems that remain resilient through change?
• What role should flexibility play in our educational technologies?
• How might we better prepare learners for uncertain futures?
• What balance should we strike between structure and adaptability?

Theme 5: Community and Individual Learning

Le Guin’s works consistently explore the relationship between community knowledge and individual growth. The Kesh’s approach to education in “Always Coming Home” shows us alternatives to our often rigid, institution-focused learning technologies. Their integration of personal discovery with collective knowledge offers fresh perspectives on how we might structure digital learning environments.

• How do we honor individual learning paths while fostering community?
• What role should peer learning play in our educational technologies?
• How might we better integrate informal and formal learning?
• What can we learn from traditional knowledge-sharing practices?

Conclusion

Progressive science fiction offers us more than escapism—it provides a framework for reimagining what’s possible in educational technology. Whether it’s the conscious technological choices of Le Guin’s Kesh people, the solarpunk optimism of Chambers’ robots, or the evolving systems of Robinson’s Mars, these works challenge us to think deeper about the intersection of technology, learning, and human experience.

As learning designers, we don’t need to wait for the future to start asking better questions about our work. These authors have already given us rich territory to explore. What if we approached our next learning design project not just as technologists, but as anthropologists of possible futures?

The greatest gift science fiction offers educational technology isn’t prediction but permission—permission to imagine radically different ways of teaching, learning, and knowing. In a field often driven by metrics and standardization, we need these visions of alternative possibilities more than ever.