A Future For Education:Some Core Ideas

Jack ParkSRI International, Menlo Park, California

AndKnowledge Media Institute, Open University, Milton Keynes, U.K.

National Assembly of South KoreaSeoul, Korea

26 October, 2007

“Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.”

–Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

Learning Happens

“We are what we eat, and we think what we practice.”

Geoffrey C. Bowker, Memory Practices in the Sciences, p. 229

Let’s talk about practice

Quote

A Story About a Future for Education

Just-in-time Life-long Collaborative Global

From Individual Performance to Collective Sensemaking

Individual to Group

Group to Groups

Collective Sensemaking

Blooming and buzzing ideas that

need collection, deliberation, and

organization

Learning

is

Sensemaking

Our story is about innovation

Image courtesy Gail Johnson http://admin-solutions.co.uk/

What’s Important for Us

• Web 17.0* 78%• Integrated life-long learning 76%• Just-in-time knowledge 72%• Public facilities for learning 72%• Individualized education 64%• Improving collective intelligence 62%

* We think in terms of Web 3.0

From Figure 23 in 2007 State of the Future

Education in Society

INFORMAL EDUCATION

FORMAL EDUCATION

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

EDUCATION FOR

EARNING A LIVING

Image Courtesy: Kim, Sun Tae (2005) “Development of VET curriculum”, Korea Research Institute for Vocational Education and Training

Nature of the Universe where Events and Learning Occur

Simple Complicated Complex

Simple Things Machines Living Things

Social Systems

Simple to Complex

Paper Pencil

Simple Complex

Marking on the paper forever changes what the paper can say

Blank paper has potential to say anything

Memory in Cultural Knowledge Growth

Belief Space(Memory)

Population Space

Evaluate

Update

InfluenceAccept

ReproduceModify

After: Reynolds, R.G.; Stefan, J.M. "Web services, Web searches, and cultural algorithms", IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man and Cybernetics, 2003. Volume 4, 5-8 Oct. 2003, pp. 3982 - 3987

Gowin’s VeeWhere Learning Happens

After: Novak, J. D., & D. B. Gowin. (1984). Learning how to learn. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Conceptual Methodological

Events, Stuff

Focus Questions

Answering

Learning

Knowledge Performance

Hole in the wall

• Computer with touch screen and internet

• Mounted in “hole in the wall”

• No teachers• Children taught

themselves to surf the web

Source:

http://www.hole-in-the-wall.com/

Approaches to Learning

• Individual – Personal research– Mentor schemes

• Group– Classrooms– Trade associations– Lectures – Informal (Incidental, Social, everyday)

Let’s Focus on Group Learning

Image Courtesy Katy Borner

A Step Toward the Future

• A Modest Proposition– A global learning support

infrastructure– Uses collaborative and

social opportunities on the Web

– Let’s call it a:

• Dynamic Knowledge Garden

Douglas Engelbart’s Dynamic Knowledge Repository (DKR)

We will call this a

Dynamic Knowledge Garden (DKG)

Software InfrastructureMemory, Collaboration

DKR = People + Tools

Learning Communities

Content BuildersContent Users

Subject Map

Applications

Platform

A Dynamic Knowledge Garden

Federated Human Knowledge

Learning

Cultures

Politics

History

Religion

…Wellness

Nutrition

Addictions

Aging

Cancer

KnowledgeGarden

Knowledge Garden Framework

Quote

Upon this gifted age, in its dark hour

Rains from the sky a meteor shower

Of facts…they lie unquestioned,

Uncombined.

Wisdom enough to leach us of our ill

Is daily spun; but there exists no loom

To weave it into fabric.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

A Loom: Topic/Subject Maps

Image Courtesy Steve Pepper

Topic Map:

Lies above information and weaves that information into a fabric

Some Topic Maps People

Ann Wrightson (U.K.)

Sam Oh (Korea)

Steve Newcomb (USA)

Steve Pepper (Norway)

The fabric of cultural memory

Our Knowledge Garden Architecture

Enough Theory…

• Let’s look at a few examples– Information Design Course– Bay Area Science Collaboratory– Fuzzzy Social Bookmarking– Cohere experimental knowledge portal– Journal of Interactive Media in Education– CALO Semantic Desktop Application

Information Design Course

Source: http://www.ifi.uio.no/info-design/

NexistWiki for Education

NexistWiki: Topic Map + Wiki

Topic Map Social Bookmarking

Experimental Knowledge Garden

Source: Simon Buckingham Shum

JIME document interface

http://www-jime.open.ac.uk/

CALO Semantic Desktop Application

Open Source IRIS Platform:

http://www.openiris.org

http://caloproject.sri.com

What can we do in our garden?

• Plant seeds– Create new subjects

• Cultivate the garden– Annotate subjects

• Annotate by connecting ideas in different subjects• Annotate by tagging• Discuss issues raised as subjects evolve

• Harvest the garden– Create learning opportunities

Annotating By Connecting

A User asserts a relationship between ideas expressed at two different resources

Semantic Desktop concept

“is exemplified by”

OpenIris.org

Annotation by Tagging

A User asserts a Tag on a Resource

“Semantic Desktop”

Facilitating large-scale discourse• Towards a cultivated

ecosystem?…

ordered gardens

wild borders

ordered gardens

wild borders

Structured but emergent networks of claims and

arguments

Informally expressed claims and arguments,

awaiting ‘proper linkage’

Source: Simon Buckingham Shum

Dialog Mapping

Users Ask and Answer Questions, and Discuss the Answers

Compendium Screenshot

Collaborative sensemaking in e-Science:Meeting Replay tool for Earth scientists, synchronising video of Mars crew’s discussion as they annotate their mission plans

Copyright, 2004, RIACS/NASA Ames, Open University, Southampton UniversityCourtesy Simon Buckingham Shum

Future prospects for learning support

• Global federation of Dynamic Knowledge Gardens

• Virtual Learning Environments

Federation of Knowledge Gardens

Knowledge Garden

Knowledge Garden

Knowledge Garden

Knowledge Gardens communicate with each other to perform federation

Virtual Worlds Architecture

User’sWeb Browser

Subject MapServer

Virtual WorldsServer

Candidate Future:Virtual Learning Centers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFuNFRie8wA

http://www.secondlife.com/

Summary

• With a Dynamic Knowledge Garden, we can:– Promote more freedom to learn– Bring more learners together for:

• Lifelong, Just-in-time, Just-in-case, Just-for-me learning

– Promote social contribution to learning environments by and for all people

– Augment collective intelligence

Thank You

jack.park@sri.com

Special thanks to Jerry Glenn, Youngsook Park, and Adam Cheyer

Final thought: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4CV05HyAbM