This is presented at 2011 Knowledge Building Summer Institute hosted in Guangzhou, China, as an important event after CSCL 2011. By going through ten important aspects that might help define next-generation knowledge-building environment, presenters invited all participants to contribute their ideas about how to make knowledge-building environment better.

1. Next-Generation Knowledge Building
Environments
Knowledge Building Team
SI 2011, July 9-10, Guangzhou, China

2. Outline of main ideas
 One discourse, multiple access points: flexible import-export functions to
allow all of the valued ideas and artifacts to be incorporated into a
coherent knowledge building discourse.
 Meta-discourse: discourse about the discourse
 Promising ideas
 Rise above: ways to represent higher-order organizations of ideas and to
signal the rising status for improved ideas
 Any media object treatable as an object of inquiry
 Idea spaces--in addition to people spaces, document, or message
spaces: shared, user-configured design spaces for collective knowledge
advance
 Support for tagging, citing and referencing work in the collective space
for idea evolution
 Embedded, concurrent, and transformative assessment
 Support for ubiquitous theory-building
 Support for self-organization that goes beyond division of labor

3. Outline of main ideas
 One discourse, multiple access points: flexible import-export functions to
allow all of the valued ideas and artifacts to be incorporated into a
coherent knowledge building discourse.
 Meta-discourse: discourse about the discourse
 Promising ideas
 Rise above: ways to represent higher-order organizations of ideas and to
signal the rising status for improved ideas
 Any media object treatable as an object of inquiry
 Idea spaces--in addition to people spaces, document, or message
spaces: shared, user-configured design spaces for collective knowledge
advance
 Support for tagging, citing and referencing work in the collective space
for idea evolution
 Support for ubiquitous theory-building
 Support for self-organization that goes beyond division of labor
 Embedded, concurrent, and transformative assessment

4. One discourse, multiple access
points
Present situation: Separate discourses with some ability to
link--
 Facebook, Twitter, text messages, online forum, email, smart
board, Moodle, etc., etc.
 Little sustained discourse in any medium

5. One discourse, multiple access
points
Improved technology:
 Discourse contributions originate in various sources --
Facebook, Twitter, text messages, online forum, email, wikies,
smart board, Moodle, videoconference, etc., etc.
 They are transmitted to a cloud-based knowledge building
environment where more complex knowledge operations are
carried out.
 Results of these operations can be retrieved and responded to in
the various media but sustained collaborative work gets its
main support in the knowledge building environment.

6. Outline of main ideas
 One discourse, multiple access points: flexible import-export functions to
allow all of the valued ideas and artifacts to be incorporated into a
coherent knowledge building discourse.
 Meta-discourse: discourse about the discourse
 Promising ideas
 Rise above: ways to represent higher-order organizations of ideas and to
signal the rising status for improved ideas
 Any media object treatable as an object of inquiry
 Idea spaces--in addition to people spaces, document, or message
spaces: shared, user-configured design spaces for collective knowledge
advance
 Support for tagging, citing and referencing work in the collective space
for idea evolution
 Support for ubiquitous theory-building
 Support for self-organization that goes beyond division of labor
 Embedded, concurrent, and transformative assessment

7. Central Role of Knowledge-Building
Discourse
 Collaborative knowledge building takes place in the discourse
among collaborators.
 Research, private reflection, etc. contribute to collaborative
knowledge building only insofar as they contribute to the
discourse.
 Understand knowledge-building discourse and you understand
knowledge building.
 Improve the discourse and you improve knowledge building.

9.  Dialogue about the dialogue
 How well it is progressing
Meta-Dialogue  What progress we have made
 Where it is heading
 What is hampering progress
 Personal and interpersonal
considerations as well as cognitve
 Does everyone have a chance to be
heard?
 How are turns being taken?
 Are people listening to each other?
 Should some parts of the dialogue
model be getting more attention?

10. Outline of main ideas
 One discourse, multiple access points: flexible import-export functions to
allow all of the valued ideas and artifacts to be incorporated into a
coherent knowledge building discourse.
 Meta-discourse: discourse about the discourse
 Any media object treatable as an object of inquiry
 Promising ideas
 dea spaces--in addition to people spaces, document, or message spaces:
shared, user-configured design spaces for collective knowledge advance
 Rise above: ways to represent higher-order organizations of ideas and to
signal the rising status for improved ideas
 Embedded, concurrent, and transformative assessment
 Support for tagging, citing and referencing work in the collective space
for idea evolution
 Support for ubiquitous theory-building
 Support for self-organization that goes beyond division of labor

11. Open Educational Resources
(OERs) as objects of inquiry
 Educational Resources (OERs) are rich in knowledge-building
possibilities.
 However, users of OERs tend to be isolated from each other
and from collaborative knowledge building.
 Carnegie-Mellon University develops a new Knowledge Forum
client to bring students into collaborative knowledge building
in Open Learning Initiative courses.

12. Open Educational Resources
(OERs) as objects of inquiry
Typical: discourse environment separated
from the object to be discussed and
improved.

14. Knowledge Forum within OLI course
 Similar to the Java-based version of Knowledge Forum, the new
version also presents the discourse space in a visual way, in contrast
to the widely-used threaded discussion environment.
 The interface features two basic components: views and notes.

15. Students Presented Their
Theories
“ I thought (with spin), if I went 180
degree, I gained more momentum,
I would be able to go further.”
„I thought I would go further if
I went higher but…‟

16. Context
In this project, we hope to achieve meaningful connections (more
then just citing examples, observing movements) between Science
and Physical Education. The lesson design emerged according to
students’ initiations to navigate between the content and experiences
in both curriculum, between individual reflection and collaborative
knowledge building.
Ben, Physical Education Teacher,
“How do you improve your long
jump?”
look at your own long jump ...
Richard, Science Teacher,
„How do you know that affects your
jump?”

17. Outline of main ideas
 One discourse, multiple access points: flexible import-export functions to
allow all of the valued ideas and artifacts to be incorporated into a
coherent knowledge building discourse.
 Meta-discourse: discourse about the discourse
 Any media object treatable as an object of inquiry
 Support for tagging, citing and referencing work in the collective space
for idea evolution
 Promising ideas
 Idea spaces--in addition to people spaces, document, or message
spaces: shared, user-configured design spaces for collective knowledge
advance
 Rise above: ways to represent higher-order organizations of ideas and to
signal the rising status for improved ideas
 Embedded, concurrent, and transformative assessment
 Support for ubiquitous theory-building
 Support for self-organization that goes beyond division of labor

18. Scaffold

19. Scaffold Tracker

20. Detection of “ways of contributing” based
on student-created scaffolds

21. THEORIZING
Q. Will light go through different colour
QUESTIONING paper and change colour?
OBTAINING EVIDENCE
Q. What happens when light hits a
WORKING WITH EVIDENCE
blackboard?
SUPPORTING DISCUSSION
T. When purple part of light hits a
SYNTHESIZE, COMPARE, “RISE-ABOVE” purple flower, it illuminates it.
F. I found out that when light T. When light hits a green object, only
hits a non- transparent object it green part of light keeps going, the rest
makes a different colour but it fades and is not used.
doesn’t keep going.

22. “EFFECTIVE DIALOGUE”
SCIENCE HISTORY

23. Future directions
 “Dynamic promotion” of scaffolds
 Epistemic agency in tagging and creating the
metadiscourse

24. Outline of main ideas
 One discourse, multiple access points: flexible import-export functions to
allow all of the valued ideas and artifacts to be incorporated into a
coherent knowledge building discourse.
 Meta-discourse: discourse about the discourse
 Any media object treatable as an object of inquiry
 Support for tagging, citing and referencing work in the collective space
for idea evolution
 Promising ideas
 Idea spaces--in addition to people spaces, document, or message
spaces: shared, user-configured design spaces for collective knowledge
advance
 Rise above: ways to represent higher-order organizations of ideas and to
signal the rising status for improved ideas
 Embedded, concurrent, and transformative assessment
 Support for ubiquitous theory-building
 Support for self-organization that goes beyond division of labor

25. Promising Ideas tool
 Design-based research (Brown, 1992; Collins, 1992)
Identifying ideas:
1. Click
2. Choose a color
3. Highlight an idea
4. The idea gets
highlighted and goes to
the box

26. Promising Ideas list:
Promising Ideas tool 1. Promising ideas listed
2. Choose a specific color list
3. Number of hits
4. Link backwards to notes

27. Export ideas to a new view
Export selected
ideas to a new view

28. Outline of main ideas
 One discourse, multiple access points: flexible import-export functions to
allow all of the valued ideas and artifacts to be incorporated into a
coherent knowledge building discourse.
 Meta-discourse: discourse about the discourse
 Any media object treatable as an object of inquiry
 Promising ideas
 Support for tagging, citing and referencing work in the collective space
for idea evolution
 Idea spaces--in addition to people spaces, document, or message
spaces: shared, user-configured design spaces for collective knowledge
advance
 Rise above: ways to represent higher-order organizations of ideas and to
signal the rising status for improved ideas
 Embedded, concurrent, and transformative assessment
 Support for ubiquitous theory-building
 Support for self-organization that goes beyond division of labor

29. A Workspace Dedicated to Ideas
Current situation: Knowledge Forum views are workspaces for building
on, linking, synthesizing, and adding to notes.

30. A Workspace Dedicated to Ideas
 Note space may become crowded
 Different notes embody same idea
 Single note may contain multiple ideas
Visual from “The Birth of a Word” by Deb Roy

31. A Workspace Dedicated to Ideas
Single note projected on to multiple ideas that it contains
Visual from “The Birth of a Word” by Deb Roy

32. A Workspace Dedicated to Ideas
 Single idea abstracted from multiple notes
 Ideas linked to ideas, independent of note linkages
Visual from “The Birth of a Word” by Deb Roy

33. Operations in the idea space
 Identifying “big” and/or “promising” ideas
 Metacognitive layer: ideas about ideas
 “Rising above”: Synthesizing, creating a higher-order layer of
ideas
Visual from “The Birth of a Word” by Deb Roy

34. Outline of main ideas
 One discourse, multiple access points: flexible import-export functions to
allow all of the valued ideas and artifacts to be incorporated into a
coherent knowledge building discourse.
 Meta-discourse: discourse about the discourse
 Any media object treatable as an object of inquiry
 Promising ideas
 Support for tagging, citing and referencing work in the collective space
for idea evolution
 Idea spaces--in addition to people spaces, document, or message
spaces: shared, user-configured design spaces for collective knowledge
advance
 Rise above: ways to represent higher-order organizations of ideas and to
signal the rising status for improved ideas
 Embedded, concurrent, and transformative assessment
 Support for ubiquitous theory-building
 Support for self-organization that goes beyond division of labor

35. Rise Above:
Rich and abundant visualization mechanisms that enable to see a
variety of “metacognitive views” (Brown & Campione, 1996) on an
unfolding discourse, and the interaction between social and cognitive
patterns
Social hot-spots Wordscapes Sematic Spaces
Visuals from the TED talk (“The Birth of a Word” by Deb Roy)

36. Rise above:
Visualization mechanisms that enable rise above across media,
web and forum contents
Top = Comments in online public spaces
Links between the two = LSA
Visual from the TED talk (“The Birth of a Word” by Deb
Bottom = promising ideas
Roy)

37. Outline of main ideas
 One discourse, multiple access points: flexible import-export functions to
allow all of the valued ideas and artifacts to be incorporated into a
coherent knowledge building discourse.
 Meta-discourse: discourse about the discourse
 Any media object treatable as an object of inquiry
 Promising ideas
 Support for tagging, citing and referencing work in the collective space
for idea evolution
 Idea spaces--in addition to people spaces, document, or message
spaces: shared, user-configured design spaces for collective knowledge
advance
 Rise above: ways to represent higher-order organizations of ideas and to
signal the rising status for improved ideas
 Embedded, concurrent, and transformative assessment
 Support for ubiquitous theory-building
 Support for self-organization that goes beyond division of labor

38. Outline of main ideas
 One discourse, multiple access points: flexible import-export functions to
allow all of the valued ideas and artifacts to be incorporated into a
coherent knowledge building discourse.
 Meta-discourse: discourse about the discourse
 Any media object treatable as an object of inquiry
 Promising ideas
 Support for tagging, citing and referencing work in the collective space
for idea evolution
 Idea spaces--in addition to people spaces, document, or message
spaces: shared, user-configured design spaces for collective knowledge
advance
 Rise above: ways to represent higher-order organizations of ideas and to
signal the rising status for improved ideas
 Embedded, concurrent, and transformative assessment
 Support for ubiquitous theory-building
 Support for self-organization that goes beyond division of labor

39. Ubiquitous theory-building
Theory-building is important not only in STEM but also
in history, social studies, literature
 Theory-building produces explanations of historical events,
social conditions.
 Theory-building produces interpretations of literary and
artistic works.
 Theory-building aims at explanatory coherence (Thagard).
 Explanatory coherence includes emotional coherence.

40. Ubiquitous theory-building
Even young children can build theories
 They produce explanations to account for facts.
 They abandon theories in the face of evidence.
 They can recognize one theory as doing a better job of
explaining than another.
 Young children demonstrate an epistemology superior to
that of the average adult--to whom theories are beliefs that
lack conclusive proof.
 But… working to improve a theory does not come naturally
and requires external support.

41. Ubiquitous theory-building
To support theory-building, support knowledge-building
dialogue--for instance, with sentence-openers:
 Looking more deeply into this problem…
 This idea can be improved by…
 This concept (distinction, analogy, hypothesis) helps to…
 This idea is worth working on because …
 Something else this idea might explain is …
 Another way to look at this is...
 Putting these ideas together …

42. Outline of main ideas
 One discourse, multiple access points: flexible import-export functions to
allow all of the valued ideas and artifacts to be incorporated into a
coherent knowledge building discourse.
 Meta-discourse: discourse about the discourse
 Any media object treatable as an object of inquiry
 Promising ideas
 Support for tagging, citing and referencing work in the collective space
for idea evolution
 Idea spaces--in addition to people spaces, document, or message
spaces: shared, user-configured design spaces for collective knowledge
advance
 Rise above: ways to represent higher-order organizations of ideas and to
signal the rising status for improved ideas
 Embedded, concurrent, and transformative assessment
 Support for ubiquitous theory-building
 Support for self-organization that goes beyond division of labor

43. Researchers, educators, and
programmers are invited to join in
building an open-source next-generation
knowledge building environment
embodying principles discussed here: