Future of Education talk presented in Seoul, 2007

1. A Future For Education:
Some Core Ideas
Jack Park
SRI International, Menlo Park, California
And
Knowledge Media Institute, Open University, Milton Keynes, U.K.
National Assembly of South Korea
Seoul, Korea
26 October, 2007

2. “Discovery consists
of seeing what
everybody has seen
and thinking what
nobody has thought.”
–Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

3. Learning Happens

4. Quote
“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

5. A Story About a
Future for Education
Just-in-time
Life-long
Collaborative
Global

6. From Individual Performance to
Collective Sensemaking
Individual Group to
to Group Groups

7. Collective Sensemaking
Blooming and
buzzing ideas that
need collection,
deliberation, and
organization

8. Learning
is
Sensemaking

9. Our story is about innovation
Image courtesy Gail Johnson
http://admin-solutions.co.uk/

10. 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

11. Education in Society
FORMAL EDUCATION
EDUCATION EDUCATION
FOR FOR
LIFE EARNING A LIVING
INFORMAL EDUCATION
Image Courtesy: Kim, Sun Tae (2005)
“Development of VET curriculum”, Korea
Research Institute for Vocational
Education and Training

12. Nature of the Universe where
Events and Learning Occur
Simple Complicated Complex
Simple Things Machines Living Things
Social Systems

13. Simple to Complex
Simple Complex
Paper Pencil
Blank paper has Marking on the paper forever
potential to say changes what the paper can
anything say

14. Memory in Cultural Knowledge
Growth
Belief Space
(Memory)
Update
Accept Influence
Population Space
Reproduce Evaluate
Modify
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

15. Gowin’s Vee
Where Learning Happens
Learning
Conceptual Methodological
Knowledge Focus Questions Performance
Answering
Events, Stuff
After: Novak, J. D., & D. B. Gowin. (1984). Learning how to learn.
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

16. Hole in the wall
• Computer with touch
screen and internet
• Mounted in “hole in
the wall”
• No teachers
• Children taught
themselves to surf the Source:
web http://www.hole-in-the-wall.com/

17. Approaches to Learning
• Individual
– Personal research
– Mentor schemes
• Group
– Classrooms
– Trade associations
– Lectures
– Informal (Incidental, Social, everyday)

18. Let’s Focus on Group Learning
Image Courtesy Katy Borner

19. 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

20. Douglas Engelbart’s Dynamic
Knowledge Repository (DKR)
Learning Communities
DKR = People + Tools
We will call this a
Dynamic Knowledge Garden Software Infrastructure
(DKG) Memory, Collaboration

21. A Dynamic Knowledge Garden
Content Users Content Builders
Applications
Subject Map
Platform

22. Federated Human Knowledge
Learning
Cancer Cultures
Aging Politics
Knowledge
Garden
Addictions History
Nutrition Religion
Wellness …

23. Knowledge Garden Framework

24. 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

25. A Loom: Topic/Subject Maps
Topic Map:
Lies above
information and
weaves that
information into
a fabric
Image Courtesy Steve Pepper

26. Some Topic Maps People
Ann Wrightson (U.K.)
Sam Oh (Korea)
Steve Newcomb (USA)
Steve Pepper (Norway)

27. The fabric of cultural memory

28. Our Knowledge Garden
Architecture

29. 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

30. Information Design Course
Source: http://www.ifi.uio.no/info-design/

31. NexistWiki for Education

32. NexistWiki: Topic Map + Wiki

33. Topic Map Social Bookmarking

34. Experimental Knowledge Garden
Source: Simon Buckingham Shum

35. JIME document interface
http://www-jime.open.ac.uk/

36. CALO
Semantic Desktop Application
http://caloproject.sri.com
Open Source IRIS Platform:
http://www.openiris.org

37. 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

38. Annotating By Connecting
Semantic Desktop
concept
“is exemplified
by”
OpenIris.org
A User asserts a relationship
between ideas expressed at two
different resources

39. Annotation by Tagging
“Semantic Desktop”
A User asserts a Tag on a Resource

40. Facilitating large-scale discourse
• Towards a cultivated
ecosystem?…
Structured but emergent
networks of claims and
arguments
ordered gardens
ordered gardens
Informally expressed
wild borders
wild borders claims and arguments,
awaiting ‘proper linkage’
Source: Simon Buckingham Shum

41. Dialog Mapping
Compendium Screenshot
Users Ask and Answer Questions,
and Discuss the Answers

42. 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
University
Courtesy Simon
Buckingham Shum

43. Future prospects for learning
support
• Global federation of Dynamic Knowledge
Gardens
• Virtual Learning Environments

44. Federation of Knowledge Gardens
Knowledge Gardens
communicate with each
other to perform
federation
Knowledge Garden
Knowledge Garden
Knowledge Garden

45. Virtual Worlds Architecture
User’s
Web Browser
Virtual Worlds Subject Map
Server Server

46. Candidate Future:
Virtual Learning Centers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFuNFRie8wA
http://www.secondlife.com/

47. 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

48. 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