1. Notes
on
World
IA
Day
130209
Glad
to
be
here
and
welcome
to
Vanderbilt
University.
Thanks
to
the
Vanderbilt
Library
and
Dean
Connie
Dowell
for
making
this
space
available
for
a
community
event.
More
selfishly,
I
want
to
welcome
IA
and
ID
folk
on
behalf
of
the
Learning
Sciences
and
Learning
Environments
Design
program
in
the
Department
of
Teaching
and
Learning
in
Peabody
College.
We
have
both
a
PhD
and
a
MEd
program
if
you
are
interested.
Pratim
Sengupta,
also
on
this
panel
is
one
of
our
most
active
faculty
in
this
area,
which
also
includes
Doug
Clark
and
Melissa
Gresalfi
as
core
faculty.
As
part
of
these
programs,
I
help
lead
something
we
call
the
Spatial
Learning
and
Mobility
or
SLaM
group.
These
are
faculty
and
students
interested
in
the
role
of
space
and
personal
mobility
in
learning.
We
are
trying
to
grow
a
“hive”
of
people
interested
in
learning
and
design,
which
might
include
many
of
you.
So
my
comments
this
morning
are
geared
to
that.
My
background
is
in
computer
science,
AI
and
machine
learning,
so
I
was
trained
to
think
of
information
and
architecture
as
arrangements
for
organizing
and
serving
up
what
is
already
known,
in
ways
that
are
efficient,
reliable,
and
useful
to
users.
These
are
all
good
things,
of
course.
But
what
about
IA
and
ID
could
serve
learning?
How
could
we
create
information
environments
that
are
also:
•
invitations
to
learning,
•
vivid
and
memorable,
•
relevant
to
the
everyday
lives
of
learners
(young
people
or
adults),
and
•
places
in
which
it
is
easy
to
make
things
that
are
genuinely
new?
Since
computing
has
spilled
off
of
desktops
into
just
about
every
area
of
life,
and
also
since
information
now
accumulates
about
many
aspect
of
personal
and
public
life,
this
is
a
great
time
to
be
asking
these
questions.
Since
efficiency
is
good,
I’d
like
to
share
two
concepts
that
may
encourage
you
to
keep
asking
about
learning
as
the
day
progresses.
The
first
concerns
how
information
spaces
layer
up
in
ways
that
impact
or
could
support
learning.
What
I
have
in
mind
here
are
relations
between
spaces
of:
•
consumption
(e.g.,
What
is
in
your
browsing
and
purchasing
history?),
•
social
connection
(e.g.,
Who
are
your
friends
on
Facebook?),
and

2. •
time
geography
(e.g.,
Where
have
you
been,
where
are
you
now,
what
are
you
near,
and
where
are
you
headed?).
*The
concept
of
time
geography
may
not
be
familiar—think
about
where
you
go
on
a
typical
day,
literally
as
a
trail
in
space-­‐time.
There
is
a
rich
story
of
constraints
here,
but
also
one
of
desire,
habit,
and
identity.
What
would
your
daily
round
look
like
over
the
surface
of
a
temporally
animated
map?
My
sense
of
the
situation,
now,
is
that
people
(individuals)
generate
these
spaces
through
their
activity,
but
information
about
their
traversals
in
these
spaces
tends
to
be
archived
and
used
by
other
entities.
The
FCC
is
increasingly
focused
on
what
are
acceptable
uses.
But
how
could
we
use
these
layers
and
selective
relations
among
them
to
support
learning?
The
most
obvious,
though
maybe
not
the
most
powerful
answer,
is
to
use
layered
information
to
teach.
If
you
are
near
a
cultural
asset
that
might
interest
you,
given
your
history
of
information
browsing,
a
“learning
advisory
feed”
could
alert
you
to
some
nearby
opportunity
to
learn.
We
know
this
is
possible,
since
your
smart
phone
can
already
alert
you
to
a
lingerie
or
chocolate
sale
in
the
local
mall,
depending
on
your
history
of
consumption.
Agency
comes
from
the
outside
in
this
concept
of
teaching.
How
could
we
design
tools
that
allow
people
to
tailor
relations
between
these
layers,
selectively?
We
think
of
this
as
a
kind
of
“meshworking”—learners
actively
build
tour-­‐like
structures
that
create
and
archive
relations
between
these
layered
spaces.
Their
minds
are
“extended”
in
this
way
(as
minds
have
always
been,
with
calendars,
lists,
etc.),
and
they
can
share
the
meshwork
with
others.
This
leads
to
a
second
concept
that
I’d
like
to
offer
for
thinking
about
learning
today.
Learning
happens
at
different
scales—momentary
activity,
personal
biography,
history
in
social
groups—so
building
meshworks
between
layers
of
information
will
need
to
accommodate
these
different
scales.
And
this
means
that
learners,
in
some
fashion,
will
need
to
become
curators
of
their
own
knowing
and
capacities
for
activity.
We
think
this
is
a
big
deal,
but
we
really
do
not
understand
it
very
well.
Why
would
learners
want
to
or
need
to
curate?
Do
they
already
do
it?
We
are
just
starting
to
study
this,
and
to
design
for
it.
We
think
that
IA
as
a
field
has
a
lot
to
offer
here.
We
know
that
kids
intensely
curate
and
share
information—think
Reddit,
SubReddits,
and
meta-­‐Reddits
that
build
domain
maps.
We
also
know
that
many

3. wonderful
public
archives,
like
this
library,
are
intensely
and
professionally
curated
spaces.
Where
do
these
curatorial
practices
meet—what
kind
of
interface
do
we
want
between
curated
and
contributed
information?
I
hope
these
two
concepts—meshworking
and
curatorial
practice—are
helpful
for
thinking
about
learning
as
World
IA
day
proceeds.
Thanks.