Transcript Cross-cutting Observations: CI and Education Dan Atkins University of Michigan 1 Nov 2002 CI for ERE Workshop.

Cross-cutting Observations:
CI and Education
Dan Atkins
University of Michigan
1 Nov 2002
CI for ERE Workshop
Outline
• Concepts, framework, definitions for talking
about CI-enabled knowledge work, including
“learning/education.”
• Goal is to help with envisioning and talking about
the opportunities.
• Goal is to provide a framework into which specific
bottom-up ideas can be fit.
• Much of this has been stimulated by this meeting
and is definitely work in progress.
Broadened the Topic
• more than “creating a better environmental scientists”.
• Roles, stakeholders, participants
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K-grey
Researchers
Teachers
Practitioners
General public
Policy makers
• Education, broadly defined
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Formal, all levels and types
Informal
Structured, semi-structured
Hybrids of the above.
Cyberinfrastructure: the Middle
Layer
Applications in science and
engineering research and
education
Cyberinfrastructure: hardware,
software, personnel, services,
institutions
Base-technology: computation,
storage, communication
Co-laboratory a.k.a Collaboratory
High-performance computing
for modeling, simulation, data
processing/mining
Humans
Individual &
Group Interfaces
& Visualization
Tools and
Services
Instruments for
observation and
characterization.
Global
Connectivity
Physical World
Facilities for activation,
manipulation and
construction
Knowledge management
institutions for collection building
and curation of data, information,
literature, digital objects
Co-laboratory, Collaboratory
People
Data,
Information,
Knowledge
Distributed,
computationallybased tools and
services
Cyber-infrastructure
1. Tools & services are
group aware.
2. Need tools to help
manage scarce
human attention.
3. Functional
completeness.
Instruments,
Facilities
Time-Space Options for
Group/Organizational Activity
TIME
Same
Different
sign boards,
Face-to-face library,
Same meeting
drop-in
labs
PLACE
Audio,
Email,
video conf., ThreadedDifferent chat,
discussions
Access Grid
“Distance matters”
Relaxing
constraints of
time and
distance
(geographical
and
organizational).
“Opportunities beyond being there”
“Better than being there”
A stack of hopes & aspirations
• Modern CI enables collaboratories.
• Collaboratories support knowledge-work communities in
creating, disseminating, applying, preserving knowledge.
• Collaboratories (dramatically, disruptively) relax
constraints/barriers of distance, time, reality.
• Relaxed constraints (reduced barriers) of d,t,r enable
knowledge communities to extrapolation and innovation
in both what they do and how they do it. We are dealing
with behavioral, social, organizational change.
• Collaboratories support the advancement of science and
engineering in new ways.
• Collaboratories could revolutionize S&E research,
education, and practice.
A Collaboratory
• A collaboratory is a CI-based organizational form.
• It can exist at different sizes. Small team. Teams
of teams, etc.
• Many specific instances of collaboratories are
created.
• In general a person participates in multiple (overlapping) collaboratories perhaps in different roles
in different collaboratories (e.g. leader, observer,
researcher, teacher)
• Collaboratories (and overlapping collection of
collaboratories) support the knowledge world of a
field (community of practice): creation,
dissemination, use, preservation.
Collaboratories can
• Improve individual, team, organizational
efficiency, productivity.
• Provide greater access and participation. Improve
equity of access.
• Open up more experiences. Increase probability of
intellectual fusion across disciplinary boundaries.
• Enrich diversity of participation, perspective,
ideas, experiences.
• Enable people to juggle (do) more different things,
in different roles while dropping fewer balls.
• Enable sharing of resources. Amortization of
investment. Leveraging of investment.
• Support existing and evolving teams,
communities, as well as accelerate effective new
team formation. Accelerate new field/discipline
formation.
Phases of Education
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1.General skills and knowledge acquisition.
2. Learning about a field. (UG)
3. Evolving into participation in a field. (Grad)
5. Practitioner of in a field.
4. Adding knowledge to a field. (Ph.D)
– Apprenticeship
• 5. Creating new fields. (spanning, working in the
“white spaces”.)
Changes in Education Pipeline
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Can we use collaboratories:
• to reduce the time for any segment;
• to overlap the segments;
• to traverse the segments in different ways;
• to accelerate the formation of a new field - both the
research, education, and professional practice identity????
Also…
• Can we use collaboratories to enable people to more
realistically and effective contribute in additional roles
(other than their primary) in the educational process?
• Can we use collaboratories to provide teachers and
students greater access to information, tools, services,
interactive learning modules, instruments, and human
expertise that makes the educational process more
exciting, engaging, relevant, motivational.
• Can we make multi-use from a collaboratory
investment to simultaneously contribute to research,
education (at multi-levels) as well as supporting
general public understanding and better informed
decision and policy making?
Illuminating Examples
• Windows to the Universe -SPARC
– Tailored Portals into the collaboratory to
support middle school teachers and students to
engage a professional research community and
their collaboratory resources.
Teachers evolved their own collaboratory to work
with each other and key spanning people
(between teachers and the science domain).
Need passionate leaders for these type projects just like we do the research
collaboratory projects.
More…
• Elliot Soloway, UM
– Inquiry-based science in Detroit PS.
– Using wireless PDAs.
• Louis Gomez, Northwestern
– Inquiry-based science in Chicago PS.
– Limited success with collaboration technology.
• Bugscope Collaboratory at UIUC
• AIHEC Virtual Library Project
– Digital library federation for Native American tribal
colleges. First phase of a more comprehensive
collaboratory. Save accreditation of 3 schools already.
• NSF NSDL as a platform for a Science Education
Collaboratory????
END
General educational potential for
collaboratory-based knowledge work
• Relaxes constraints of time and distance (geographic, organizational,
disciplinary): STSP, DTDP, STDP, SPDT. How do we map learning/teaching
processes into this space of options for collaboration?
• Allows more to participate in various (evolving) roles in a KC. (observer,
novice, thought leader).
• Allows more effective participation in multiple, overlapping KCs.
• Raises the threshold on what is a novel contribution or an authentic learning
experience but also provides resources to support accomplishment at the new
level of expectation.
• Provides tools to allow authentic participation in a CoP with (temporarily?)
fewer prerequisites. Scaffolds participation. Motivational effect of earlier
participation, not just “appreciating” or “learning about”, or even “getting
ready to learn about.”
Point of View
• Higher education in the context of a specialized,
knowledge-based community (field) of practice.
• CI needs to be evaluated wrt to supporting people in the
knowledge creating, disseminating (education), using,
preserving activities of a community.
• CoP has in it people of different roles and status: observer
(LPP), novice, student, researcher, faculty, ...UG = learning
about a CoP (field); Grad = participating in the field/,
contributing to the field. CI could blur boundary.
• CI support for authentic, inquiry-based, apprenticeship
(PhD) type learning (but more economically)
• The most excitement, potential gain, etc. future is in the
“white spaces” between the traditional disciplines, subdisciplines. Multidisciplinary CoP, cross-cutting CoP. Need
more people who can participate in and span multiple CoPs.