Cross-cutting Observations: CI and Education

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

2. 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.

3. Broadened the Topic • more than “creating a better environmental scientists”. • Roles, stakeholders, participants • K-grey • Researchers • Teachers • Practitioners • General public • Policy makers • Education, broadly defined • Formal, all levels and types • Informal • Structured, semi-structured • Hybrids of the above.

4. Cyberinfrastructure: the Middle Layer Applications in science and engineering research and education Cyberinfrastructure: hardware, software, personnel, services, institutions Base-technology: computation, storage, communication

5. Co-laboratory a.k.a Collaboratory High-performance computing for modeling, simulation, data processing/mining Humans Instruments for observation and characterization. Individual & Global Connectivity Group Interfaces Physical World & Visualization Facilities for activation, manipulation and Tools and construction Services Knowledge management institutions for collection building and curation of data, information, literature, digital objects

6. Co-laboratory, Collaboratory People 1. Tools & services are group aware. 2. Need tools to help manage scarce human attention. 3. Functional completeness. Distributed, computationally-based tools and services Data, Information, Knowledge Instruments, Facilities Cyber-infrastructure

7. Time-Space Options for Group/Organizational Activity TIME Same Different sign boards, library, drop-in labs Relaxing constraints of time and distance (geographical and organizational). Face-to-face meeting Same PLACE Audio, video conf., chat, Access Grid Email, Threaded- discussions Different “Opportunities beyond being there” “Distance matters” “Better than being there”

8. 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.

9. 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 (over-lapping) 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.

10. 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.

11. Phases of Education • 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”.)

12. Changes in Education Pipeline 4 1 2 3 5 6 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????

13. 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?

14. 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.

15. 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????

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17. 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.”

18. 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, sub-disciplines. Multidisciplinary CoP, cross-cutting CoP. Need more people who can participate in and span multiple CoPs.