Issues in the Design of Distributed Intelligence and the Growth of Virtual Learning Communities

1. Issues in the Design of Distributed Intelligence and the Growth of Virtual Learning Communities Roy D. Pea SRI International and Stanford University “The University in the 21st Century” U. California, Berkeley, CSHE October 13, 1998

2. Overview • Virtual learning communities • Distributed intelligence: Concept, heuristic framework • Distributed intelligence as designed, and diverse roles for information technologies • Case studies of DI Designs • Implications and Recommendations

3. Emergence of Virtual Learning Communities • Within or across classrooms or campuses • Within or between businesses or homes • School-home-community • School-workplace-university • Enables... • Apprenticeship • Long-term mentoring • Distributed collaborative learning • Ongoing professional development • Learning in its context of use

4. Trends leading to Virtual Learning Communities • Socially-situated conceptions of learning • Rapid growth of Internet use • Rethinking appropriate roles for the teacher (guide on side, not sage on stage) • Goal? Make learning more relevant for enabling the learners’ participation in cultural practices

5. Roles of information technologies in distributed intelligence for virtual learning communities • Meta-representational substrate • Communication channels in new social designs and “media spaces” • Interface to individual, group, and cultural memories • Establish virtual places and information spaces • Serve as cognitive tools for augmenting human performance

6. Concept of Distributed Intelligence (DI) • The core image: people-in-action-in-context • In their activity, we see the configuring of distributed intelligence • Activity is enabled by intelligence • Intelligence is distributed across people, their environments, and situations • Intelligence is accomplished rather than possessed • There are both material and social aspects of this distribution

7. DI and Virtual Learning Communities • Explosive growth of the Internet —>heightened relevance of distributed intelligence to the design of learning communities • Examples: 1. CoVis Project (Northwestern University & SRI) 2. TAPPED IN Project (SRI and Partners) 3. ESCOT Project (SRI and Partners) 4. Center for Innovative Learning Technologies (CILT)

8. Virtual Learning Communities

13. http://www.covis.nwu.edu

14. The CoVis Project • A wideband network that forms a distributed learning environment for improving science teaching by developing a culture of science practice • Integrated suite of tools for network-based project-enhanced science learning (since 1994) • Internet direct to 6+ desktops per classroom • Scientific visualization and inquiry tools--focus on earth and atmospheric sciences • Collaborative media spaces: Software to support collaboration, communication, and video-conferencing with screen sharing • Learning activities/web services for inter-school collaborations • Mentor database services for involving scientists • Continuing professional development for teachers, with a focus on project-oriented pedagogy

15. Design team partners — Northwestern, U.Colorado, U.Michigan, UIUC, U.Chicago, UniData, NCAR • CoVis Activities and Projects (Calendar-based interface ) • to provide a range of scheduled learning activities to CoVis teachers where student projects can be framed • to encourage generation of new activities from participants • CoVis Resources — visualization tools and data, Virtual Field Trips, Interactive Weather Briefings; curriculum materials • CoVis Teacher Lounge — materials teachers need to conduct project-based science teaching, including links to tools, activities, assessment rubrics, mentors, and listservs • CoVis Student Lounge — information and materials students need to do project-based science

16. CoVis Network Testbed: Theoretical Foundations • Project-enhanced science learning as pedagogy • ‘Communities of practice’ • Cognitive apprenticeship • Legitimate peripheral participation to engage ‘communities of learners’ • Learner-centered scientific visualization and groupware tools • Participatory and iterative design

17. CoVis and DI Design Examples Designed material aspects of DI Enabled social aspects of DI Facilitates broad access to distributed group inquiry; Enables collaboration across global time zones. (1) Time-shifting communications (2) Space-collapsing communications Facilitates broad access to distributed group inquiry; Enables virtual field trips to remote places. (3) “Semantically typed” hypermedia links in CoVis knowledge-building environment More readily-achieved structured scientific inquiry; Simplifies tracking learners’ questioning, inquiry processes.

18. CoVis and DI Design Examples (#2) Designed material aspects of DI Enabled social aspects of DI Creates ‘living’ community database of knowledge building community; persistent database of scientists and other mentors. (4) Archival memory for communication records (5) “Scaffolding” front-ends to scientific visualization tools Enables broad learner access to complex science topics and systems; enables learners to pursue their open-ended questions. (6) CoVis telementoring database Facilitates remote mentor participation and teacher identification of appropriate mentors.

19. Enabled social aspects of DI Creates ‘living’ community database of knowledge building community; persistent database of scientists and other mentors. (4) Archival memory for communication records (5) “Scaffolding” front-ends to scientific visualization tools Enables broad learner access to complex science topics and systems; enables novice learners to pursue their open-ended research questions Designed material aspects of DI Facilitates remote mentor participation and teacher identification of appropriate mentors. (6) CoVis telementoring database

20. CoVis WorldWatcher as Example of Scaffolding • From scientists’ tools to learner-centered visualization tools…...

21. Scientists’ Visualization Tools

22. WorldWatcher: Jan, July Surface Temperature

23. Toward Learner-Centered Design • Empirical studies of scientists’ tool practices • Techniques: From tacit knowledge to explicit representational properties • Geographical context underlay • Explicit semantic units for data • Provision of semantically constrained mathematical operations on data • General framework now encompasses over 30 public domain data sets (NASA, NOAA…)

24. Example 2: SRI’s TAPPED IN Project(http://tappedin.sri.com.) • SRI International -- Center for Technology in Learning (Mark Schlager, Patricia Schank, Judith Fusco, Richard Goddard) • Partners are twelve K-12 teacher professional development organizations devoted to science educational reform (e.g., LHS) • Goal: to develop, operate and study an easy-to-learn, multi-user virtual environment for ongoing teacher professional development • In 18 months: nearly 2000 registered users already • 1996-2000 Funding:

25. TAPPED IN: A Virtual Office Building with Offices, Suites, Design Studio, Resource Center • A Web-based virtual environment that enables users to: • log in from any computer with Internet access • converse (publicly or privately) while sharing resources • create, annotate, and store group documents • jointly view text documents and Web pages • maintain awareness of the actions of others around you • customize the media-space to make it your place • share a graphical sketchpad • And soon… • Integrated asynchronous discussion forum • Creation and viewing of video clips of teaching ‘cases’ • Exhibit Hall for standards-based learning tools and materials

26. TAPPED IN Concept: A Working Community of Education Professionals & Organizations • TPD Program Support • ... for meetings, net-courses, discussion groups, F2F follow-up • learn technology skills in authentic, relevant context • Multiple organizations sharing a virtual place • cross-pollination: ofideas, experiences, expertise • one-stop “shopping”: formultiple perspectives on, and approaches to, TPD • Community-Owned Gathering Place • sustainable, evolving on-line commons for pre- and in-service teachers, teacher educators, researchers, administrators, librarians...

28. Bulletin board, Whiteboard Simulations WebViewers Guestbook Message box File Cabinets LHS GEMS Room

29. Teachers Take Charge of Their Learning (Renyi, NFIE, 1996) Re-Envisioning TPD: Professional Communities of Practice “Today's teachers... find themselves pressed for time and opportunities to learn. Teachers should work collaboratively; yet all day they are isolated from other adults.” Teaching for High Standards -- Darling-Hammond and Ball “[Elements of effective TPD cannot] be adequately cultivated without the development of more substantial professional discourse and engagement in communities of practice.”

30. Bridging the Gap with Technology • Technology may enable augmenting local TPD services by giving teachers easy access to high-quality TPD from work and home • New TPD models and environmentsmust be co-invented so that they: • Balance formal activities with informal, sustainable professional development opportunities year-round • Begin supporting teachers in pre-service education and continue to serve them • Bring diverse stakeholders and resources into the discourse • Organic growth: Co-invent on-line TPD models with leading TPD organizations ready to integrate on-line activities, serve as models

31. Research Informing Practice • Importance of persistent place and identity • On-line discourse flexibility: Need support for multiple styles, modes, paces of interaction • Must sustain regular, meaningful activities with diverse initiators—a mix of formal-informal, organization & teacher-initiated • Provide productivity support: Well-defined objectives, agenda, and timeline tied to off-line activities • Support quick build up of high-quality documents, Web sites tailored to teachers’ needs (Lesson plans, assessment rubrics, student products, curriculum frameworks, guidelines and standards documents) • Need for consistent, participatory leadership: encouragement, support, and reward

32. Background to Example 3:Educational Object Economy (EOE) • Created by Jim Spohrer, et. al (Apple Computer) • Now a non-profit organization in San Jose • Building a sustainable community of small developers producing free educational applets(http://www.eoe.org) • Over 2,300 applets thus far!

33. Problems with the EOE? • No links to curriculum, or standards • Applets are “frozen,” and do not work together • Authors writing every tool themselves (little teacher involvement)

34. Example 4: ESCOT (Educational Software Components of Tomorrow)* A distributed network of teachers, researchers & developers creating link-able representational tools for real middle school math curricula *A new NSF grant (Pea, Roschelle, Kaput and DiGiano)

35. Distributed Intelligence: Role of components • Graphs, tables, calculators, geometry, simulations, equations, notepads… probably 100 or so core active representational objects that occupy parts of a screen • Enable mix-and-match, plug&play • Cognitive research rationale: • Dynamic, linked multiple representations key for deeper understanding • Animated graphics for process history • Collaboration support • Assessment support • Leading to: • • Lower cost • Better quality • More flexibility

36. ESCOT Goals • Collect broadly useful, powerful components • Link to curriculum needs • Combine in new activities • (*NOT building a complete suite of component software for middle school math reform—but creating conditions that support re-use and interoperability)

37. Collect Powerful Components Geometer’s Sketchpad

38. Database Links 5 New Middle School Math Curricula to Technology Work with ‘Show Me’ Center at U-Missouri, Columbia

39. ESCOT Teams Integrate Re-usable Components from a Shared, Web-Accessible Library into Lessons • Teacher: Pedagogical Design • Developer: Component Design • Web facilitator: Web Design (and teamwork)

40. CILT: Center for Innovative Learning Technologies • Towards knowledge networking for improving learning technologies R&D and educational practices • HTTP://CILT.ORG • Ask me more in the discussion!!

41. Closing: Implications and Questions Can we do better at integrating research and education? General lessons on “scaffolding” novice participation in expert community of practice with learner-centered tools in visualization How shall we do learning assessments with DI systems (groups, tool-mediated work)? How to assess the tradeoffs in “Covering” curriculum vs. “Knowledge-Building” communities?

42. Recommendations Need to recognize that technologies neither “amplify” intelligence nor simply “automate” existing activities. More or less explicitly, we design distributed intelligence. Use computer and communications tools to establish experiential testbeds for expanding and evolving intelligence–opening up new possibilities for what distributed intelligence may become. CILT, Tapped In, and ESCOT are all “networked improvement communities”—might this cooperative model work for the 21st century university?

43. A Final Thought • New designs occasionally lead to "fingertip effects," a fit of tool to task so apt that it leads to precipitous social changes • Examples: World-Wide Web browsers for hyper-linked documents, electronic mail, fax saturation, Palm Pilot's design for pocket-size computing • What will be the fingertip effects that will come to exist for university-level net learning?