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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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DI and Virtual Learning Communities

• Explosive growth of the Internet gtheightened
  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)

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Virtual Learning Communities
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http//www.covis.nwu.edu
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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

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• 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

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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

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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.
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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.
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• 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 novice learners to
pursue their open-ended research questions
Facilitates remote mentor participation and
teacher identification of appropriate mentors.
(6) CoVis telementoring database
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CoVis WorldWatcher as Example of Scaffolding

• From scientists tools to learner-centered
  visualization tools...

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Scientists Visualization Tools
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WorldWatcher Jan, July Surface Temperature
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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)

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Example 2 SRIs TAPPED IN Project(http//tapped
in.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

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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

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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 of ideas, experiences,
  expertise
• one-stop shopping for multiple 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...

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LHS GEMS Room
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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.
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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 environments must 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

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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 initiatorsa 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

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Background to Example 3Educational 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!

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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)

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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)
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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, plugplay
• 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

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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 reformbut
  creating conditions that support re-use and
  interoperability)

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Collect Powerful Components
Geometers Sketchpad
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Database Links 5 New Middle School Math Curricula
to Technology
Work with Show Me Center at U-Missouri, Columbia
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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)

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CILT Center for Innovative Learning Technologies

• Towards knowledge networking for improving
  learning technologies RD and educational
  practices
• HTTP//CILT.ORG
• Ask me more in the discussion!!

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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?

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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 intelligenceopening up new
  possibilities for what distributed intelligence
  may become.
• CILT, Tapped In, and ESCOT are all networked
  improvement communitiesmight this cooperative
  model work for the 21st century university?

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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?