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Title: The Semantic Web, Knowledge and Implications for Education


1
The Semantic Web, Knowledge and Implications for
Education
  • Alan McLean
  • Postgraduate student, Universiti Tun Abdul Razak,
    Malaysia (UNITAR)

2
Presented at
  • The International Conference on Knowledge
    Management (ICKM) 2005 on 7 - 9th July 2005 at
    Putra World Trade Centre, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
  • (http//www.ickm.upm.edu.my/)
  • Full text available from http//www.angelfire.com
    /linux/alan1/semantic.html

3
My contact details aims
  • http//www.angelfire.com/linux/alan1
  • 016 636 0754

My aimsOutline some main ideasGet some
constructive criticismPossibly find
collaboratorsIdentify expertise useful to my
research
4
I dont know so much
  • My experience is in Higher Education and the last
    two years of secondary education. What I say
    today may not be applicable to primary education
    or the middle years.
  • I am looking for guidance and correction from you
    on Semantic Web

5
I dont know so much
  • My experience is in Higher Education and the last
    two years of secondary education. What I say
    today may not be applicable to primary education
    or the middle years.
  • I am looking for guidance and correction from you
    on Semantic Web, Theories of Learning,

6
I dont know so much
  • My experience is in Higher Education and the last
    two years of secondary education. What I say
    today may not be applicable to primary education
    or the middle years.
  • I am looking for guidance and correction from you
    on Semantic Web, Theories of Learning, Cognitive
    Architectures

7
I dont know so much
  • My experience is in Higher Education and the last
    two years of secondary education. What I say
    today may not be applicable to primary education
    or the middle years.
  • I am looking for guidance and correction from you
    on Semantic Web, Theories of Learning, Cognitive
    Architectures, Educational Design.

8
Education needs to change
  • The Semantic Web (Tim Berners-Lee www.w3.org/).
  • Ubiquitous Computing
  • (Mark Weiser www-sul.stanford.edu/weiser/)
  • Second generation Knowledge Management
  • The Explicit Recruitment Needs of Employers
    www.lse.ac.uk/collections/CER/publications.htm

9
The Semantic Web Ubiquitous Computing
  • Descriptive technologies such as RDF and
    data-centric markup languages such as XML,
    ontologies such as Owl.

10
The Semantic Web Ubiquitous Computing
  • Descriptive technologies such as RDF and
    data-centric markup languages such as XML,
    ontologies such as Owl.
  • Ubiquitous computing, computers everywhere in the
    real environment which can interconnect, exchange
    data and work together

11
The Future of these Technologies
  • It will neither be appropriate to carry a
    significant quantity of information in human
    memory nor to know how or where to find
    information.
  • The Semantic Web will allow individuals to access
    the information they need in almost any place,
    effortlessly and without delay.
  • so, you simply dont get paid any more for
    knowing things!
  • (What are we going to do with all this useless
    knowledge?)

12
Second Generation KM
  • People construct and use new and valuable
    knowledge.
  • Storing information, disseminating information
    and imitating past performance seem less
    important. Information is not seen as an
    important organizational asset.
  • Learning capability, problem solving and
    innovation capability are seen as capital.
  • Effective Knowledge Management is about social
    factors such as team building, personal
    professional development, and appropriate working
    environments
  • Learning, problem solving and innovation are seen
    as social, not administrative activities.
  • . So is that what major international companies
    are saying?

13
The Explicit Recruitment Needs of Employers
  • West, Noden and Gosling, based on interviews and
    surveys conducted in Australia, Malaysia, the UK
    and the USA identified the attributes sought in
    graduates. These attributes included the key
    skills team work, analytical/thinking skills,
    communication/presentation skills, interpersonal
    skills and the personal attributes
    motivation/drive, business awareness,
    independence, creativity/innovation and
    leadership/management
  • West, A., Noden, P. Gosling, R. (2000) Quality
    in Higher Education An international
    perspective. The views of transnational
    corporations, Clare Market Papers 17, Centre for
    Educational Research, LSE London

14
Conclusion so far
  • Secondary education focuses on the acquisition of
    declarative knowledge. (and HE too!)
  • Education is not delivering what employees and
    employers need. On a national and international
    basis, individuals, organizations and governments
    are spending vast sums of money without coming
    close to maximizing the human capital created.

15
How should education respond?
  • Two changes, the inception of the Semantic Web
    and changing perceptions of Knowledge Management,
    seem to demand educational reform of a broadly
    similar type, a move away from the acquisition of
    declarative knowledge and towards capabilities of
    analysis, critical thought, communication and
    creativity.

and at this point, it would be really nice to
have a theory of learning that would guide our
decisions on how to change educational design.
16
How should education respond?
  • Approaches to Educational Design
  • My Central Claim
  • There is no overarching theory of learning and
    there is no coherent prescription for educational
    design
  • Theories of Learning
  • operant conditioning
  • developmental psychology
  • cognitive psychology
  • constructivism
  • situated learning theory

so is the situation hopeless?
17
notes on educational theory
  • Is the theoretical basis of education too weak
    or are there too many theories of education?
  • Theories of education are much more ideological
    and much narrower than we tell our students.
  • The fragmentation and incompleteness of learning
    theory is consistent with the experience of
    student teachers and teacher educators. Beginning
    teachers report that they do not really know how
    to apply theory to their classroom experience.
  • This fragmentation is consistent with the
    experience of teachers who are successful in
    encouraging critical thinking that successful
    teaching is time-intensive and not scalable.

18
Provocative thoughts on educational
reformAlthough we dont have a theoretical
overview, some imperatives seem clear.
  • Primary education seems valuable. Reading,
    writing, measure , empirical investigation,
    number and very basic background in the
    disciplines seem useful.
  • We need to unlearn the habit of syllabus reform.
    The content of what we learn and teach does not
    matter. (Gardner)
  • The great traditions of detailed teaching of
    disciplines (Biology, Geography and so on) must
    be abandoned.
  • In many countries, the school leaving age should
    be lowered.

19
That is it
  • That is as far as I got when I made the
    presentation at the conference but the remainder
    of the slides give an idea of where those ideas
    were leading ..

20
Is there hope?
  • The apparent replacement of one educational
    paradigm with another can be seen as a shift in
    focus. There was sometimes little genuine
    incompatibility between different theories of
    learning. We may be moving from one type of
    explanation to another, focusing on different
    aspects of human behavior and trying to explain
    and understand learning at different levels of
    granularity (for example, social versus neural).
    A situation like this need not lead to the
    formation of opposing theoretical camps, but
    could invite attempts to integrate various
    theories of learning or, perhaps more
    realistically, to use them eclectically.
  • which make us think about cognitive
    architectures

21
Cognitive Architectures what do they aim to do?
  • Explain experiments in human psychology.
  • Explain at least some aspects of learning.
  • Provide a structure which allows some aspects of
    human behavior to be reproduced artificially
    (i.e. support development in AIED)
  • Support quantitative modeling, for example
    modeling of human reaction-time and forgetting.
  • Inform educational practice.

22
the ACT R cognitive architecture
  • Cognitive architectures are not committed to any
    particular theory or group of theories but
    instead bring together theoretical perspectives,
    including mathematical models, in an attempt to
    explain and reproduce human behavior.
  • Anderson (1990) distinguishes three layers of
    explanation the physiological layer which
    relates to brain function (the subsymbolic layer)
    the cognitive layer which examines thinking on
    a symbolic level and the 'rational' layer which
    focuses on the functional adaptation of the
    person to the environment (I call it
    interactive).

23
ACT-R 5.0 is incomplete
  • Anderson, J. R., Bothell, D., Byrne, M. D.,
    Douglass, S., Lebiere, C., Qin, Y . (2004). An
    integrated theory of the mind. Psychological
    Review 111, (4). 1036-1060.
  • (Latest version is ACT-R 6 version 1.0b2)
  • Looking, for example at standard discourse
    theory, ACT-R is too weak at the interactive
    layer to account for the comprehension of text.

24
Learning theory at the interactive layer
  • As far as I know, there are two serious
    contenders, the situated learning theory
    advocated by Lave and Wenger and the theory of
    dialogue advocated by the Brazilian educator
    Paulo Freire.
  • So lets look at Freires theory. We begin with
    the theory of banking education

25
Banking Education
  • The teacher is full of knowledge
  • The student is a receptacle empty of knowledge
  • The teacher makes deposits of knowledge in the
    student.
  • The relationship between teacher and student is
    therefore not a horizontal one but a vertical
    one.

26
The teacher-student relationship
  • The teacher teaches and the students are taught.
  • The teacher knows everything and the student
    knows nothing.
  • The teacher thinks and the students are thought
    about.
  • The teacher talks and the students listen
    meekly.
  • The teacher disciplines and the students are
    disciplined.
  • The teacher chooses and enforces their choice,
    and the student complies
  • The teacher chooses the program content, and the
    students adapt to it.

27
Schooling as the abuse of power.
  • It is this relationship which strips learning of
    its value. The dominating relationship between
    teacher and student that leaves the student
    domesticated, powerless and passive. As students
    become the passive recipients of knowledge, they
    learn to experience the world and adapt to it.
    They learn and solve well-defined real life
    problems selected for them by the teacher. They
    learn not to read the world for themselves.
    They are not critical thinkers.

28
Schooling as the abuse of power.
  • It is this relationship which strips learning of
    its value. The dominating relationship between
    teacher and student that leaves the student
    domesticated, powerless and passive. As students
    become the passive recipients of knowledge, they
    learn to experience the world and adapt to it.
    They learn and solve well-defined real life
    problems selected for them by the teacher. They
    learn not to read the world for themselves.
    They are not critical thinkers.
  • Students are required to demonstrate that they
    have stored knowledge in their memories and they
    are not asked to discover knowledge or engage in
    innovative problem solving. They become
    disengagement from the world and from each other.

29
About Dialogue
  • Dialogue is a horizontal relationship in which
    one individual is with the other. In Freire's
    words (Freire, 1974), it is positive, hopeful,
    trusting and critical. It involves two-way
    communication.
  • Banking education is a vertical relationship in
    which one person is higher than the other. To
    borrow Freire's words again, it is loveless,
    arrogant, hopeless, mistrustful, acritical.
    Broadcast does not communicate but issues
    communiques information passes in one direction.
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