Building for Tomorrows School

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Building for Tomorrows School

• Tools and Methods for new learning and sharing
  knowledge
• Jim Ayre
• Multimedia Ventures

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Ambient Schoolingin anAmbient Intelligence
Landscape

• Re-thinking Learning and Schooling in Europe
• RELEASE

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Next Generation Learning Environments

• Need to locate the discussion within a social
  vision for how ICT will be used
• At home
• At work
• At school
• On the move
• In the community

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Ambient Intelligence Vision

• AmI Vision developed by EC IST Advisory Group
  (ISTAG) in 1999 - the key driver of the IST
  research work programme
• Convergence of 3 key technologies
• Ubiquitous Computing
• Ubiquitous Communication
• Intelligent User-Friendly Interfaces

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People Centred Vision

• People surrounded by computing and networking
  technology that is embedded in everyday objects
  such as furniture, clothes, vehicles, roads and
  smart materials.
• An AmI system adapts to individual needs
• Aware of human presence and personalities
• Context aware
• Is unobtrusive and maybe even invisible
• Can be switched off
• Self-healing
• Dynamic to allow constant reconfiguration

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Meeting Socio-Economic Challenges

• In Europe AmI seen as addressing socio-economic
  challenges posed by
• Ageing population
• Enlargement of EU
• Regional differences
• The mosaic society (greater mobility,
  diversity, change)
• Move to a 24/7 society
• Demands for personalised services
• Need for lifelong learning

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AmI Research Challenges

• Smart materials
• Micro/Nano-electronic systems
• MEMs technology and sensor technology
• Embedded systems
• Ubiquitous Communication
• I/O device technology
• Adaptive Software

• Media management handling
• Natural interaction
• Computational intelligence
• Contextual awareness
• Emotional computing

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EducationA more complex environment
Now
30 years ago

• Multimedia authoring
• 3D immersive environments
• Audio/Videoconferencing
• Collaborative online spaces
• SMS
• Netmeetings
• Interactive video
• Webcam
• Speech Synthesis
• Speech recognition

• Face-to-face teaching
• Blackboard
• Books
• Handwritten/Typed documents
• Email
• Mobile telephone
• Interactive software
• VLEsChat
• Forums
• Hotseats
• Avatars

• Face to face teaching
• Blackboard
• School TV
• Books
• Handwritten/Typed documents
• Telephone

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Ambient Intelligence Scenarios

• ISTAG Scenarios for AmI in 2010
• Annette and Solomon in the Ambient for Social
  Learning
• A group of students aged 10 to 75 studying the
  environment and environmental management
• Led by a mentor who is not necessarily a subject
  expert
• A plenary in a room like a hotel foyer with
  comfortable seats
• Meeting is open from 7.00 - 23.00 hours
• The surroundings welcome each student as they
  enter the room and manage the learning process
• Students provide 3D visualisations of a topic
  linked to others in remote locations
• mental states of the group are synchronised with
  the ambient individual!

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Weakness of AmI Scenarios

• Where has the school gone?
• Where is the migration path from current
  practice?
• AmI scenarios need to include models for
  organisational change as well as technological
  innovation
• Anticipated productivity gains or social benefits
  may not materialise is ICT is superimposed on old
  organisational infrastructures

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EUN Re-thinking Learning

• The schooling context
• The learning paradigm
• The content model
• The delivery model
• Technologies and infrastructure
• A total system approach to learning

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EUN THINK Study Scenarios

• Schools become Learning Organisations
• Schools given scope/capacity for innovation
• State controls are relaxed to engender and
  support a RD role for teachers and schools
• Schools strive to become knowledge producers and
  learning organisations
• Focus still on school as an institution

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EUN THINK Study Scenarios

• Schools as Core Nodes in their Communities
• Pupils develop confidence and competence in their
  own ability to learn
• Gain the ability to recognise and meet their own
  future learning needs
• Investigative, problem-based learning
• Learning agenda set by local and wider community
• Requires dramatic changes for learning both in
  and out of school

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The Emerging Landscape

• Control over what is learned, and how it is
  learned, can shift from the teacher towards the
  learner and others outside the classroom
• More student-centred learning
• More personalised learning
• Learning is more independent of time and location

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Ambient Schooling Vision

• RELEASE - RE-thinking Learning for Ambient
  Schooling in Europe
• Pupils are provided with opportunities for
  learning and knowledge building in a variety of
  learning settings - school, home, museum, library
• EUN Vision - optimise schooling but recognise
  that schooling extends beyond the walls of the
  institution - schools become core nodes in the
  community
• Learning inside and outside the school becomes a
  way of being

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Ubiquitous Learning

• Learning as a way of being
• It is easy to forget that ubiquity is not only a
  matter of geographic location but also requires
  the ability to support multiple learning contexts
  and adapt to them. (Report on Open
  Consultation Workshop and Process)

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OECD - Restructuring Schools

• In some cases introducing new technology does
  seem by itself to be a factor in improved
  learning. But just as frequently it is decisions
  to restructure schools that create the
  opportunity for new technology to be used
  effectively. ICT Policy Challenges For
  Education. A Proposal OECD, Feb 2002
• Institutional reorganisation is key
• Locate technology within wider policy frameworks

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The School-Home Digital Disconnect

• Students report that there is a substantial
  disconnect
• between how they use the Internet for school and
  how
• they use the Internet during the school day and
  under
• teacher direction. For the most part, students
• educational use of the Internet occurs outside of
  the
• school day, outside of the school building,
  outside the
• direction of their teachers
• PEW Internet American Life Project, July
  2002
• France - 80 of teachers use ICT at home - only
  20 in school

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Ambient Schooling Focus

• Learning is the big idea, not the school
• Re-schooling not de-schooling
• Evolutionary institutional change (limits to how
  fast ICT can be absorbed?)
• New home - school - community linking
• Supporting 24/7 personalised learning
• Provide a pedagogical and technological framework
  for re-thinking learning in Europes schools

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RELEASE Objectives

• Support the optimisation of learning in schools
  and a variety of other learning settings
• Help students navigate between a variety of
  learning environments
• Ensure interoperability between learning services
  in each learning setting
• Provide a practical migration strategy and
  roadmap from current practice to ambient
  schooling
• Evaluate emerging scenarios for the social and
  personal re-organisation of learning in those
  settings.

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RELEASE Research Agenda

• Research into patterns of learning and
  organisational settings
• Development of new models for collaborative
  learning and collective knowledge building
• Develop a next generation learning platform (VLE)
  based on open standards and a open component
  framework to support the ambient schooling
  concept
• Research into adaptive learning units and
  learning community objects
• Provide a brokerage system for content and
  services at a global level
• Demonstrations of implemented organisational
  change in schools and other settings - a catalyst
  for organisational change and policy actions

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RELEASE Potential Impact

• Move beyond first generation learning platforms
  and content
• Provide a technological bridge that facilitates
  learning in a variety of settings
• Help bring issues concerning organisational
  change to the forefront of the policy agenda

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AmI and AmS Validation?

• Requirement for very large scale, total system
  evaluation - real-world trials
• Expensive and time-consuming
• Involves dedicated laboratories - Philips
  Homelab
• New methods of experience prototyping
• ISTAG recommends new Experience and Application
  Research Centres for AmI research

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How ?

• How can technological prototypes and new
  organisational models for Ambient Schooling be
  tested and evaluated by teachers and pupils in
  real-life situations?