The Future of Learning

The ANIMOTO video was an additional fun quest to accomplish. My focus is ‘The Future of Learning’. Although a very short film, the basic idea is the flow of learning from the traditional classroom to the use of virtual worlds, augmented reality, and other tools as the technology emerges. The social media has come a long way in just a few years establishing the need for engagement, immediate feedback, and motivational excitement. This social media establishes a major force showing the path to a new way of teacher-student associations. Also, the technology is improving and growing geometrically. The strength of academic and corporate interests develop videos tuned for the classroom, and development of new techniques such as projective augmented reality with markers and marker-less queues.  

Try our video maker at Animoto.

Adverse reactions from the educational hierarchy are both political and governmental. The political aspect is the old way – inertia has set in in some districts, and there is currently no direct proof of the game-based learning (Horizon Report 2012) for the future. The learning curve for teachers is steep. Yet, with the academic and corporate support a collaborative effort can make things happen. Governmental mandates direct the use of the traditional measurement system of facts and application of those facts. But, the outcomes limit where a teacher can go with gaming elements. And finally, financial pressures affect many districts limiting the ise of new technologies. Perhaps, corporate sponsorships can make the difference? After all, the student are the future employees!

A Prediction of Information Systems and Computer Consciousness

In “Technology's Promise” by William Halal, one of his predictions is related to an “Age of Consciousness” about 2020 similar to the information age of today. Halal expects that the spiritual projections of consciousness will be accepted over the current trend to prove that there are physical roots of human consciousness. Halal presents arguments for both sides. The physical side has ever growing number of technologies in information processing, plus biological and psychological research about the brain and behavior. This research suggests the brain is no more than a computer model. As the technology for processing data continues to evolve, the physical model side predicts that computer processing will catch up to the capability of human processing, and contain a level of awareness likened to a human. These scientists equate the consciousness of the human mind to a creature with the data at high levels of intelligence where data is processed into decisions. These decisions form the basis for behaviors equating to human ‘free will’ and value/belief systems. The spiritual model recognizes a higher form of intelligence beyond the human brain, which transcends the physical, providing discernment capability, ‘free will’ leading behavior selection where values and choice are concerned.

Curiously, the ‘Computer Model’ camp prediction focuses on measured versus subjective analyses. From their perspective, everything can be measured. Their argument for quantification parallels the debate in natural sciences on the use of quantitative and qualitative analyses. Experimental research and problem areas where numbers are prevalent fall nicely into quantitative measures. However, current researchers in social sciences found human behavior and experience are more fitted to qualitative studies. The subject of choice is not so easily defined by genetic inheritance of values and beliefs. While non-human selection on instinct can be measured in this way, due to their predictability, human behavior in choices can have an infinite number of possibilities that no computer can store in a database.

Everyday people can predict on human behavior pattern.  Some of us are very predictable rarely changing how we go about our daily tasks. In down-the-road predictions, Sci-Fi writers offer their insights through their story lines. They use their knowledge of their today and imagine the ‘What if’s’ of the future and alternate environments. Perhaps, not so different from the recognized leading scientist of today, who predict five, 10,  20 years or more into the future. Of course these leading figures typically base their futures on current trends in technologies. Yet, how far are they from writers such as Gene Rodenberry, Star Trek series and movies, describing star travel, and food replicators, or Jules Verne, with undersea stories and around the world adventures before anyone thought they were possible. If one were to look at background of an Asimov or Clarke or Heinlein, their stories are sprinkled with their knowledge and experience of their time. Surprisingly, their images found future reality by the same ratios of our leading scientists and thinkers. The point is that, as discovered with chaos theory, the chances of a prediction about nature, man included, coming true are predicated on many forces, and events, changing the potential outcomes.

Factors that can effect Halal’s prediction of the Spirit Model accepted over the Computer Model of consciousness social, religious, and educational. The social and educational are interwoven. Sherden in “Future Sellers” notes that any prediction should be evaluated by knowledge. In this case Halal provides argument of both sides. To say that beliefs are genetically inherited and that the cells of body created the beliefs plus free will ignores the reality of a simple belief. For example, in the reality of Catholicism, a miracle is not just a body healing itself. Before a miracle is recognized by the Catholic Church a group of lawyers, doctors and other members of a team investigate. Their finds must determine that there is no way physically possible for an illness to be healed by man. Their investigations are very detailed, looking into every possibility, taking a year or more. The social forces in a cultural environment that believes the individual is the center of all things can narrow the scope of investigations. Seems that that man was the center of the universe thought came up once before? 

Human behavior in choices is not the same as animal instinct. Where instinct determines a path, and is predictable, the human can make choices in an instant that were never made before – all based on the circumstances and the environment of the moment. In the educational arena the traditional approach to classroom learning limits the creativity due to the emphasis on measured outcome as opposed to the ability to apply an accumulation of knowledge in a brand new situation. And, finally, data in a computer is mathematical. Fuzzy logic is close enough, but not perfect. Spiritual is recognized as higher order intelligence. Simply put in mathematical terms the spiritual nature encompasses the physical nature. In everyday math the Real number system is subset of complex numbers; in nature, which includes human behavior, the theory of chaos exists. The order seemingly on the surface belies the randomness at different levels.

William E. Halal (2007) Technology’s Promise

Foretelling the Future … Can anyone really predict the future?

1926 -- “To place a man in a multi-stage rocket and project him into the controlling gravitational field of the moon where the passengers can make scientific observations, perhaps land alive, and then return to earth – all that constitutes a wild dream worthy of Jules Verne. I am bold enough to say that such a man-made voyage will never occur regardless of all future advances”. 
(Lee de Forest - Search Quotes)

From Silent Film "Trip to the Moon"

Based off Jules Vern science fiction, a trip to 

the moon was a shot from a canon, 

very similar to a rifle on a grand scale. 

Of course stopping was a some what rough ride!

Neil Armstrong First Step on Moon

In 1969 Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon 

1936 -- "A rocket will never be able to leave the Earth's atmosphere." (Grace Murano)

White Sands First Successful Launch

...... 10 years later, White Sands the first successful launch of American-built rocket

1957 -- "Space travel is bunk." (Quoted Prediction)

 

SPUTNIK

----, Two weeks later, the Russian Sputnik went into orbit, October 4, 1957

APOLLO Launch

De Forest passed away 30 June 1961 just two months after Alan Shepard successfully ventured into space on a rocket.

… Perhaps, when making a prediction, one should never be absolute!

In 1987, James Gleick’s, Chaos: Making a New Science, spoke about the work of Benoit Mandelbrot in defining Fractal Geometry. A very visual mathematician, Fractal Geometry is descriptive, not analytical by definition. In the realm of complex mathematics, researchers found that fractals describe system after system found in nature that previous confounded description due their randomness. Each system had order to a certain point, at which time chaos occurred. Amazingly, the nature of turbulence, the unpredictability of weather and even the stock market’s rise and decline into fractal patterns. Before cell phones, the wired telephone system, yes, for some they were connected to the wall, had white noise that seemed inexplicable. Mandelbrot found that the white noise, pure random signal, followed a fractal pattern.

Woolfram Math World - Generated Fractal

What’s the point of all that fractal stuff?

Predicting, and forecasting, is only ordered to a point. In my studies of statistics, predicting something outside the data sample is not valid! Forecasting is going outside the sample space – the known world as it is today. Outside the known world forecasters base there ‘guess’, usually an educated guess on their knowledge base of the world around them. What they cannot see is the future. In that future there are forces that can change in their favor or take 42 years to set foot on the moon!

The force that ignited the forward thrust to putting a man on the moon was the inspiration of President Kennedy. His charisma set in motion financial, government, and social forces that, not only put a man on the moon, but a series of innovations for everyday life, such as Teflon and sticky notes.. Through the leadership of one man a structure was set up through the government, the financial means was provided plus contributions from corporate and academic innovations, and the social support open the doors of people ready to work long hours to see success to land a man on the moon. The technological advances were the result of combining technology experts for a common goal. Their interaction with the experience of pilots and aircraft manufactures fine tunes the space program. Some times, the thought of long gone technical minds of the past, and the science fictions writers start the dream somewhere on the planet. Sometimes just a little push gets the competition trying harder!

The weaknesses  of setting a man on the moon from a dream to reality was timing. The ideas were there, but the technology was not! The social beliefs of those time had a hard time excepting the earth was round! There certainly was not the financial or the technical know how to fly across the ocean without refueling until the mid 20th Century.

James Gleick, Chaos: Making a New Science

William A Sherden, The Fortune Sellers

Search Quotes - Lee De Forest Quotes

http://www.searchquotes.com/search/Lee%20De%20Forest/

Grace Murano - 15 Failed Predictions about the Future - New York Times

http://www.oddee.com/item_96635.aspx

Quoted Prediction - Web of Fate - Sir Harold Spencer Jones, 1957.  http://weboffate.com/prediction/Space-travel-is-bunk/7317/

Sputnik – US Air Force Public Domain

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sputnik_1.jpg

Woolfram Math World - Generated Fractal

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Fractal.html

White Sands First Successful Launch
http://www.theurbn.com/2012/02/being-wrong-failed-predictions/

Images of launches and Man setting foot on moon from NASA

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mercury/index.html
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/index.html

Solutions to Complex Problems

Microsoft 'Idea' from Clip Art|

An individual can find a simple solution to problems, 

which change the way we do things. That innovative 

idea can evade discovery from many people. The 

answer, the innovation, often is staring them in their 

faces; one of those, ‘Why didn’t I think of that?” 

moments! Complex problem solutions are more 

effective solved pooling resources of more than 

one person.

Microsoft 'Idea' from Clip Art

Schreibman and Christakis discuss the structured design dialogue 

process (SDDP) in their paper The New Angora. The SDDP 

recognizes the multiple differences brought to the table by a group of people from various cultures and experiences. Through a structured process of gathering ideas, recognizing the inter-dependencies of potential solutions, and translating the terminology and conceptual understanding into a common language, a group can optimize a 

solution accepted by all. 

Christakis, A. The SDDP Process

SDDP is actually another hybrid of the Delphi Method; an interactive process gathering data, evaluating, taking another look and refining. The Delphi methods cycle to an accepted point of exhausted back and forth data and refining. The SDDP is more structured and facilitated to override the existing human flaws inherited through differences in language, culture, and experience. The SDDP makes a point of directly analyzing the differences caused by different individual thought processes, language specific to a culture, and knowledge and understanding molded through individuals’ life and education. Facilitation of the Delphi process was not originally set up to account for these differences; the Delphi process relies on group centered on a particular area of expertise. SDDP attempts to accommodate the interests of the group participating in the solution, and blend all participants into a common understanding. 

Organizational behaviorists determined several decades ago a limit to the number a manager, or a facilitator, or a teacher can appropriately manage in a group. The Delphi Methods recognized this fact with inputs from small to large groups. The New Media Consortium method utilizes the Internet, which the SDDP recognized, but with an open format of all members and a cadre of individual that rotate to referee the inputs and disseminate to all participants.

With experiences facilitators for subgroups in the SDDP the same factors of spread think and EPE come into to play although hidden in their subconscious. Educational systems and social cultural factors after years of built up experience are hard to eliminate. The forces are inherent in any innovative process.

Perhaps Sherden, in Future Sellers recommendation to weed out forecasts without the technological and trend base can provide a more sound approach to innovation. Sherden suggests empowering a group’s members, somewhat bounded by guiding principles. An open culture where information is shared offers an organizational climate that encourages the motivation to participate, and a sense of being an equal part of the group. To me, this sounds very similar to the way that the NMC determines their technology forecasts.

References

Christakis, A. The SDP Process

http://www.harnessingcollectivewisdom.com/sdp_process.html

Follett, K. P. (2007). New agora: new geometry of languaging and new technology of democracy: the structured design dialogue process. Int. Journal of Applied Systemic Studies, Vol. 1

Sherden, W. A. (1998). Fortune Sellers

Vigdor Schreibman and Alexander N. Christakis

New Agora: New Geometry of Languaging And New Technology of Democracy: The Structured Design Dialogue Process