Too many, far too many thoughts run rapidly through my mind when I wonder about the nature of learning in about a decade. Most of these are direct evolutions of technology that we are seeing today. There will possibly be technologies that we don’t foresee that are also bound to have an impact. Additionally, the rapid emergence of nano and bio technologies by the end of this decade will introduce changes that I can hardly anticipate at this point in time. Will they even impact learning? Only time will tell.

Given I’m only looking at a decade, it made better sense to organize these thoughts around themes rather than elucidating them individually. Each week I’ll explore one of the themes in greater detail. But to start off, broadly there are four:

Mobile – let there be no doubt about it; the future of learning is mobile. Gradually there will a complete shift to mobile based devices used for a whole host of activities; learning will be one of them. The term ‘mobile’ doesn’t just mean the use of mobile phones, but include a whole host of technologies associated with their use – Augmented reality, augmented virtuality, sensor driven technologies (GPS, compass, accelerometer) coupled with an increasing aware and connected objects in the environment (one that IPv6 will help with) mean new ways to interact with and learn about the world.

The Semantic Web and Search Agents – The nature of search is already changing with the first semantic search engines appearing on the web. In a matter of time, we will start to see the first personal search helpers that use semantic technologies. As the web goes from existing a collection of documents to becoming aware of and understanding the content actually contained, search agents tasked with collecting the ‘right information’ and ‘making sense’ of it for humans will become a reality.

Simulation/Gaming – I’ve written about the growing influences of gaming and simulation on learning in general. I see these influences only getting stronger and stronger with advancing technology. I’ll go out on a limb and proclaim that a time will come when almost any sort of ‘learning experience’ that is possible in the real world will be possible in cyber space in the form of a simulation.

Lifestreaming – Persistent and Always On – Twitter, facebook are only the first wave of lifestreaming. Eventually we’ll be casting our lifestream out over the internet for family, friends, peers, colleagues and professional relations. The ability for individuals to dig deep into the ‘data’ of day to day activities offers a unique learning opportunity. Especially so when I could follow and mine lifestream data from ‘experts’ in a particular field to learn about their field of expertise.

These four areas are quite broad in application and we will probably see significant overlaps in the areas because of the growing convergence and cross disciplinary applications of technology. More about this in the following weeks.

Image: arztsamui / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The argument then was that chess is about finite number of possible moves. The use of intensive mathematics, brutal processing logic and speed make chess a well defined challenge – computers were appropriately designed for such a challenge. However, natural language is very different. Modeling natural language mathematically is very challenging, and at the time (of deep blue vs. Kasparov), even natural language processing researchers admitted we were many years yet before computers would understand queries and respond to them in human language.  I’ve banged on about intelligent personal learning agents based on semantic technologies in the past, and Watson – a ‘natural language processing’ ‘pattern recognizing’ ‘world aware’ engine – is a huge step towards making that happen.

Ray Kurzweil calls the Watson Jeopardy match-up a “milestone” in the progression of machines to achieving human intelligence , which will be reached within 20 years, he believes. While I don’t agree with a lot of things Kurzweil says because they don’t necessarily seem scientific, I’d agree about machine intelligence rapidly evolving and overtaking human cognitive abilities. In my opinion, computers with software/hardware that support true natural language processing abilities coupled with augmented reality interfaces can change the learning landscape; or to be more precise, the way performance support is perceived and used in the workplace. At this time, performance support tends to be viewed to happen in discrete episodes. Ex., I refer to a quick programming guide when configuring a DVR; or use a calculator while doing math. But in a world with wearable interfaces and ubiquitous computing, it’s easy to imagine a situation where data about the workplace environment is constantly available and updated in real-time; this changes how we view performance support itself.

Couple this sort of wearable, connected interface with an intelligent software agent that can make sense of its environment, has constant access to large amounts of information about the environment, and understands and can respond in natural language is the digital assistant that I dream of. I’d like it to be able to do five things initially:

1. Answer questions – Simply answer questions based on its best judgment and confidence using the internet’s data space and sets; and respond in human language with a concise but wide-ranging answer.
2. Do research – find patterns, trends and be able to make effective recommendations for tasks in the workplace based on pertinent internet data sets.
3. Communicate, negotiate schedules – be able to communicate with other individuals ‘personal computing agents’ to exchange information, and schedule meetings/calls and the like.
4. Assist Decision making based on large sets of existing data – there are situations in which humans need to make quick decisions without the benefit of prior experience; in such situations, the agent would be able to determine the best possible decision based on past experience (internet data) and take corrective action. While this sounds a bit scary, being able to capitalize on the experience of others in situations similar to ours is very useful for learning.
5. Digital memory/stream – the agent will constantly monitor all life activities and keep a record of decision, situations encountered and the environmental variables at the time. This stream of data will constantly be referenced and will serve for further decision making on part of the agent. Additionally, when stripped of identifiable personal data, these streams can help support other intelligent agents in making decisions.

Put together, these five would probably amount to a super duper performance support system. Available at all times, usable in all contexts, with situational awareness, access to vast quantities of information, and human language cognition abilities to interpret that data – it will make an awesome learning tool.

I will probably be able to tell my agent in the future “tell me how this machine works” or “I want to do ‘this’ with the machine” and the agent would be able to create a concise summary from internet data about that particular machine, that is human  understandable and I could use to act immediately. Extend this type of questioning and response from the agent into a hundred workplace situations and you’ll find it applies equally well.

Advances like the one IBM’s Watson demonstrates and increasingly miniaturized wearable interfaces, and ubiquitous computing will change learning, sooner than we imagine. I for one, can’t wait.

P.S. You can read a succinct note about Watson here

“People will swarm more often and work solo less. They’ll work with others with whom they have few links, and teams will include people outside the control of the organization,”

“In addition, simulation, visualization and unification technologies, working across yottabytes of data per second, will demand an emphasis on new perceptual skills.”

-       Tom Austin, Vice President and Gartner Fellow

Gartner points out that the world of work will probably witness ten major changes in the next ten years. Interesting in that it will change how learning happens in the workplace as well. The eLearning industry will need to account for the coming change and have a strategy in place to deal with the changes.

1. “De-routinization” of work. The core value that people add is not in the processes that can be automated, but in non-routine processes, uniquely human, analytical or interactive contributions that result in words such as discovery, innovation, teaming, leading, selling and learning.

2. Work swarms. Swarming is a work style characterized by a flurry of collective activity by anyone and everyone conceivably available and able to add value. Gartner identifies two phenomena within the collective activity; Teaming (instead of solo performances) will be valued and rewarded more and occur more frequently and a new form of teaming, which Gartner calls swarming, to distinguish it from more historical teaming models, is emerging.

3. Weak links. In swarms, if individuals know each other at all, it may be just barely, via weak links. Weak links are the cues people can pick up from people who know the people they have to work with. They are indirect indicators and rely, in part, on the confidence others have in their knowledge of people. Navigating one’s own personal, professional and social networks helps people develop and exploit both strong and weak links and that, in turn, will be crucial to surviving and exploiting swarms for business benefit.

4. Working with the collective. There are informal groups of people, outside the direct control of the organization, who can impact the success or failure of the organization. These informal groups are bound together by a common interest, a fad or a historical accident, as described by Gartner as “the collective.” Smart business executives discern how to live in a business ecosystem they cannot control; one they can only influence. The influence process requires understanding the collectives that potentially influence their organization, as well as the key people in those external groups.

5. Work sketch-ups. Most non-routine processes will also be highly informal. It is very important that organizations try to capture the criteria used in making decisions but, at least for now, Gartner does not expect most non-routine processes to follow meaningful standard patterns.

6. Spontaneous work. This property is also implied in Gartner’s description of work swarms. Spontaneity implies more than reactive activity, for example, to the emergence of new patterns. It also contains proactive work such as seeking out new opportunities and creating new designs and models.

7. Simulation and experimentation. Active engagement with simulated environments (virtual environments), which are similar to technologies depicted in the film Minority Report, will come to replace drilling into cells in spreadsheets. This suggests the use of n-dimensional virtual representations of all different sorts of data. The contents of the simulated environment will be assembled by agent technologies that determine what materials go together based on watching people work with this content.

8. Pattern sensitivity. Gartner expects to see a significant growth in the number of organizations that create groups specifically charged with detecting divergent emerging patterns, evaluating those patterns, developing various scenarios for how the disruption might play out.

9. Hyperconnected. Hyperconnectedness is a property of most organizations, existing within networks of networks, unable to completely control any of them. Hyperconnectedness will lead to a push for more work to occur in both formal and informal relationships across enterprise boundaries, and that has implications for how people work and how IT supports or augments that work.

10. My place. The workplace is becoming more and more virtual, with meetings occurring across time zones and organizations and with participants who barely know each other, working on swarms attacking rapidly emerging problems. But the employee will still have a “place” where they work. Many will have neither a company-provided physical office nor a desk, and their work will increasingly happen 24 hours a day, seven days a week. In this work environment, the lines between personal, professional, social and family matters, along with organization subjects, will disappear.

The Gartner report “Watchlist: Continuing Changes in the Nature of Work, 2010-2020.” is available on Gartner’s website at http://www.gartner.com/resId=1331623. (Purchase required)

While it’s still early to say, this tablet seems a marked improvement over the iPad (which we were quite disappointed with). The Playbook comes with a camera, a fast processor that enables true multitasking and a fully featured browser. As a contrast to the Apple iPad, this browser supports Flash.

With another one adding to a slew of tablets in the market, it’s a foregone conclusion that we’ll be seeing large-scale adoption of tablet computers in the next couple of years. Similarly, it’s only a matter of time before learning designers and the design itself will have to account for the entire gamut of design possibilities available and their associated considerations. A great challenge for digital designers, and an even greater opportunity.

Educating the Mobile Generation

As a teacher confirms in this video “the understanding the students have when working with mobile devices is much deeper”. And Prof Elliot Soloway says that “mobile technologies are going to make a bigger change to our lives than the PC and Internet together”. There’s no doubt the impact on corporate training too would be equally huge.

Designing Schools for 21st Century Learning

In this video architect Randall Fielding talks about designing schools that stimulate learning. He believes (and research shows) stimulus rich environments improve learning. He makes a very interesting comment: “There’s no research out there that says you need to be 18 years old to take charge of your own learning”. Some interesting thoughts on how children learn.

Check out the other videos too at the www.NewLearningInstitute.org

In a tablet form-factor and using an unspecified variant of Linux (that some have said might be Android), the cost should remain low while offering a wide range of functionality. The device is said to be support video conferencing, viewing a wide selection of video and image files, word processing, de/compressing files, printing with CUPS, full Internet browsing with Javascript and Flash, wireless communications, and remote device management. That’s a lot of features for a device that’s intended to sell for as low as 35 USD.

The technical specification is still not clearly known at this time, but from looking at the pictures and the video (embedded below) it seems it’ll have a 7” color touch screen, 2 gigs of storage, WiFi, Ethernet, and very minimal power consumption (meaning a long battery life, something very necessary in India).

This is just a prototype and there’s a long way to go before the product is available to students. The Indian government wants to put the tablet into production by 2011, but hasn’t yet found partners to build it. I’ll be watching and would love to get my hands on one of these devices when they’re out in the market.

Having mentioned Web 3.0 often in the past, I continue my research into it. Last evening, this particular slide share presentation about Web 3.0 and beyond popped into my inbox. Steve Wheeler at the University of Plymouth put it together.

Interesting to see that in the world of Web 3.0 , eLearning will actually transform from a content delivery and tracking mechanism. The rapid development of ontologies and taxonomies, the emergence of artificial intelligence allowing digital agents and assistance, and powerful mobile computing will probably mean the death of the LMS as we know it.

On the other hand, the proportion of content consumers to creators, which is currently heavily skewed towards consumption will even out with increasing number of creators. While it may seem unlikely at this time, I can envisage a future where ‘courseware’ as we know it won’t really exist. Instead, intelligent agents will gather and aggregate information from repositories and present those appropriately at the time of need.

It was also nice to see that some of the technologies that we’ve been experimenting with – like Augmented Reality and Virtuality – feature in the presentation. Take a look, great infographics and clear presentation.

A corny video from Cisco, but it gives a fair idea of what the Cius is capable of.

As with most of us, my instant reaction was how does this compare to the iPad? I didn’t have to look far to find out, this NetworkWorld article had it all. Amongst all those listed features, perhaps the one that interested me the most was the tablet running Android. The ability to install third party applications gives the Cius good potential as a learning device. Also, it’s evident focus on the business world means that applications developed for the Cius could penetrate businesses where Cisco collaboration solutions are used. It also provides application development opportunities that could integrate with Cisco’s existing product/service ecosystem.

As this wave of tablets continue, I’d bet that we are going to see a lot more of these launches, each attempting to outdo the other.

Good for consumers, good for the future of learning.

Coming from Google, built on its own App Engine, I wonder what Google wants (or wanted) to do with the tool. Given that it doesn’t even have features to upload documents to activities or sessions, it looks a little amateurish for the kind of potential a system like this could have.

Of course, there is no limit to what I would think a system like that could include – e.g. my first thought was whether it supported SCORM or any other standard like that. The question is not warranted given the features it describes clearly on its information site, but I did hear some murmur around a new LMS being launched by Google. And that would definitely be news! To some relief (I would be wary of Google as a competitor ), CloudCourse is still a very primary interface for scheduling of training activities. Being open source will definitely help it reach a wide audience. That, however, is still something to be seen.

My take: CloudCourse is not a learning platform but a pure course scheduler platform. I would have really liked to see support for at least some documents to be attached to the activities or sessions. I think, next in line is integration with Google Docs as it would definitely make a lot of sense to have an activity which links in to Google Calendar and has a host of Google Docs around it pre and post the activity.

My question in the context of LMS systems is – Is Google warming up? Will it ever launch an LMS based on its App Engine? I hope I have not given them this idea now!

“…teenagers do not wear wrist watches, I don’t mean they can’t or they’re not allowed to, they just often choose not to. And the reason is you see, we were brought up in a pre-digital culture, those of us above 25 and so for us, if you want to tell the time you have to wear something. Kids now live in a world which is digitized and the time for them is everywhere so they see no need to do this (wear something – a watch). And you don’t need to do it either, it’s just that you’ve always done it and will carry on doing it. My daughter Kate who is 20 doesn’t wear a watch, she doesn’t see the point. She says ‘it’s a single-function device, how lame is that?’…

Given some cursory thought, it’s evident there are HUGE implications for human learning when the semantic web comes of age.

Below I share my development experience of creating the Pune Layar.

Prerequisites:

• Layar developer account: Go here and request for a developer account. In couple of days you will get approval from Layar team.
• A Gmail account
• Server with public IP/domain where you will store actual layer content. The server can be shared one or completely owned by you.
• Mobile device having Layar browser support. Currently Android 1.5+ and IPhone 3GS supports it.
• Familiarity with Basic layar functioning. This and this video can help you to get familiar with layar.
• And some development experience in JSON programming

Development:

The development occurs at two ends:

At Layer site:

• Login to layar developer site
• Click on create layer
• Fill the necessary information
  • Here you will need to provide URL of server where the actual contents reside.
  • Difference between Name and Title field:
    • Title appears in actual layer on mobile device
    • Name is for reference purpose and doesn’t appear anywhere in your layer on mobile device.
  • Click on save button.
  • Click on edit button. In edit mode there are different tabs like:
    • AR view: Here you can set color scheme for your layer
    • POI Icons: Here you can upload icons for you POIs. POI can have four different icons for four states.
    • Filters: Here you can define search filters for your layer. The search filter can be textbox, radio button, checkbox, or slider.

At your server:

• The layar server sends http request to URL you have provided while defining the layer in layar developer site and it expects a JSON response containing POI details. You can find more information about JSON response format here with examples.
• You can use jsp/servlets/php/.net or any server side programming language to output JSON response. It totally depends on how dynamic your data is. You can even use simple html page having static JSON response.
• This site has good example of JSON response. It uses PHP and MySQL.

Note: The sample images of Layar browser on Layar developer site depicts old Layar browser. Latest Layar 3.0 browser has different layout.

Testing:

• Layar team has provided page where you can do basic testing of your layer. You can find it under layer listing page by clicking “your layers” link at top. The basic testing includes:
  • Receiving request from layar site.
  • Validating the JSON response.
  • Validating POI with images and information.

• Once you are done with it, the actual testing will happen on your device. As your layer is not published yet you will need to download developer APK of Layar browser from here on your mobile device.
• Once installed, launched it and under settings you will need to click on “Use developer settings”. Get the required developer id and developer key from Layar developer site (by clicking on profile link).
• You may like to use fixed location (GPS) settings.
  • The required latitude and longitude format is: Decimal Degrees like 18.497916.
  • This link will help you in converting to required format.
• Once you are done with above steps you should see your layer appearing in featured tab in Layar browser.

Publishing:

• After testing the layer you will need to send it for approval process. Under layer listing you will find “Request publication” button.
• The approval process may take up to five working days.
• Once approved you can then publish it whenever you want, may be coinciding with some event.

That’s it. Quite simple – isn’t it?. Your layer is now available for public.