Complex learning communities

A new breed of learning community which is driven by the need to generate learning, creativity and economic capacity is emerging as a result of the demands of the Information Society. Radical heterogeneity and multiple drivers make these learning communities significantly different from previously identified learning communities such as corporate Communities of Practice or Virtual Learning Communities. If full benefit is to be realised from such Complex Learning Communities (CLCs), then better understanding of their complex behaviour and methods of maximising their effectiveness are required. This short paper presents an overview of CLCs and reports on the development of a research agenda designed to address the identified gaps in knowledge

Human Computation and Convergence

Humans are the most effective integrators and producers of information, directly and through the use of information-processing inventions. As these inventions become increasingly sophisticated, the substantive role of humans in processing information will tend toward capabilities that derive from our most complex cognitive processes, e.g., abstraction, creativity, and applied world knowledge. Through the advancement of human computation - methods that leverage the respective strengths of humans and machines in distributed information-processing systems - formerly discrete processes will combine synergistically into increasingly integrated and complex information processing systems. These new, collective systems will exhibit an unprecedented degree of predictive accuracy in modeling physical and techno-social processes, and may ultimately coalesce into a single unified predictive organism, with the capacity to address societies most wicked problems and achieve planetary homeostasis.Comment: Pre-publication draft of chapter. 24 pages, 3 figures; added references to page 1 and 3, and corrected typ

Games-Based Online Course Design: Prototype of Gamification for Online Tutors

With the ubiquity of interactive games in students’ lives and the rise of gamified experiences across the web and mobile applications, online tutors and practitioners of technology enhanced learning have been inspired to incorporate games-based elements. This paper introduces a prototype of an online application that helps online tutors to embed gaming to design their online course. We developed a framework for online course leaders which explains how Wikis (as an online learning platform) can support students’ learning, interaction, and sharing of knowledge in the online community. We are presenting a metaphor for the course design in a gameboard like “snakes and ladders”. This metaphoric game enables online tutors to elaborate online interaction among their students. The game methodological design approach for this metaphoric game merges different pedagogical theories such as (socio-constructivism) with practice in online learning (Wiki) and gives the online tutor an idea about what theory/approach is used when selecting any technological tool or moving forward in the game. This framework could help tutors, educational institutions and students to use a common language with students to describe their teaching and learning activities. Primarily, it helps tutors to make decisions about learning activities, facilitate, guide and support students’ communication and collaboration

Thriving in the 21st century: Learning Literacies for the Digital Age (LLiDA project): Executive Summary, Conclusions and Recommendations

LLiDA set out to: review the evidence of change in the contexts of learning, including the nature of work,nknowledge, social life and citizenship, communications media and other technologies review current responses to these challenges from the further and higher education sectors, in terms of: a) the kinds of capabilities valued, taught for and assessed (especially as revealed through competence frameworks); b) the ways in which capabilities are supported ('provision') c) the value placed on staff and student 'literacies of the digital' collect original data concerning current practice in literacies provision in UK FE and HE, including 15 institutional audits and over 40 examples of forward thinking practice offer conclusions and recommendations, in terms of the same issues reviewed in

The innovativeness of rural Europe: A contribution to the concept of innovation

Rural Europe faces new challenges in an increasingly globalized economy. There are problems of cost competition, outmigration, an ageing population, dispersed settlements, lack of proximity services and employment opportunities. On the other hand opportunities emerge from new demands of the information society, like a healthy environment and typical products of high quality, or space for creative leisure and learning activities, or like a new look to cultural traditions in agriculture and craftsmanship. At the same time the notion of distance has considerably changed due to new telecommunication technologies. The LEADER community initiative is supporting around 800 local action groups (LAG), especially in Objective 1 or 5b rural areas all around Europe; LAG are public-private, public or more rarely private partnerships carrying ou their specific development programme for a smaller region (between 5000 and 100000 inhabitants). The work group on innovation studied and analysed a large number of innovative actions within, but also outside these LEADER areas. The features of the processes revealed that innovation takes place to an astounding extent, and that their specific character even contributes to a better understanding and further development of the concept of innovation. It can be shown that ? Innovation is not a single action, but does have a global character. The whole cycle of action which it comprises over time, sometimes contain quite ?banal" things, carried out step by step, following the logic of trial and error. The innovation lies in the interlinkages and connections which are created between resources, actors, activities and between the local and the external world. ? A cycle of actions is innovative, if it emerges out of a given context and makes this context irreversibly more complex, more dynamic; it creates more alternatives of action and responses than had been disposable before. ? Innovation has a deeply social character. It is fuelled by ?energetic differentials", resulting from different ?speeds" of the local and the global (in terms of productivity, quality requirements, migration flows, nature degradation,...); it really starts, when local actors start to perceive this differential in a new way. During the process new ways of collective learning and of conflict negotiation arise. Finally new common references, values, visions, attitudes or forms of organisation take shape. ? According to the stage of the process, three types of innovation can be distinguished. The first type relates to the mobilisation of people?s energies in the place. It is not directly creating new jobs and wealth, but prepares the soil for their later emergence. They can be characterized as innovations in facilitation and animation. The second type of innovation channels the energies in order to prepare the field for new, coherent and value adding activities. They deal with village renewal, the establishment of quality charts and organisational restructuring of formerly individually squandering actors. The third type of innovation deals with the creation of filieres in the value adding chain of local resources, moreover with the diversifcaton of the local economy and with creating synergies between formerly separate strands of activities. These innovations consolidate new links to the global and consolidate a new position in the economic competition between regions. These and more facts will be delivered by representatives of the work group on the base of selected case studies. Contribution to Theme A: Regional Economics in Transition: Institutional Development and Socio-Economic Change

Building capacity in climate change policy analysis and negotiation: methods and technologies

Capacity building is often cited as the reason “we cannot just pour money into developing countries” and why so many development projects fail because their design does not address local conditions. It is therefore a key technical and political concept in international development. Some of the poorest countries in the world are also some of the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Their vulnerability is in part due to a lack of capacity to plan and anticipate the effects of climate change on crops, water resources, urban electricity demand etc. What capacities do these countries lack to deal with climate change? How will they cope? What steps can they take to reduce their vulnerability? This innovative and high-profile research project was part of a larger project (called C3D) and conducted with non-governmental organisations in Senegal, South Africa and Sri Lanka. The research involved several participatory workshops and a questionnaire to all three research centres