In London last Friday I led a conversation at Ambient Performance‘s “Seriously Mobile Summit – The Mobile Internet: Working in Real Time.” My topic was originally Informal Learning Goes Mobile. Too boring. Ron Edwards and I renamed the talk:
The audience had already drunk the web 2.0 KoolAid. I pushed them to think about the implications several years out. As a starting point, I eliminated talk about devices. The previous week, when talking with a dozen very sophisticated learning technologists about mobile, the conversation rapidly devolved into complaints about unreadable screens and buttons too small for beefy fingers. Moore’s Law will take care of those in short order, so we started as if it already had.
Slightly larger than a grain of sand, the uPod (u = universal) is a voice-activated, personal communicator. Large images (via e-paper or retinal scan) have replaced tiny screens. It is always connected to the world-net. The uPod is a true connection machine and everyone on earth has one.
When we’ve all got out uPods, then what? It’s inevitable that knowledge work and informal learning become the same thing. Will we need schools when we can learn directly from life? (I’ll post a video of the session when it becomes available so I won’t feel guilty about jumping to unsupported conclusions here.)
Our conversation turned to anonymity, privacy, and schooling. We missed the opportunity to talk about collaboration and community.
And what about this guy?
William James described a baby’s first vision of the world as “a big, booming, buzzing confusion.” We are as babes in the omnipresent internet. Now I understand why Kubrick put the light show sequence into 2001; we may live it in 2010..
William James provides other signposts to finding meaning amid the cacaphony of the omnipresent web:
- Compared to what we ought to be, we are half-awake.
- A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearraging their prejudices.
- Genius…means little more than the facultyy of perceiving in an unhabitual way.
- The art of becoming wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.
- The greatest use of life is to spend it on something that will outlast it.
- Human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind.
The ubi-web may an example of “be careful what you ask for.” (What do you think?) I don’t have an answer but I do have many questions which I’ll get to in another post.
My thanks for Ron Edwards, Nigel Paine, and Reuters for inviting me to this thought-provoking forum.
No related posts.
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Thank YOU Jay, you were (are!) outstanding and really got people thinking. The video archive will be ready in a few days.
Jay, one issue is that I want more ability to co-create and share, I want to ‘act’ in the world and share that, e.g. co-draw pictures, so your uPod won’t quite do it. I realize that’s not a real problem, as we can have it on our wrist with motion sensors so our gestures get recognized. Wii!
You can read Neal Stephenson’s “Diamond Age” for one thought on how schools might go away, and I’ve argued for an architecture that layers learning on top of our lives instead of taking us away for learning. It’s a pedagogy (andragogy, whatever) that we’ve not really explored but our old mentorships were one model (the way colleges *used* to be). I think Cognitive Apprenticeship will truly be where our models for learning will converge.
The issues, as I think you’re saying and echoing Don Norman, are not technological, but organizational and social. When we have magic (Arthur C. Clarke: “any truly advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”), what will we want to do?
Clark, you’re right: I agree with Don Norman that technology is not the challenge. The uPod is metaphorical: it’s so advanced it takes technology out of the picture. Maybe you had to be there….
You’ve led me to read the classic article on Cognitive Apprenticeship several times but it has been a few years. Isn’t the deal that I learn from what’s going on inside someone’s head instead of from what they are doing with their hands?
Hi Jay,
I really enjoyed your presentation at the summit. It was a great event – so thank you to You, Ron and Reuters too.
I can’t help thinking your Blue Sky Slide (ok, yes there were a few clouds too) caused your audience the biggest stretch (not yawn), but not only because they had to move from recievers into contributors…
In Confucion philosphy there are three harmonies that help make change more effective – the harmony of past, present and future.
I get the feeling that we need to guide the more technophobic from what they know to what is now.
Blog or Personal Learning Journal… to my mind – in essence – really they’re the same thing – may be excluding the openess of Blogging. However, for most – one terms is from the present and future, and the other from our known and familiar past.
I can’t help think that building those connections is what helps move people from 19th century approaches in to the 21st century.
Continous Improvement Circle or Wiki… ?Past, present and future…
Is there a compendium of these links? It might help… It’s just a thought…
David
Jay,
Spot on! Moments ago I was reading excellent http://www.madetostick.com/ . The psychological ‘schema’ mentioned of how we learn and relate and share concepts, converges perfectly with your comment about ‘learn from what’s going on inside…’ I too believe this is paramount, and recently discussed a published breakthrough, similar to fMRI to show us which parts of the surgeons brain are working the problem domain with their hands. In medical simulation this will help in vetting new medical learners before they travel down long learning paths, where medical science is finding the required cogntive processing for continued learning and growth and competency is more important than the just the haptic skills.
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