How do the stories we read, hear, or come to know make us who we are?
What if we could track and annotate how these stories constitute our identity and behavior? (Or perhaps rather our rational deliberations?)
If we had a map of that similar to the mapping of genomes, could that be a useful educational tool? Or a tool for better understanding others?
I think we’d want to know and highlight the biggest influences and to see “storied” context of why they are our biggest influences—why they are meaningful to us.
The resulting map would constitute a different “story genome” for each person. It would be a quantified self tool that would require constant updating and revising. I think we could learn a lot about ourselves and others.
“Library Orientation” in the Learning Theater, Summer 2016 by Yuntong Man
I just had the great fortune of spending two days with Leakey Foundation members exploring the meaning of evolution (and human origins) in relation to the theme of “human survival.” It was an amazing experience led by seven thoughtful and well-spoken scientists speaking about diverse topics such as physiology, virology, climatology, behavioral psychology, and more.
It not only led me to reflect on how to describe my work, but (perhaps predictably) how to describe it at a cocktail party in under two minutes. And for me, that’s the challenge of describing EdLab.
What are folks at EdLab doing?
At EdLab, our work touches on many of the ideas that were explored during two days of discussions on the survival of humans—namely, how can education help us solve our most difficult problems as a species?
We do a lot of experimental software and multimedia projects at EdLab, and we also run the Gottesman Libraries—a local, service-oriented side of our work that keeps us enmeshed in the immediate, day-to-day work of the Teachers College community of 5,000 teachers and researchers. And for the past two years, some of us have been involved in making a “learning theater”—an extension of both the “experimental” and “practical” sides of our work.
Creating a “Learning Theater”
I’ve been deeply involved in this project of conceptualizing, developing, building, and programming the Smith Learning Theater. Indeed, just recently I’ve spent many hours optimizing the workflow of the soon-to-be-completed AV system; multimedia, however, is only one aspect of this expansive project. In light of my recent cocktail party experience, I’ll risk summarizing the purpose and mission of this experimental space as follows:
The Learning Theater is designed as a multi-use space for active learning supported by innovative multimedia technology, a unique software platform, and the most knowledgeable teachers in the world.
(Oh, did I forget to mention that it’s a unique and complex architectural endeavor at one of the world’s leading educational institutions, and possibly the most advanced space of its kind in the world!? That’s right:pretty cool stuff.)
We’ll be unpacking this mission over the next decade, and trying to live up to the potential this space affords us and our collaborators. But if someone asks me right now what that means to make this space work, these are some of the ideas that come to mind:
Exploring the pedagogical and technological potential of such a space with everyone who uses it.
Working smarter, harder, and finding the right colleagues who are willing to undertake this inherently interdisciplinary work.
Taking risks, and resisting institutional pressures that diminish creativity.
Making an effort to share Learning Theater experiences with the wholeworld.
Thoughtfully supporting even modest efforts to use the Learning Theater.
…and rigorously demonstrating how learning happens in an active, comfortable space!
The Learning Theater should change the world. It should change education and, importantly, perceptions of education; it should deepen respect for teaching as a noble, complex, and valuable vocation.
This week I witnessed a handful of caring, thoughtful, visionary, and eminent scientists agreeing that, above all, the well-being of the human race essentially rests on the ability of teachers (of all kinds) to inspire billions of people to be more imaginative, curious, and empathetic.
It’s a complex problem a whole bunch of people need to work together to solve.
Here I am giving an Ignite-style talk two weeks ago at The Digital Media and Learning Conference in Long Beach, CA. It was my first time (both giving this style talk and attending the DML conference), and I really liked the format—20 slides auto-advancing every 15 seconds for 5 minutes. They’re supposed to be fun and thought-provoking, which was a good challenge in the context of a conference about “designing learning futures.” I tried gently poking fun at the audience by suggesting that we’ve all dreamed about being the person who, once and for all, creates a “Facebook-for-learning.”
The main point of the presentation was to think through how we’d go about building it—with a focus on development choices. Based on a simple rubric of what characteristics such a learning-centered application would have, I asked the audience to consider four diverse models of “social” apps (Facebook, Amazon, Moodle, and the SATs). I suggested the image of an Okapi neatly summarized the development conundrum, and concluded that such an application should be complementary to Facebook—not its replacement.
Well, there’s no guarentee my talk was substantial enough for the audience, but I enjoyed putting it together and delivering it. Several of the other speakers shared heartfelt, personal stories, and I couldn’t help feeling a bit upstaged. Deservedly so!
But the subtext of my talk—which I hope I sparked in at least a few of the couple hundred people in attendance—was to consider the necessity of developing niche applications for educational contexts. That is, it’s glorious that Facebook has a community of 600MM+ users, but it’s unlikely that learning communities will benefit much from being part of such a large-scale project. Sure, it would be great to preside over such a massive community as a software designer, and there are many feats that could be accomplished with data that it would throw off, but I’m skeptical it could serve learners more powerfully than smaller, more focused tools.
So, though I asked people to think about development issues, I hoped they walked away thinking about a learner’s “user experience.” I am cautiously optimistic that at least one person did so, as she tweeted:
We are excited to announce the release of Pressible today! This is a very experimental release, though we are hoping you (the lab) and others hop on board and give it a try! Please see our features page for more details, but in a nutshell:
Pressible is highly “templated” — meaning that users can’t change much about the design of their site. Is this a good or bad idea? (Is it good or bad for Facebook?) In any case, it allows us to try some things out that wouldn’t be possible otherwise. Watch for more visual elements in the future.
We think Pressible is a reinvention of blogging as a vehicle for publishing your ideas and work to the web in a fast, intuitive, and powerful way. Will you? Let us know!
Also, here are some things we think are cool about the project as a whole:
It’s hosted entirely in the cloud — a new experiment for an EdLab application.
It’s built on the back of WordPress. We did kung fu on the data WordPress throws around to create cool results now, and even cooler results in the future.
Right now it’s experimental, but we are hoping it can mature into a fully-fledged software project hosted by the Gottesman Libraries. We think it can become a way to not only serve the TC community (and alumni), but also individuals and organizations around the world.
We hope you break it. Really… we’re ready to learn from our mistakes. So if you do, let us know!
We hope this is the beginning of a new stage in the lab’s exploration of the future of publishing (hey, it may also be the end of the road!), and are excited to invite the lab to join us moving forward. We envision a lot of other features and functionality that did not make this release, and there are probably things we haven’t even considered yet.
So, what are you waiting for? Sign up for Pressible today and begin your next big publishing project!
Update on March 15th: Only someone with a Columbia University email address can sign up for Pressible without a special invitation.
Acording to this article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, new campus is being built to spec in Chaska, Minnesota – that is, they are building it without knowing who the tenant will be, with the intention of leasing/renting space to a variety of schools. Is this what the college of the future looks like?
Perhaps. It’s a slick idea. As we’ve recently seen on Willoby & Himrod, U.S. colleges are exporting education around the world. So why not grow new campuses at home in the U.S.?
This could lead to competition for students, opening up whole new markets for undergraduates and professionals who would like to receive a degree from a distant college, but who prefer face-to-face instruction.
Will remote facilities be able to deliver the goods? Two possible developments, neither of which feels so good: 1) more traveling for star professors, and 2) more adjunct positions using a ready-made curriculum.
After Ed TV is the new home of EdLab‘s nascent web video channel. We designed this site to serve as an archive of past episodes, but also as a destination for upcoming promotional efforts. Our primary goal at this point is to see if we can get other organizations to post our multi-video player on their websites – which we hope is seen as a low-effort way to make any website more active. New videos on the future of education appear on a weekly basis.
The next phase of our growth will be getting the word out about the website. Our audience is, broadly, learners and teachers. We’re currently working on events and other outreach efforts to broaden our exposure and visibility. Coming up in December, for example, we are working with a New York City school to use After Ed TV as a resource for thinking about the future of education. At an Edit Jam event on 12/14, the production team will help students and teachers produce their own web video which will be highlighted in our lineup.
