http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Tarina/~3/122456731/

I just delivered my presentation at Future of Education conference, that is currently being held completely virtually in the spirit of the age. Thanks to George Siemens for the invitation to throw around a bit of nerve waste and not even being responsible for it

I used Keynote to prepare the slides, exported them to PDF and then uploaded them to Elluminate. Seems like Elluminate is not doing a perfect job with PDF files because many of my slides had white text and the background was missing: thus revealing nothing to the audience but my words.

So here are the slides as they should have been. Here we go for those who missed the version in full color, under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license:

Homo contextus: connected man and the future of education [PDF, 5.8MB]

In the presentation I will go through 2.5million years of human history. How we developed from brains the size of 500 cubic centimetres to an average of 1500 cubic centimetres of Homo sapiens. I explain how the use of tools (physical, symbolic and social) helped us to overcome problems of great magnitude. Our brains grew along with the evolution to match even more advanced use of tools including abstract symbolic, connected and pattern recognition-based thinking. I define Homo contextus, a connected human overcoming his cognitive limits by using technologies. If the last 2 million years our brains grew physically, next our brains will grow virtually - by using the words of Mashall McLuhan, “electricity is in effect an extension of the nervous system as a kind of global membrane”. Man in the use of technology is perpetually modified by it and in turn finds even new ways of modifying his technology. Man is extending itself to become the complete person again.

I can relate to what I describe as Homo contextus. Are you too, leaving Homo sapiens to become Homo contextus?

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Tarina/~3/122629062/

Anshul Samar is a 13-year old founder and CEO of Elementeo, a company operating on the field of education. Watch him deliver a very well articulated speech that should make any CEOs older than him ashamed.

Here is the idea of his company:

Samar argues that textbooks are boring and kids would rather spend their time battling enemies, blowing things up with bombs, and yes, even giving their opponents lead poisoning. So he created a fantasy role playing game that combines the rapturous teenage joys of competition and carnage with the exciting properties of the periodic table of chemical elements.

Isn’t that exiting. One more young CEO who thinks the educational system is not doing an adequate job and decides to fix things himself. Reminds of myself when I was 16 but Anshul beats me by 3 years.

I wish there would be more of such rebels. If you know any young entrepreneurs who have a company on the field of education, let me know.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Tarina/~3/124158226/

I’m in Rome, Italy and will travel to Naples this week for the EDEN Conference. The theme this year is New Learning 2.0. I quickly calculated that about 50 of the 200 submitted papers have something to do with Web 2.0, tagging, blogs, folksomonies and wikis. On the plane I saw a CNN program called Global Office, dealing with social networking sites and the Web 2.0 phenomena. It looks like we are approaching general awareness of social technologies.

My keynote presentation will open the conference on 14th of June. I will talk about Serendipity 2.0, missing third places of learning. We have to consider five things:

• the role of physical spaces in relation to social interaction technologies. Especially spaces that exist out of the reach of formal structures


• the balance between centralization/decentralization and hierarchies/networks


• importance of lateral ties among people (non-linearity) in linear processes. Many problems in linear processes can be traced back to problems in sense making


• formal and informal, serendipity and zemblanity, practice and process. What is the right mix?


• how we shape our tools and how the tools then shape us

Internet is like an electric lamp. When the lamp was invented, it casted light to new spaces for people to be in, to interact with and to work in. In a similar way, the internet is creating new spaces for people to be in that were not previously available. Just as the electric lamp transformed our society and shaped us, so will the internet. The technology does nothing on its own. It’s what people do with the technology that transforms us.

But changes in structure and form are meaningless without corresponding changes in pedagogy. Slow pedagogy (similar to fast and slow food) counters the current culture of acceleration, giving learners time to reflect, to introspect, to argue and to enjoy.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Tarina/~3/124738509/

I just delivered my keynote at EDEN conference in Naples, Italy. The title was Serendipity 2.0: Missing Third Places of Learning. I remixed my concept of Homo contextus in it, too. I was very satisfied with the result and I even hit my 30 minute mark with about 40 slides without a problem. Thanks to Sepp, Susan, Robin and Roberto for providing me a third place to reflect on these concepts in Rome.

I will have the recording online as quickly as I get it out of my studio. Until then, here are the slides:

Serendipity 2.0: Missing Third Places of Learning [Slideshare]

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Tarina/~3/124766313/

My friend Robin Good has a revolutionary idea. To empower the small guy, network new media observers and experts from all around the world together to create a TV channel bringing the brightest minds from the grassroots to the forefront to share their interests from all around the globe. As the clock shifts to another hour, the channel will shift to another timezone, featuring YOU or your favourite expert to express in 5-15 minutes what they think is interesting right now. Everything is done without a business model or expensive equipment. Robin needs your help:

If you, like me, want to change the way we use media, you want to enable the small guy instead of another large media conglomerate, if you want to really innovate and question-by-doing media established ways of filtering and selecting your news, this is an opportunity that gives me and you the ability to start modeling for others what the next age of television news may actually look like.

We need contributors to this revolutionary project. I definately want to hear what you have to say. Contact Robin if you want to make a contribution to the next step in human evolution. The channel will launch this month.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Tarina/~3/125637374/

I’m back in Finland from Italy. Great trip, a lot of new friends. The problem is, my luggage disappeared on the way back from Fiumicino Airport to Finland along with my collection of business cards, parmigiano and prosciutto.

If you gave me your business card at EDEN conference and want to keep in touch, please drop me an email (teemu at dicole dot com) as it’s not 100% sure I will get my stuff back.

Now I understand why so many Italians think Fiumicino Aeroporto is a mess. 

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Tarina/~3/127254549/

I’ve finally joined my audio recording of my opening keynote at EDEN Conference 2007 with my slides. I have video of myself too, but the film is in a suitcase in an unknown location. If it is ever retrieved, I will remix this screencast with the video.

The event itself was a conference celebrating its 15th anniversary, focusing on distance education and technology enhanced learning. This year the theme was “New Learning 2.0″ with about 200 papers involving this topic. The location of the event was in Naples, Italy with over 500 delegates from all around Europe mainly from academic and educational institutions.

In my presentation I’m defining three of my concepts until now unknown to the field of distance education: seredipic learning, homo contextus and parasitic learning. I call for third places of learning running outside of the reach of formal structures. These spaces are run by self-directed connective learners (homo contextus) utilizing abilities in distributed cognition, prosthesis of thinking and parasitic approach to informal learning. Serendipity defines the accidental encounters of individuals in such third places linking the skills and wills of people through social technologies. The social noosphere (mindsphere) extends into a planetary thinking network, effectively decentralizing learning through technological extensions of mind and body. In the shadow of Marshall McLuhan, hard questions are left for reflection regarding New Learning 2.0:

• What does it extend?


• What does it make obsolete?


• What is retrieved?


• What does it reverse into, if over-extended?

I also got Robin Good from Masternewmedia.org and Adrian Guzman a student from the McLuhan Program to explore the ideas of Marshall McLuhan a few days after my presentation in Rome. These are available in the screencast.

I also have a paper coming up that includes a lot of the ideas put forward in my presentation. I will post it here as soon as I get it out of the door.

• Screencast of the presentation + comments from Robin Good and Adrian Guzman [FLASH]


• Slides of the presentation [Slideshare] - [PDF]


• Podcast of the presentation [MP3, 14MB]