LEARNING IN THE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AGE

This chapter presents a picture of how people will go about learning later in the century. It presents a view of the technological landscape learning will be taking place in. It thus provides a context for the other chapters, as well as being an analysis of the future interaction of humans with knowledge and of what it might mean to live in an information-rich environment.

THE AGE OF INFORMATION ACCESS

Probably the greatest practical difference between our current learning context and the one which will exist in some 20 or 30 years time lies in the notion of information access. Information in various compelling forms will be readily accessible to the learner. Information will all be available in electronic form within various learning technologies, which will make it accessible to the learner in a variety of media forms and at various levels of technicality such that the learner will invariably find something of interest. For example, if a person is interested in learning what calculus is all about, she will be able to access a brief overview of the field in an informative and entertaining manner. If she wishes, she could be provided with a graphical approach to calculus, or an applied approach that emphasizes its uses, or a historical approach, or she could try her hand at it herself, either in a well-supported problem-solving environment or within a game format that creates challenge. All of these many and varied means of approaching a topic are compelling forms that catch the interest of the learner. Otherwise, they fail as learning technologies.

This notion of an information-rich learning context will greatly affect traditional forms of learning and instruction. To imagine the impact that such a context can have on the way we do things, we need only consider in a relativistic manner our own current situation. At the moment, a great deal of what I learn derives from my interaction with books and other printed sources. But consider a time quite some while ago when such resources were not easily available. A much greater recourse was then made to learning directly from other people -- and that was of course just about the only way to learn prior to the invention of the printed resource itself in the late 15th century.

An information-rich context means not only one in which a rich store of information exists, but more importantly, one in which there is easy access to that information. The reason the printed resource is so appealing today as a learning resource is quite simply that it is very readily available. It is well recognized today that Gutenberg's invention of printing has had, over time, a revolutionary impact on the potential for education in society. In effect, knowledge became much more accessible than it had ever been before.

Thus, following the 15th century, the increase in the availability of information led directly to an important jump in the level of education of people -- more learning was taking place! More interesting, however, is the fact that the richer information accessibility led to new forms of learning: the acquisition of knowledge from oral discourse was steadily being supplanted by acquisition through reading. The change of context affected the very process of learning in practical terms. It did not of course affect the fundamental psychological processes of learning --that is, how our minds process information and transform it into knowledge, something I will explore in Chapter 5. The process of learning it did affect is rather the process of how we go about learning, that is our approach to learning -- what we do in order that our minds can set themselves to learn.

This post-15th century transformation is long gone and seemingly only of historical importance. Its significance, however, lies in our current situation. We are today, at the end of the 20th century, in the same situation that people found themselves in at the end of the 15th century -- on the verge of another great increase in information access. And just as it did in the past, this current increase in access will lead to new forms of learning; it will again affect the very process of learning in practical terms.

It is useful to ponder the notion of an ever-increasing information-rich learning milieu, for there is something at once fascinating and suspicious about the possibility that merely increasing information accessibility will lead to more and better learning.

Let's start by considering the current situation. Today's student may not have instant access to all desired information, yet there is a tremendous wealth of information that is available both in a home's encyclopedia and in the local public library. However, despite this vast wealth of information in the student's educational context, there seems to be little use made of it (certainly much less use than one might initially expect). Why is this ? The answer lies in the relationship that exists between effort and interest, what can be called the effin factor (an effort-to-interest trade-off).

THE EFFIN FACTOR

The effin factor concerns the appeal or lack of appeal of some activity or resource. It involves the effort a learner is willing to invest in pursuing an activity or in accessing a resource, in relation to the learner's current intrinsic interest in the topic. The effin factor deals with the motivation of the learner, but with intrinsic motivation only, one related largely to curiosity (because of its relation to knowledge, this is known as epistemic curiosity).

The effin factor is at the center of learning technology. It builds on our natural curiosity about the world around us, and on the potential of technology to make information easy to obtain. We are rather flighty in our curiosity and our attention keeps shifting as we encounter new and interesting things in our dealings with the world. It is important therefore that the satiation of our appetite for information occur at the time of need, otherwise there is a good chance that interest will be lost. Hence the importance of immediate availability of the needed information. Any delay increases the mental effort in keeping the interest active.

The effin factor embodies a straightforward relationship: the more the effort needed to obtain the needed information, the more that topic must be of interest to the learner. If the required effort is great, only topics of very high interest will be pursued. On the other hand, if the required effort is minimal, then many topics become of interest. As information technology reduces the effort to access information, the potential for interest in many diverse topics grows for individuals. Natural curiosity has at last a chance to blossom.

The ideas I have developed up till now, and which constitute a set of current working hypotheses, are that information will be readily accessible in a variety of compelling forms, and that this information-rich context can dramatically affect how we go about learning. In a later section, I will explore a central idea underlying this practical process of learning, that of learner initiative. From that notion will eventually follow implications for how we design instruction, that is for how we develop learning environments, as we shall see in chapter 4.

EDUCATIONAL CONTEXT OF THE FUTURE

In the following list are some of the elements which I believe will make up the educational context of learning in the first half of the next century:

Information will be all-available, both in extent and in the provision of various perspectives.

Specialized computer tutors will assure understanding of complex notions and the mastery of difficult skills.

We will approach ideal learning conditions, both in behavioral and in cognitive terms.

Learning will be largely self-directed.

Teachers in educational institutions will serve mainly as counselors and role models, and not as information providers.

The educational system will thus become leaner and more efficient, employing fewer professionals.

A much greater reliance on technology will come about.

What is being proposed here is the idea that how people will go about learning in the years 2000+ will be quite different from how we go about learning in the present. To set the scene, let's first ask ourselves whether forms of learning can actually change radically over time. Is not schooling today pretty much what it was 30 years ago? Well, just as in those days, it still takes place in classrooms, it is still teacher-centered, the teacher providing information and leading the class through learning activities. This current portrait of education applies to all levels of schooling, from pre-school to the university. What is different now, however, is the increase in learning resources that are available to the learner. Our classrooms today are more full of all kinds of instructional resources, mainly books, which provide a rich source of information, as well as activities for learning. There is thus greater occasion for self-directed, private learning, outside of the context of the group recitation, even if that latter method of instruction remains the predominant one. What we have basically is a richer setting for learning.

Now, what will be the context for learning in the next century? Its prime attribute will be a greatly enhanced resource base. A great diversity of educational resources will be abundantly available to children and adults alike, in line with the spirit of the age of information access.

A SCHOOLING SCENARIO

In the 21st century, a child of 12 (I will call her Sharon) will likely attend school for only a small part of the day. Like today, the reason for schooling will be largely one of resource sharing, for expensive resources like very competent teachers and complex equipment (simulators for instance) cannot be had by everyone in non-school contexts. Schooling is also the opportunity for sharing one's learning experiences with others, it is very much a social experience, with socializing effects similar to those of any other group experience.

Most of Sharon's learning will take place through interaction with symbolic computer resources, not through interaction with a teacher. Her interactions will be monitored and she will be coached in the best ways to achieve her learning goals. Any learning problems will be identified and the appropriate learning resources will be obtained to overcome these problems. The coaching offered by the computer tutors will be of a soft kind, for Sharon is able at all times to redirect her line of exploration and pursue other learning goals as her interests shift and new ones emerge. In effect, her learning is very much self-initiated and self-directed. Learning will be fun, otherwise it will not occur.

Sharon's teachers will be on hand to discuss what she is doing and to quite simply be role models and guides to help her structure her own activities. They will not be purveyors of information, for far better resources than them (and they know this) are available to their students.

Why will schooling be so lean, both in terms of time and in terms of human resources? Quite simply because most of learning will take place outside of school, both in informal settings such as the home, and in other formal settings, such as special interest groups and specialized learning centers. The scope of schooling will be to provide the individual with basic skills and with some breath of knowledge representative of our culture. Exactly what those skills and what that knowledge will be is possibly the riskiest thing to predict about schooling in the next century.

This scenario has portrayed the schooling context of a 12-year old. The basic picture applies just as well to that of a 6-year old or to that of a 20-year old. The emphasis, in each case, is on independent and informal learning, in sharp contrast to today's formalized and directed teaching. Tomorrow's schooling is also primarily tool-based rather than teacher-based.

LEARNER INITIATIVE

It seems practically unreasonable today to think that children will be able or even willing to manage their own learning efforts, as is suggested by the scenario of schooling for the 21st century. Don't children have to be coaxed and cajoled into learning and into appreciating our culture?

They do today, very often at least, and the reason is quite straightforward: today's schooling simply does not provide the ideal conditions for learning. Indeed, we often have to struggle through learning experiences and sometimes even learn despite the conditions we find ourselves in. The causes of such a situation are manifold, but the main problem is one of resources. This is quite easy to see: imagine that you are exceedingly wealthy and that you put yourself to the task of ensuring that your children get the very best learning experiences money can buy. Don't you think that you could make learning, all learning, fun for them? With no resource limitations, you could have the very best learning resources in existence identified, then easily acquire them.

There would be, of course, the practical problem of access, that is, of having these resources available when they are needed. But that is a problem of today, not one of tomorrow.

What information access means in terms of learner initiative is that I can drop the study of a topic at any time and still just as readily pick it up later on when I want to come back to it. It means that there is just about no penalty for doing this (in sharp contrast to today's largely group-based and instructor-initiated learning context).

Information access also means that compelling forms of relevant information are available. This, as we have seen, implies interest-generating information that can pull the learner deeper and deeper into a topic.

Thus, the fact that I can easily come and go in my learning tasks and that the resources available are interesting and fun make me want to engage in learning experiences. As with television and other forms of entertainment, I come to like schooling and informal learning. We can now speak of 'whim learning' or of 'leisure learning', something that in the past was reserved for the learning that took place in para-academic activities, or for the type of learning common in graduate school.

THE LEARNING NEEDS PARADOX

Because learning is so engaging, there is more of it occurring. But at the same time, there is a lesser need for it, which results in a fascinating and happy paradox, that we might call the 'learning needs paradox'. How is this so? That more learning is occurring is no surprise since we are intrinsically curious by nature and the learning resources are so interesting. We therefore seek out learning experiences as never before.

Now, let's see why there might be a lesser need for learning. There are two quite different facets to the answer: more on-the-job training and greater reliance on outside expertise.

Job flexibility in the 21st century will probably be much increased from what it is today. The rate of change in society and therefore in one's job is expected to be substantial. One's preparation for a career will therefore likely be quite broad, with the expectation that any highly specialized skills that are needed for job performance will be developed on the job. Lifelong learning takes on a very real meaning. What this amounts to is not so much that learning needs are fewer, but rather that they are unpredictable, since they will change over time according to one's circumstances in life. There will be a tendency to acquire specialist skills (job skills) only when these are needed, rather than much before that time. There are strong implications here for the type of instructional design which will be needed for diverse learning contexts, something I will explore in chapter 4.

The second facet for a lessened need for learning is outside expertise, essentially in the form of knowledge-based systems such as expert systems, those computer programs that advise a user in the accomplishment of some task. For instance, I expect that in the 21st century, I will have little need to learn the tax code for income tax purposes (as I must today in order to properly organize my taxes). My income tax expert system will do the job reliably for me and with my full confidence. The future will be pervaded with all kinds of knowledge-based systems that will take on much of the symbolic problem-solving tasks that we engage in now and for which we have had to be educated. In summary then, 'needful' learning will be displaced to some extent by 'leisure' learning, these concepts conveying the tone of learning rather than the content of learning.

Two further aspects are involved in this fascinating learning need paradox. The first concerns the nature of what is learned; the second, our symbiosis with artificially intelligent systems.

Since learning will generally take place in much more informal settings and especially since it will be more subject to the learner's interests and whims, what is learned will likely differ quite a bit from today's curricula. What is learned will not depend to any great measure on curricular decisions made by educators, but will depend instead on what the learner her- or himself wants to learn and, indirectly but importantly, on both what needs are proposed to the learner and how attractive the learning resources are.

There are some very interesting implications arising out of this situation with respect to the sequence of learning and with respect to learning materials.

Since learning will be interest-driven rather than educator-driven, it is quite likely that disciplinary fields of study will not be studied systematically or rigorously as is usually the case today. Learners will dip in and out of particular fields in what will surely seem like a haphazard sequence. Furthermore, since learners will each have their own particular interests to pursue, few people will have the same perspective on a given topic, few people will have gone through the same learning experiences. One will rarely take a course in history or in biology for instance. Rather, one will learn a little about the Renaissance, learn a little about marine life, and so on. And on, and on...! A bit here and there doesn't seem like much, but it is the cumulative result of great learning activity that leads to the educated person, not the fact that a subject was studied systematically. This does very much mean that there will be holes in one's knowledge of physics, say, but the breadth of skills one will possess will far outshine any particular lacunae (which in any case can be easily filled as the need arises).

Interest-led learning also means that the preparation of learning materials will be carried out in ways which will emphasize the interesting-ness of the materials. Materials will compete for the interest of the learners. In a more profound way, disciplinary areas will compete for the learner's attention. If a disciplinary society wants people to become more interested in its discipline, it will have to prepare learning materials of sufficient interest to compete with those of other disciplinary societies. Learning materials will be similar in that respect to the status accorded today to trade books or films, which compete against one another in an open market. Just as movie-viewing or television-viewing is today a haphazard event based on personal interests and market forces, so too will education be in the 21st century.

The vision of interest-led learning is an appealing one for anything that we consider today as optional learning, learning that I do just for the fun of it, not because I will need it later on. However, that is rather different than what I expect my surgeon and my pilot to have learned before they operate on me or fly the plane I have boarded. I will not want either of them to have skipped some part of their training which might be required while carrying out their professional responsibilities.

The problem here is not one of learning, but rather one of certification. Which is not to say that it is not an important issue, since a solution still needs to be established for it. Currently our educational system serves both teaching and certification functions, and that is for a very practical reason: just imagine what kind of student participation we would have in our classes and in our programs if there were no grades and no diplomas at the end of the formal courses of study. This fact is a sad reflection on the primitive nature of our current learning environments.

However, assuming that learning in the future will be based on attraction, there is no reason why certification cannot be totally divorced from learning and teaching. Certification then becomes not an indication that a certain course of study was followed, and indirectly that certain skills have hopefully been mastered, but rather an indication that the person certified can accomplish the tasks covered by the certification. And this, irrespective of where or how the skills have been developed.

What this boils down to is a situation in which the social management of people in terms of skills (job hiring, training, pay scales, etc.) is totally divorced from the educational sector.

If the responsibilities associated with certain tasks performed by people require a given set of skills, certification will reflect that. If an individual wishes to be recognized as certified for a task, she will most likely master those skills identified for certification.

ECONOMICS OF INFORMATION ACCESS

In a very real sense, even if we don't usually think of it that way, the basic problem of education has been, and still largely is, the availability of resources. In essence, a problem of economics! For there are very good information sources, there are very good teaching materials which exist today, and some people learn from them very effectively. The problem is that only some people learn from them because only some people know about them or have access to them.

Let's take the concept of relativity in physics as an example, a concept which many feel (perhaps unjustifiably so) that it is difficult to grasp. There are likely quite a large number of educational resources in existence, ranging from books to videos to computer simulations, which purport to teach this area of physics. A few of these resources are probably excellent in that they do a great job in achieving their aims. And yet, probably most people who study relativity do so from resources other than these excellent ones, some of which are possibly quite terrible. If only they had access to the best resources...! Take any field of study you are familiar with, and this situation will most likely be replicated there as well.

Thus, education, just like health care, housing, or vacationing, is fundamentally a matter of investment and of sociological availability of societal resources. The bright side of this situation is the very low cost involved in the reproduction and distribution of electronic resources, as compared to other types of resources common in education, such as illustrated books, video materials, and human teachers. The future will thus be an age of much more widely distributed learning resources.

EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING THROUGH SIMULATION

Simulation training plays an important part in the learning experience of people involved in high-risk or high-cost performance situations, such as aviators, astronauts, policemen, and so on. It also sometimes plays an important role in less costly and risky surroundings, as in the training of various other professionals, such as lawyers, managers, educators. Its basis is that it permits the extrapolation of normal expectations through the powerful learning strategy of thinking along the lines of 'what if ...'.

The key to simulation lies in a faithful representation of the real-life context being simulated such that the learner obtain a vicarious experience of that context while not assuming the (sometimes costly) consequences of error, or the expenditures associated with performing in that context. In other words, it is obtaining the feeling and the benefits of reality in a simulated reality. It also permits the extension of reality into rare or non-existent, alternate, realities. A flight simulator for instance might let a trainee-pilot experiment with various maneuvers in order to assess their validity; and it might let the trainee fly in exceptional circumstances such as in unusual storms or over enemy terrain (in the case of fighter pilots).

Realistic simulation is a costly proposition currently, but it will likely be a realizable possibility in most situations in the future. It will thus likely form the cornerstone of learning experiences in the 21st century. The reason for this is essentially a cost-benefit one: as the costs of realistic simulation diminish due to technology advances, the types of learning involving 'sensual', experiential interactions will be taken advantage of.

To a great extent today, learning takes place with surrogate elements rather than with the 'stuff of the world'. Thus, we learn about China not by going to China and experiencing it, but by viewing elements of it in a film, or even more remotely by reading about it. Likewise, we learn economics not by experiencing its laws, but by being told about them through case studies and illustrations of them.

Our interaction with the world, and instructional communication about the world, can range from the sensual experiential level, through the analogue representation level, to the symbolic level, which is the most abstract. This dimension goes from feeling something, to seeing a picture of it, to verbalizing it. Bruner referred to these levels as enactive, iconic, and abstract. The symbolic is compact, conceptually manipulatable, and economical, whereas the sensual is the most 'real', and thus potentially the most memorable.

In a general way, the more experiential learning is, the better it is likely to be. This does not imply that the symbolic is not useful or even not necessary. To the contrary, the very object of learning is often the symbolic structure representing a phenomenon. What is implied, however, is the notion that learning interactions based solely on symbolic, surrogate elements may well be less effective than others. And indeed, the more abstract learning is, the more difficult it often is, as demonstrated by common educational experience today.

One exceptional situation when experiential learning may be less optimal than surrogate-based learning is the one in which natural constraints within the experiential situation preclude the emergence of symbolic structural representations. One of these constraints is time: we don't want to experience the formation of a lagoon; we would rather see its formation through a series of time slices within a simulation. Another constraint is danger: we don't want to experience battle strategy in action; we would rather learn about it through surrogate experiences. And finally, there are the physical constraints: we can't experience dinosaurs and we can't experience the nucleus of the atom, nor the surface of the sun. Our grasp of these objects of learning can only be through surrogate representations, which are ideally more or less analogical to the real thing. We can talk about them, using our mental imagery capabilities to visualize them and thus put them into perspective; or we can view them in an iconic recreated world which provides a better feel for them.

One area of potential concern in simulating the world lies in artificial realities. Our senses are our basic connection to our world and thus the means with which we capture this world in order to construct a symbolic representation of it. We therefore strive to learn about this world of ours as it is, for that is what proves to be useful.

With abstraction, however, comes the possibility, and indeed the desire, to imagine other worlds and to mentally participate in them. It is thus that we participate in the novels that we read, even though they are pure fiction, and likewise in films and other art forms. Abstraction essentially enables us to engage in flights of fancy, to dream up impossible worlds, and to undertake otherwise unrealizable adventures. Most often, this is done as an observer in a situation in which we have to identify with the characters portrayed through an empathic relationship. It is at a surrogate level that we do so, a level that involves symbolic or iconic forms and not generally sensual, experiential ones.

As we have seen, the experiential level of learning interaction provided by simulation has many benefits and will provide our core learning experiences in the future. A question of fidelity to reality crops up in the context of simulation, an issue perhaps best exemplified by the historically-based film. The historical film is certainly an excellent way to learn about the period of history portrayed in the film. But if the facts of history are twisted to better suit the plot of the film, then an inaccurate version of reality is learned. This remains a minor matter in many instances, but may well prove to become very problematical as computer modeling becomes more widespread. Indeed, the modeling capabilities of the future will enable one to work with and re-work representations of reality in very uncontrolled settings. Our capabilities for modeling both reality and alternate realities with ease will open up vast new doors of personal exploration (as opposed to collective shared exploration) and thus increase the reality-fix problem (keeping with reality instead of wandering into alternate realities). It is just that the scope for sensory experimentation will have greatly widened.

There is tremendous learning scope in surrogate realities, that is, artificial realities which offer sensual experiential learning, or at least provide the illusion of it. These artificial realities promise to provide both the interest-generating impetus for thematic exploration and the reactive environments through which learning can occur. Learning can become once again mainly a sensual experience.

REINVENTING GUARDIAN ANGELS

When I was a young lad, guardian angels used to exist and I had one just like everyone else. His role in the sphere of things was essentially to keep me out of trouble and possibly to serve as a confidant. Then somehow, the species became extinct and all of us had to manage on our own as best we could. There is good news around the corner however, for guardian angels will make a comeback in the 21st century.

The guardian angel of the future will be an electronic mentor who will be the constant companion of an individual and who will counsel her, or him, in learning and, more generally, in interacting with information. A guardian angel is a knowledge-based agent that comes to know the individual very well, that keeps learning more and more about the individual, and that is able to serve as a mediator between the individual and the world of knowledge. In a sense, a guardian angel is a symbolic interface regulating communication between the individual and her information environment. Because of the intimacy involved, a guardian angel will also be a good friend of sorts.

Powerful notions are at play here: the idea of a filter to the world, the idea of a program as a friend rather than as a tool that I can master and use, and the idea of turning to a `machine' for advice rather than to a human. I want to point out that I am discussing a knowledge-based system whose scope for counsel is nevertheless limited to learning and information transactions. It is not one that will be able to advise on how to interact with a friend, or on whether you should spend your vacation in Europe or in Japan (although there may well come to exist other specific knowledge-based agents that could help with such decisions).

The specificity of the guardian angel is to know the individual, her capabilities and interests, and to assist her in matching these with the vast world of information and knowledge which will make up the information technology age. An illustration will be useful here. The guardian angel of a youngster learning history will point out to her that a particular book she requested is rather above her reading level but that an easier one is rated just as good, unless she would like to develop further her reading skills as she studies history, in which case they should call in the reading assistant (a specialized technological tutor) to oversee the process. And so on.

The technological tutors that will populate the information technology age along with humans will likely be highly specialized in their particular tasks: the math tutor (or perhaps even more specifically, the division tutor) will have no expertise in tutoring reading, just as the reading tutor will know nothing about math. On the other hand, they will both be general systems that are meant to be used by a whole host of very different people, adapting to each person as they must in order to tutor properly. Guardian angels are the converse of these tutors: they are not at all specialized thematically, but they are very knowledgeable about the particular individual they are guiding.

Guardian angels are typical of the age of information in that intelligent agents will support our intellectual activities in all realms, as we shall see in the next chapter.