Connected Intelligence: Learning Framework

CITD Learning Framework = Knowledge Innovation + Network Environments

Connected Intelligence Knowledge Innovation...

• Network Learning
• Knowledge Creation
• Communication Design

Connected Intelligence Network Learning Environments

• CI Network Operations
  
• Global Culture
  
• CI NLP Design

---

Connected Intelligence Knowledge Innovation

Network Learning
The three components of Network Learning form a basis for people to interact, creatively and critically think about, and communicate their experiences. Rather than describe a scope and sequence for content as found in traditional approaches to Knowledge Innovation Component, network learning promotes an open system for learning. The content or subject of learning is inseparably bound to the interaction around it. It is the interaction that defines how we perceive and think about the content. Networked Learning provides the foundation for learning in CI.

1. Information Strategies: Information is something that can be both created and acquired. All learners need to be conscious of how to perceive information, how it can be created, and how it is disseminated. Using the anthropologist as a model, the main focus of information strategies is to empower people to create their own primary information resources, and integrate newly created information with secondary resources created by other people. In this sense, the act of learning in explicitly tied to the creation of new information resources – each school, each teacher, each students develops unique forms of information that can interact with others in the network.
   
   • Real World Interaction: Authentic experience is the first and most important source of information. All participants will learn to create their own primary information resource materials and embark on intensive fieldwork related to their project.
     
   • Digital Interaction: Information is accelerated through global networks of interaction making digital environments the second most important source of information. Learners acquire and create information in the connected environment of the web in order to build communities and connections across people, places, and things.
     
   • Traditional Media Interaction: For our purposes here, traditional information resources include print, film, video, television, and radio among others. While interaction is limited, it is important to develop strategies that expand our ability to perceive and make use of these forms of media.

2. Knowledge Creation
   Knowledge Creation is simultaneously an intellectual, perceptual, and behavioral act. The word thinking then, refers to the entire range of intellectual, perceptual, and behavioral processes that leads to the creation and application of knowledge. Through the processes of creativity, problem solving, decision-making, and reflection we learn to understand ourselves and others, deepen our sense of meaning and purpose, shape our actions, and provide unique perceptions and insights.
   
   • Thinking Tools: Thinking tools are highly focused methods for directing attention in a particular manner with the goal of creating a new perspective or outlook on a problem or decision. As one example, Edward de Bono’s work (e.g. – Six Thinking Hats) provides us with pragmatic ways of teaching thinking across a variety of domains (behavioral development, conflict resolution, team building, creativity, etc.). Ultimately, individuals must be empowered to design and use their own thinking tools.
     
   • Thinking Strategies: A thinking strategy is a process that is initiated over a longer period of time (e.g. – conflict resolution, project management, team building, personal development methodologies, creative imaging, entrepreneurial strategies, etc.) and involves the coordination of a series of thinking tools across intellectual, perceptual and behavioral domains. By thinking strategically, people become more reflective, mindful, critical, self-directed, and capable of creating knowledge on a personal and connected level. The goal for the learner is to develop and apply new and innovative strategies that they themselves generate.
     
   • Thinking Paradigms: A rich source of knowledge creation occurs through the development of new thinking paradigms. Interdisciplinary and intercultural orientations to knowledge allow for the cross-fertilization of various content and symbols from a variety of cultures (e.g. – Ethnomusicology = Music + Cultural Anthropology). There may be two or more content areas involved in the intersection. Breaking away from the grasp of traditional subject disciplines creates completely new opportunities for knowledge creation.

3. Communication Design: Clarity of communication through all forms of media is a core capacity in the network age. Rapid developments in technology are altering the face of business, government, and culture. Digital forms of technology offer new possibilities for representing knowledge and dramatically alter traditional models of communication.
   
   • Technique: All forms of technology, from the pencil to the computer, have a minimum skill set required for their effective use. This is referred to as “technique” – just as a pianist must develop a minimum level of technical prowess to gain access to repertoire, so must the virtual world designer to create new cultural spaces. This component of Communications Design addresses the need to clearly define the required technique in order to be successful in a particular context. Performance benchmarks are used to identify and train only the most relevant skill sets.
     
   • New Media Design: This section identifies the core concepts in new media design (e.g. – interface design, information architecture, navigation, user customization, visualization, etc.) that directly impact how we perceive and communicate through media. Technique is subservient to the expression of critical and creative ideas. The emphasis is on the learning the art and science of designing interactive environments.
     
   • Innovative Applications: Rapid technological innovation requires rapid prototyping. New developments in technology create new demands on our abilities to analyze the effects of media. We must constantly update our understanding of all media by probing into the most innovative applications of communications technology we can find (e.g. – agents and bots, virtual environments, avatars, artificial intelligence, installation art, etc.). Innovative Applications is focused on the most advanced and emergent areas of technological application.

Connected Intelligence Network Learning Environments

1. Cultural Development: Cultural Development is focused on developing knowledge, skills, and attitudes that accelerate cultural initiatives at both local and global levels. CITD works from the inside of a culture out, rather than making attempts to impose another set of cultural values and assumptions from the outside in. The local culture is the starting point by asking the question, "How do learning initiatives become effectively integrated across the various dimensions of society (education, business, culture)?" This growth is then extended both the nationally and internationally through: a) connections to and participation in existing initiatives (e.g. – European Union initiatives); and b) the creation of and provision of leadership for entirely new distance education initiatives.
   
   • Local Interaction: This component of Cultural Development focuses on making connections between education and the local community. Schools must become focal points for innovation within a culture. In this way, traditional boundaries between business, government, and the various cultural agencies and insitituions that are found within a given society are connected through initiatives life-long learning. Education becomes the means by which a greater level of connectivity, human and virtual, is promoted thoughout a community (students, teachers, schools, local agencies, local businesses, community development initiatives, etc.).
     
   • Global Connections: Distance learning is a critical means for connecting to the global learning arena. The ability to leverage exisiting initatives and provide leadership in new initiatves is a critical competency for education in the digital age. There are many opportunities to connect with existing programs in the European Union, North America, and Australia. Understanding how to use digital technology to increase the cultural reach of a society is an important means for helping to create a greater appreciation of the diversity and richness of culture around the globe. English as a Second Language (ESL) is a basic prerequisite for participation on this level.
     
   • Intercultural Communication: Intercultural Communication provides strategies for linking cultures that do not share the same language, symbols, art, and mythology. The future of leadership and participation in the global arena, whether it be educational, economic, or artistic, is clearly dependent upon the ability for one culture to communciate effectively and adapt itself sensitively to other cultures. Far more sophisticated than the basic notion of ESL as a global language of commerce, this component is focused on understanding and learning how to connect the diversity of language and experiences people have around the globe.

2. Digital Entrepreneurship: Networks have changed the nature of economy. New systems of commerce and trade, direct to consumer relationships, and marketing are now moving at the speed of light. It is a global arena in which partnerships and networking become the essential competencies of this new world. While an effective Knowledge Innovation Component is never driven merely out of perceived economic need, in times of intense and accelerated economic development, it makes sense to prepare students for a new workplace. An effective Knowledge Innovation Component must provide learning experiences that empower all stakeholders in education to succeed in the digital trade and commerce arena.
   
   • Personal Success: Personal success is focused on mastering the knowledge, skill, and behaviors required for an individual to be a successful entrepreneur. This component is largely behavioral in orientations and focused on intrapersonal attitudes and habits including: taking responsibility (physically, emotionally, mentally), conflict resolution, ability to take risk, a creative drive for innovation, adaptability, flexibility, confidence, health and well being. The foundation of entrepreneurship is effective habits and attitudes of mind.
     
   • Business Success: Business success is focused on mastering basic requirements that for effective participation as an entrepreneur. This component is focused on applying knowledge and skill in the business arena: creating a value proposition, sustaining value in the market place, business planning and strategy, effective marketing, effective communications, project management, development processes, financial planning and knowledge management.
     
   • Network Success: Network success is focused explicitly on the intersection of entrepreneurship and digital technology, What is it to be an entrepreneur on the web? This component is focused on the knowledge, skills, and behaviors associated with leveraging digital technology in business: understanding the psychology of networks, developing partnerships and alliances, building innovation through networks (human and virtual), building shared success across a network, e-commerce systems and digital asset management system.
   
   
3. CI Network Operations
   CI Network Operations are best described in context. CITD-Madeira is a network learning environment specifically designed to revitalize the education system of Madeira. Over the course of 6 years (2000-2006), CITD will create a critical mass of people who are skilled in the use of CI methodologies and tools. The organization and implementation of CITD-Madeira customized to the practical context of the education system. CI Networks attach themselves to existing structures and initiatives in order to facilitate change and growth – they work from the inside of a system out.
   
   • CITD / SRE: A partnership was formed between ICCI and the SRE for the delivery of CITD. The CITD strategy was customized and integrated with the practical reality of the education system. The purpose of the partnership is to revitalize education in order to create a critical mass of people that are skilled in the ideas and tools of the global network economy.

     In Madeira, there are approximately 160 schools and 3,000 teachers. CITD targets, on average, 3 teachers per school to become skilled in the CITD methodology, and to act a school-based leadership for the extension of training to at least 6 other teachers within the school. This results in the formal and direct training of approximately 1,500 teachers or half of the teachers in Madeira. In addition, accredited CITD courses are offered to any teacher in Madeira (30 hours per course). These courses do not require teachers to participate in a formal CI project. The end result is a critical mass of skilled CI Teachers widely distributed an actively innovating throughout the school system
     

   • The CITD Centre for Innovation: The purpose of this institute is to provide a hub for the development of the new leadership for education in Madeira. This center is a state of the art new media lab where the CITD Trainers receive training from ICCI as well as manage network learning projects across the education system. It is the intellectual and physical hub of the network.
     
   • CI Clubs (CITD Associate Teachers and Students): CI Associate Teachers (ATs) are school teachers identified from across the school system. These associates are trained by the CITD Trainers in the methodology of CITD through the implementation of CI Network Learning Projects (CI NLPs).

     CITD leverages the existing club structure in the Madeiran school system. The CI Clubs represent a formal system of professional development and accreditation for teachers as well as a curricular activity for students. A single CI Club may have a number of Associate Teachers working in it. After completing a two year CITD program, they are then certified teacher-trainers for CITD within the school system. Whenever possible, the CI Club within a school will form alliances and linkages to existing school clubs. This is a means to cascade the CITD methodology into other clubs within Madeira schools and results in a cascading effect throughout the school environment. The CI Club also provide services to the local school area.