Re: Learning

Re: Learning
May 7–8, 2009
Washington, D.C.

workshop
Enterprise Social
Networking: Leveraging Relationships, Communities,
and Learning
May 6

Doug Lenat previews the conference
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conference overview
For decades, we’ve known that training and learning in the workplace could help differentiate enterprises
in the marketplace, reduce costs, and create a more agile and sophisticated workforce. With the
advent of interactive computing, expectations rose that computers would provide rich educational
environments in addition to interactive mentoring for individualized learning. Though only partially realized, numerous technologies, tools, and techniques are emerging as a byproduct of that hope.

What are the next great thoughts, technologies, and methodologies for training and learning? This conference will examine developing trends in learning, teaching, and collaboration, including automated induction. Can video games, for example, do a better job than the sender-receiver teaching model? Will amateur knowledge acquired in immersive environments surpass expert knowledge?

Web 2.0 and 3.0 provide new infrastructures and opportunities for software to play an intelligent and active role in innovation and coordination. With advances in computational power, networks, and AI, learning and training will migrate from the individual to social networks of people and machines. How will this migration affect the enterprise? In the future, will knowing how, when, and where to gain access to information gatekeepers be more important than learning the information itself?

Which will prove more effective: cognitive tutors or cognitive-based designs? More cognizant brainmachine interfaces may adapt to a person’s behavior over time, helping to complete tasks more efficiently. Skills training for large numbers of people and the next-generation workforce will require better simulation and gaming tools, humanized interfaces, faster response times, and a holistic approach that takes into account our increasingly networked, connected, nonlinear, chaotic world. Knowing more about behavior, learning, perception, and memory will help organizations manage such issues as employee turnover and the graying workforce. Can we speculate that better-trained and more sophisticated personnel will be able to exploit a wider range of organizational ideas and techniques and respond appropriately to changing conditions?

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Partial list of speakers

Mr. Clark Aldrich, Author, The Complete Guide to Simulations and Serious Games
Ms. Marcia Conner, Managing Director, Ageless Learner
Dr. Pedro Domingos, Associate Professor, Computer Science and Engineering, University of Washington
Dr. Kenneth Forbus, Professor of Computer Science and Professor of Education, Northwestern University
Mr. Brian Gruber, Founder and Chairman, FORA.tv
Dr. Alan Kay, President, Viewpoints Research Institute and TTI/Vanguard Advisory Board Member
Dr. Maria Klawe, President, Harvey Mudd College
Dr. Tom Mitchell, Chair, Machine Learning Department, Carnegie Mellon University
Mr. Mark Oehlert, Innovation Evangelist, Defense Acquisition University
Mr. Claudio Prado, Coordinator of Digital Policy, Brazilian Ministry of Culture
Dr. William Swartout, Director of Technology, USC Institute for Creative Technologies
Dr. Kurt VanLehn, Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Arizona State University
Dr. Charles Vest, President, National Academy of Engineering
Dr. Jeannette Wing, Assistant Director, Computer and Information Science and Engineering Directorate, National Science Foundation
Dr. Stephen Wolfram, Founder, Wolfram Research

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