KMi Seminars
'Designing learnable mathematics: lessons from the WEBLABS project'
This event took place on Tuesday 14 February 2006 at 11:00

 
Prof. Richard Noss Institute of Education, University of London

In this seminar, I will discuss the design and implementation of computer-based systems aimed at transforming mathematical learning.

Drawing on findings of the recently-completed EU project, WebLabs, I will discuss how such systems can extend what it is possible for students to express, how they might reshape the kinds of mathematical knowledge students hold, and transform the possibilities for who could (and should) know what - and when.

Richard Noss is Professor of Mathematics Education at the Institute of Education. His overarching research interest is in trying to understand what kinds of knowledge people really need in the 'knowledge economies' of the twenty-first century, and in building tools that help them acquire that knowledge. Over the last ten years he has worked with bank employees, nurses, airline pilots and engineers, among others, trying to describe their professional and mathematical knowledge. He has also engaged them in 'playful' learning experiences, including (most ambitiously) teaching the programming language Logo (often mistakenly described as a 'language for kids') to a group of investment bank employees. At the other end of the age scale, the recently-completed Playground project has involved very young kids in designing and building video-games.

Richard is co-director of the London Knowledge Lab, and was until recently editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Computers for Mathematical Learning, which aims to realise the vision of its chair, Seymour Papert, to 'foster a new, creative and more learnable mathematics with digital technologies'.)

 
KMi Seminars Event | SSSW 2013, The 10th Summer School on Ontology Engineering and the Semantic Web Journal | 25 years of knowledge acquisition
 

Future Internet is...


Future Internet
With over a billion users, today's Internet is arguably the most successful human artifact ever created. The Internet's physical infrastructure, software, and content now play an integral part of the lives of everyone on the planet, whether they interact with it directly or not. Now nearing its fifth decade, the Internet has shown remarkable resilience and flexibility in the face of ever increasing numbers of users, data volume, and changing usage patterns, but faces growing challenges in meetings the needs of our knowledge society. Globally, many major initiatives are underway to address the need for more scientific research, physical infrastructure investment, better education, and better utilisation of the Internet. Within Japan, USA and Europe major new initiatives have begun in the area.

To succeed the Future Internet will need to address a number of cross-cutting challenges including:

  • Scalability in the face of peer-to-peer traffic, decentralisation, and increased openness

  • Trust when government, medical, financial, personal data are increasingly trusted to the cloud, and middleware will increasingly use dynamic service selection

  • Interoperability of semantic data and metadata, and of services which will be dynamically orchestrated

  • Pervasive usability for users of mobile devices, different languages, cultures and physical abilities

  • Mobility for users who expect a seamless experience across spaces, devices, and velocities