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Exploring the Future: Quantified Self and Learning | PDF
The Quantified Self
   and Learning
       Hans de Zwart
   e-Learning Event 2012
     Adapted for Xtern
Apologies in advance:
this is a story about a future
   which doesn't exist yet
Apologies in advance:
it will be to abstract for about
      90% of the audience
Who am I?
Innovation Manager
             for
Global Learning Technologies
             at
     Shell International
Digitale civil rights “activist”
 and free software fanatic
         volunteering for
      Bits of Freedom
               and
    the Internet Society
Reader, fascinated by the idea
 of social engineering and by
       The Big Lebowski
Scenarios
Quantified Self
      Learning
         Risks
Learning Scenarios Workshop

Online Educa, Dec. 2011
No predictions but better
      long term decisions
e.g. IT infrastructure or organisational models
Two axis with uncertainties
How work is organised:

   planned, hierarchical
            ↔
  organic, project based
What work is based on:

      relationships
            ↔
          data
relationships

   Old Boy
                                In-Crowd
   Network

planned,                               organic,
hierarchical                      project based


                               Quantified
   Big Data
                                     Self
                   data
Quantified self?
Scenarios
Quantified Self
      Learning
         Risks
We start in 1945...
“A memex is a device in which an individual stores all his books,
records, and communications, and which is mechanized so that
it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility. It is an
enlarged intimate supplement to his memory.”

Vannevar Bush in “As You May Think”
“Clothing-based
computing with
personal imaging will
blur the boundaries
between seeing and
viewing and between
remembering and
recording.”

Steve Mann
"A SenseCam is a black box
about the size of a
cigarette pack which
contains an infrared
system [..] and when it
finds a person it takes a
picture. It also takes a
photograph when the light
changes or at intervals up
to a minute, depending on
how it is set."

Gordon Bell
“One day I’m sure everyone will
routinely collect all sorts of data
about themselves. But because
I’ve been interested in data for a
very long time, I started doing
this long ago.”

Stephen Wolfram
Outgoing
Mail




Appointments
in Calendar
“It only takes a few minutes a day
of recording to create a pretty
detailed data set of the year.”

Nicholas Felton
Sure Hans, but...
Scientists
and Artists
There is a “movement”
Consumer products
 are available now
The Fitbit
“I'd like to think that Timeline
succeeds at representing your
history in a way that mirrors
personal memory. The most
recent section are your freshest
memories and are all apparent.
As you travel back in time the
years become abbreviated and
only the highlights are initially
visible.”

Nicholas Felton
You are also being “measured”
     without you noticing
The costs of self-tracking will
be so low that not measuring
yourself contineously will be
 considered “irresponsible”
First wave:
use it to better your physique
Second wave:
use it to improve cognitive skills
Now we have arrived
    at learning
      (a sigh of relief, finally!)
Scenarios
Quantified Self
      Learning
         Risks
What do you need to learn?
1. You have to do something
   Something you haven't done before
     (“stretch assignment”, curiosity)
2. You have to reflect
    What just happened?
     Adjust and tune
(3.) Certification/competences
    is often added as a secondary process
What does quantifying yourself
mean for: doing, reflection and
 certification/competences?
A couple of my ideas...
1. Doing
Yes, I am not afraid to put
  forward the idea of a
 personalised computer-
        based tutor
“Imagine that this tutor
program can get to know
you over a long period of
time. Like a good
teacher, it knows what
                                s
you already understand
and what you are ready
to learn. It also knows
what types of
explanations are most
meaningful to you.”

Danny Hillis over “Aristotle”
Will you be more daring?
Insight in your own lack of change and
     habits as a catalyst for change
Invitation for a more
experimental mindset?
2. Reflection
Measuring creates a tight
    feedback loop
Think of what Amazon knows
about you through the Kindle
Which pages did you spend
    the most time on?
Which passages did you
highlight? How does that differ
  from the rest of the world,
   your colleagues and your
            friends?
Hans around 2008-2009
Imagine a “temporal
wordcloud” which you can use
to see which themes you have
   been paying attention to
Insight into your use of time
What percentage of my time have I been doing email,
 sitting in meetings, talking at the water cooler or
              networking on LinkedIn?
Also for social skills
You can “query” yourself
“People argue about the need to forget
things, but if you look at business
discipline—advising that you write
everything down, your goals and
objectives, and return to them to see
how you did, examining what went
wrong—I think the same thing could
happen with our personal lives. Being
able to say, ‘Now I realize my tone of
voice was threatening’—I think there’s a
real positive aspect in having the real
record of what things looked and
sounded like, and sequences of events,
because we often end up believing things
that are not based on facts anymore.”

Jim Gemmel
3. Certification/competences
The end of competency
     management
The end of portfolios
Instead:

   “views”/visualisations
        of a person

“searching” through a person
Automatic certifications?
“One can easily imagine submitting
their usernames for Google Web
History, Facebook, Twitter, Delicious,
Blogs, Google Reader, YouTube, etc.
IN PLACE OF taking a four hour high
stakes exam like the ACT or GRE. Why
make a high stakes decision based on
a few hundred data points generated
in one morning (when you could be
sick, distracted, etc.) when you could
get 1,000,000 data points generated
over three years?”

David Wiley
Scenarios
Quantified Self
      Learning
         Risks
Of course there are risks too
Can we still re-invent ourselves
 if we never forget anything?
“[..] Forgetting is not an
annoying flaw but a life-saving
advantage. As we forget, we
regain the freedom to
generalize, conceptualize, and
most importantly to act.”

Viktor Mayer-Schönberger in “Delete”
z



A world constructed from the familiar is a world in
which there’s nothing to learn ... (since there is)
invisible autopropaganda, indoctrinating us with
our own ideas.

Eli Pariser
The “filter bubble” will only get
  stronger (self-accelerating)
Sleepwalking into a
surveillance state?
A last provocation:
“the proactionary principle”
“People’s freedom to innovate technologically is
highly valuable, even critical, to humanity. This
implies a range of responsibilities for those
considering whether and how to develop, deploy, or
restrict new technologies. [..] Give a high priority to
people’s freedom to learn, innovate, and advance.”

Max More
Quantifying = Learning
Questions?

 Mail: h@nsdezwart.nl
Twitter: @hansdezwart
Image Credits and Licence   This presentation is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-
                            Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Netherlands License,
                            Except the images, they have their own license, see the sources below:
                                 Steve Mann:
                                 http://www.whosdatedwho.com/tpx_5992219/steve-mann/photo
                                 Vannevar Bush:
                                 http://archeocomputing.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/vannevar-bush.jpg
                                 Gordon Bell:
                                 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gordon_Bell.jpg
                                 Stephen Wolfram:
                                 http://www.wolframalpha.com/images/press/photos/sw/sw-sf1055-5x4.jpeg
                                 Wolfram measured images:
                                 http://blog.stephenwolfram.com/2012/03/the-personal-analytics-of-my-life/#more-2535
                                 Nicholas Felton:
                                 http://blog.noahkalina.com/post/18557358009/nicholas-felton-20120115-5-minutes-on-the-verge
                                 Bell timeline:
                                 http://opengl.jp/blogger/2005/11/mylifebits.html
                                 Laurie Frick (opening slide):
                                 http://www.lauriefrick.com/sleep-patterns/
                                 Online Educa workshop:
                                 http://online-educa.com/media-picture-gallery
                                 Danny Hillis:
                                 http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/06/10000-year-clock/all/1
                                 Victor Mayer-Schönberger:
                                 http://www.fotopedia.com/items/flickr-538333155
                                 Jim Gemmel:
                                 http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-10353343-264.html
                                 Big Brother Awards:
                                 https://www.bigbrotherawards.nl/
                                 Max More:
                                 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Max_More,_Stanford_2006_(square_crop).jpg
                                 David Wiley:
                                 http://davidwiley.org/

Exploring the Future: Quantified Self and Learning

  • 1.
    The Quantified Self and Learning Hans de Zwart e-Learning Event 2012 Adapted for Xtern
  • 2.
    Apologies in advance: thisis a story about a future which doesn't exist yet
  • 3.
    Apologies in advance: itwill be to abstract for about 90% of the audience
  • 4.
  • 5.
    Innovation Manager for Global Learning Technologies at Shell International
  • 6.
    Digitale civil rights“activist” and free software fanatic volunteering for Bits of Freedom and the Internet Society
  • 7.
    Reader, fascinated bythe idea of social engineering and by The Big Lebowski
  • 8.
  • 9.
  • 10.
    No predictions butbetter long term decisions e.g. IT infrastructure or organisational models
  • 11.
    Two axis withuncertainties
  • 12.
    How work isorganised: planned, hierarchical ↔ organic, project based
  • 13.
    What work isbased on: relationships ↔ data
  • 14.
    relationships Old Boy In-Crowd Network planned, organic, hierarchical project based Quantified Big Data Self data
  • 15.
  • 16.
  • 17.
    We start in1945...
  • 18.
    “A memex isa device in which an individual stores all his books, records, and communications, and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility. It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory.” Vannevar Bush in “As You May Think”
  • 19.
    “Clothing-based computing with personal imagingwill blur the boundaries between seeing and viewing and between remembering and recording.” Steve Mann
  • 20.
    "A SenseCam isa black box about the size of a cigarette pack which contains an infrared system [..] and when it finds a person it takes a picture. It also takes a photograph when the light changes or at intervals up to a minute, depending on how it is set." Gordon Bell
  • 22.
    “One day I’msure everyone will routinely collect all sorts of data about themselves. But because I’ve been interested in data for a very long time, I started doing this long ago.” Stephen Wolfram
  • 23.
  • 24.
    “It only takesa few minutes a day of recording to create a pretty detailed data set of the year.” Nicholas Felton
  • 27.
  • 28.
  • 29.
    There is a“movement”
  • 30.
    Consumer products areavailable now
  • 31.
  • 33.
    “I'd like tothink that Timeline succeeds at representing your history in a way that mirrors personal memory. The most recent section are your freshest memories and are all apparent. As you travel back in time the years become abbreviated and only the highlights are initially visible.” Nicholas Felton
  • 35.
    You are alsobeing “measured” without you noticing
  • 37.
    The costs ofself-tracking will be so low that not measuring yourself contineously will be considered “irresponsible”
  • 38.
    First wave: use itto better your physique
  • 39.
    Second wave: use itto improve cognitive skills
  • 40.
    Now we havearrived at learning (a sigh of relief, finally!)
  • 41.
  • 42.
    What do youneed to learn?
  • 43.
    1. You haveto do something Something you haven't done before (“stretch assignment”, curiosity)
  • 44.
    2. You haveto reflect What just happened? Adjust and tune
  • 45.
    (3.) Certification/competences is often added as a secondary process
  • 46.
    What does quantifyingyourself mean for: doing, reflection and certification/competences?
  • 47.
    A couple ofmy ideas...
  • 48.
  • 49.
    Yes, I amnot afraid to put forward the idea of a personalised computer- based tutor
  • 50.
    “Imagine that thistutor program can get to know you over a long period of time. Like a good teacher, it knows what s you already understand and what you are ready to learn. It also knows what types of explanations are most meaningful to you.” Danny Hillis over “Aristotle”
  • 51.
    Will you bemore daring? Insight in your own lack of change and habits as a catalyst for change
  • 52.
    Invitation for amore experimental mindset?
  • 53.
  • 54.
    Measuring creates atight feedback loop
  • 55.
    Think of whatAmazon knows about you through the Kindle
  • 56.
    Which pages didyou spend the most time on?
  • 57.
    Which passages didyou highlight? How does that differ from the rest of the world, your colleagues and your friends?
  • 58.
  • 59.
    Imagine a “temporal wordcloud”which you can use to see which themes you have been paying attention to
  • 60.
    Insight into youruse of time What percentage of my time have I been doing email, sitting in meetings, talking at the water cooler or networking on LinkedIn?
  • 61.
  • 62.
  • 63.
    “People argue aboutthe need to forget things, but if you look at business discipline—advising that you write everything down, your goals and objectives, and return to them to see how you did, examining what went wrong—I think the same thing could happen with our personal lives. Being able to say, ‘Now I realize my tone of voice was threatening’—I think there’s a real positive aspect in having the real record of what things looked and sounded like, and sequences of events, because we often end up believing things that are not based on facts anymore.” Jim Gemmel
  • 64.
  • 65.
    The end ofcompetency management
  • 66.
    The end ofportfolios
  • 67.
    Instead: “views”/visualisations of a person “searching” through a person
  • 68.
  • 69.
    “One can easilyimagine submitting their usernames for Google Web History, Facebook, Twitter, Delicious, Blogs, Google Reader, YouTube, etc. IN PLACE OF taking a four hour high stakes exam like the ACT or GRE. Why make a high stakes decision based on a few hundred data points generated in one morning (when you could be sick, distracted, etc.) when you could get 1,000,000 data points generated over three years?” David Wiley
  • 70.
  • 71.
    Of course thereare risks too
  • 72.
    Can we stillre-invent ourselves if we never forget anything?
  • 73.
    “[..] Forgetting isnot an annoying flaw but a life-saving advantage. As we forget, we regain the freedom to generalize, conceptualize, and most importantly to act.” Viktor Mayer-Schönberger in “Delete”
  • 74.
    z A world constructedfrom the familiar is a world in which there’s nothing to learn ... (since there is) invisible autopropaganda, indoctrinating us with our own ideas. Eli Pariser
  • 75.
    The “filter bubble”will only get stronger (self-accelerating)
  • 76.
  • 78.
    A last provocation: “theproactionary principle”
  • 79.
    “People’s freedom toinnovate technologically is highly valuable, even critical, to humanity. This implies a range of responsibilities for those considering whether and how to develop, deploy, or restrict new technologies. [..] Give a high priority to people’s freedom to learn, innovate, and advance.” Max More
  • 80.
  • 81.
  • 82.
    Image Credits andLicence This presentation is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution- Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Netherlands License, Except the images, they have their own license, see the sources below: Steve Mann: http://www.whosdatedwho.com/tpx_5992219/steve-mann/photo Vannevar Bush: http://archeocomputing.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/vannevar-bush.jpg Gordon Bell: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gordon_Bell.jpg Stephen Wolfram: http://www.wolframalpha.com/images/press/photos/sw/sw-sf1055-5x4.jpeg Wolfram measured images: http://blog.stephenwolfram.com/2012/03/the-personal-analytics-of-my-life/#more-2535 Nicholas Felton: http://blog.noahkalina.com/post/18557358009/nicholas-felton-20120115-5-minutes-on-the-verge Bell timeline: http://opengl.jp/blogger/2005/11/mylifebits.html Laurie Frick (opening slide): http://www.lauriefrick.com/sleep-patterns/ Online Educa workshop: http://online-educa.com/media-picture-gallery Danny Hillis: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/06/10000-year-clock/all/1 Victor Mayer-Schönberger: http://www.fotopedia.com/items/flickr-538333155 Jim Gemmel: http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-10353343-264.html Big Brother Awards: https://www.bigbrotherawards.nl/ Max More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Max_More,_Stanford_2006_(square_crop).jpg David Wiley: http://davidwiley.org/