KNOWN AS JSB
Bonnie Nixon * 12.1.15 * Pepperdine GSEP
John Seely Brown (JSB) believes learning occurs not as a response to teaching, but rather as a
result of a social framework that fosters learning. A key factor influencing the important role in
the evolution of business and societal interaction is the ubiquity of information technology (IT).
“We must move beyond the traditional view of teaching as the delivery of information”. JSB
claims that credentials, degrees and diplomas are problematic without having gained access to
Communities of Practice. Students end up with a label but without the experience it’s meant to
signify. Our educational systems need to move from being information traffickers to knowledge
creators.
Part scientist, part artist and part strategist, JSB’s views are
unique and distinguished by a broad view of the human contexts
in which technologies operate. He has a healthy skepticism about
whether or not change always represents genuine progress and
sees that today’s digital kids think of ICT as something akin to
oxygen where they meet, play, date and learn. Spent time using
application of technology to rethink the nature of work and
institutional architectures that enable deep learning across
organizational boundaries.
Key Contributions
BOOK - The Social Life of Information. Tunnel Vision: where the interaction of IT and people is downplayed.
Humanities are more important than ever.
BOOK - Learning in the Digital Age: Students have developed a new digital literacy with abilities to
communicate with moving and still images, sound and other media.
1.
Information navigation is the key component – Surfing & Browsing
2.
Authority- based lecture model to discovery-based learning
3.
Learning is more concrete vs. abstract and social vs. cognitive.
BOOK - Toward a New Epistemology for Learning and BOOK - A New Culture of Learning:
1.
As we look to the future of Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS), we must ask ourselves “What do we
really know about learning? Not Enough.”
2.
Our fundamental assumptions are being reexamined and this will offer us powerful new paradigms
and new possibilities for learning technology.
3.
Information too need to embed transparency so that we more fully understand overall processes of
which we are a part and to which we contribute. Technology design must remain connected to the
world.
4.
We have to reflect on the environment and context in which both users and tools are embedded and
allow learners to deploy inventive problem-solving skills and not over-constrain kinds of reasoning
they support.
BOOK - Push to Pull: Move from a world of stocks to a world of flows. Move from scalable efficiency towards
the notion of scalable learning. JSB suggests we learn how to scale John Dewey and Montessori in our school
systems and focus more on user center learning and connected learning. We need to cultivate a resilient
mindset in our students – to change, adapt & re-conceptualize.
Criticism on John Seely Brown’s Work
Some formal educators and traditionalists resisting change are more focused on the importance of content
versus context, In his words, formal educators also speak out against the petri dish model but situated
learning still takes the day. JSB does not believe that technology replaces great teachers!
Other Theorists Perspectives on JSB’s Work
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Paul Duguid wrote The Social Life of Information with JSB. He states that as society is coming to need lifelong, ubiquitous learning, we can no longer afford to leave learning, and in particular learning technology,
to schools and school time alone.
Tunnel design produces technologies that in Edward Tenner’s phrase “bite back”. Technologies create as
many problems as they solve with unintended consequences of design and by neglecting resources lying
outside the tight focus of information.
L. B. Resnick says that if we are looking at learning technology, we need to be careful not to risk
reinforcing the division that already exists between the problematic learning in schools and the more
successful learning encountered elsewhere.
M Planyi, talks about explicit and tacit ---- JSB reinforces this by stating that many theorists overlook the
fine balance between the implicit and the explicit in human cognition and the essential interplay between
mind and world in sense making.
Caroline Haythornthwaite writes that an information ecology has arose in response to silo-oriented views
of information and its management which directs attention to how information flows through
organizations and relevant ecological bases of people.
David Weinberger “In the internet age, knowledge has moved onto networks. There is more knowledge
than ever, but it’s different. Topics have no boundaries; nobody agrees on anything.
Career Milestones
Currently Visiting USC Scholar
Co-Chairman, Deloitte Center for Edge
1980 - 2000
Chief Scientist of Xerox Corporation
Director, Palo Alto Research Ctr. (PARC)
Co Founder, Institute for Research on Learning (IRL)
1962 Brown University BA Mathematics & Physics
1970 University of Michigan PhD Computer and
Communication Sciences
Currently Holds 8 Honorary Degrees
Born in 1940. An Avid Reader & Motorcyclist
“Information is critical to every part of life but it is not useful to address people as information processors
or to try to redefine complex human issues such as trust as simply information.” Interestingly, JSB states
that he was a horrible student as a child and was late at the official game.
Shared Cognition Versus Individual
“We need new strategies and tools to learn, work, play and create meaning. We also need unlearning,
the freedom to fail and for this play is essential. Our old institutions aren’t hacking it well”.
“Knowledge is a process of social construction. People evidently learn communally, but they are usually
taught individually. We need to support Communal Learning and transform pedagogical assumptions
implicit in practice of teaching”.
References
References
1.
JSB - Toward a New Epistemology for Learning, Learning in the Digital Age,
The Power of Pull, A New Culture of Learning, The Only Sustainable Edge
and more than 100 Papers.
2.
Center for Business Ethics at Bentley College, Dept. of Accountancy and
Computer Information Systems, Bentley College, Waltham, MA. Blackwell
Publishers 2001
3.
L.B. Resnick, Knowing, Learning and Towards a Generative Theory of Bugs
(Paper)
4.
M. Polanyi, The Tacit Dimension (Garden City, NY: Doubleday,1966).
5.
International Perspectives on Home Education – Paula Rothermel (2015) ,
Palgrave Macmillan
6.
P. Duguid and J.S. Brown (2000) The Social Life of Information. Boston,
MA; Harvard University Press and (1991) paper on Organizational Learning
and Communities-of-Practice in Organization Science, 2(1): 40-57
7.
E-learning Theory & Practice, Caroline Haythornthwaite and Richard
Andrews
8.
Edward Tenner, Why Things Bite Back: Technology and the Revenge of
Unintended Consequences (1997) Vintage Press
JOHN SEELY BROWN – EDUCATIONAL THEORIST
Overview: How Learning Occurs and Influencing Factors