Knowpen Foundation Thesis

8/20/2019 Knowpen Foundation Thesis

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THE FUTURE OF EDUCATION IS A COMMONS

ALICE MENICONI

TESI DI DIPLOMA DI 2° LIVELLO

A.A. 2014-2015

RELATORE: Salvatore Iaconesi

CORRELATRICE: Oriana Persico


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Alice Meniconi

esi di Diploma di 2° livello

A.A 2014-2015

RELATORE: Salvatore Iaconesi

CORRELATRICE: Oriana Persico

KNOWPEN FOUNDATION LOGO BY:Siresia Bagnoli, Anna Di Santi, Giacomo

Equizi, Laura Maltinti, Pierluigi Oliveiro,

Giulia Querci, Isabella Peruzzi, Federica

Pietrafesa, Riccardo Sartori

o my grandmother Rita


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1. What is Knowpen Foundation and how we got there

Introduction

By Salvatore Iaconesi, Layne Hartsell, Jon Husband, Michel Bauwens

p. 35

2. How Knowpen Foundation works p. 75

3. Making Knowpen accesible to anyone p. 97

p. 8

INDEX


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ABOUT THIS PROJECT

We are living in the era of exponential change, an era in which

we need to start from the observation of the present to buildour preferable future(s). Te Near Future Design methodologycombines multidisciplinary fields to examine the seeds(tendencies) of the future implanted in the present. It performsthe possible futures in the now, it fosters global discussions andshifts the perception of possibility to identify which path wouldbe better to follow.

Nefula is a distributed laboratory focused on the Near FutureDesign methodology that was born in this setting, gatheringtwo teachers and eight (ex) university students. Nefula works with governments, organizations, companies and activists, tohelp them navigate these times of exponential transformation, which are affecting society, the environment, cultures, themodalities of production and consumption, at local, global,trans-local and transglobal levels. In fact, Nefula recognizesthat exponential transformation requires radical changes inthe ways in which scientific research, design, strategy-building,policy-making, decision-making are performed, to keep track ofthe extremely rapid change of these transformations, allowing

its partners and clients to create scenarios for a better, more just society, by designing and producing innovative strategicand business models, technologies, services and models forcitizen organization. Nefula acts through education, design,communication, implementation.

Education is one of the main interests of Nefula , that believesit should be based on people and their desires, on collaborationand participation, afar from the scholastic standards we are usedto. We are facing an urgent need of developing new education

methods and approaches: that’s why Nefula is working in this way. We care to mention that Nefula’s commitment about new ways of teaching and learning is focused on two directions: firstly,

Nefula is working on a education provided that offers and sharesinformation and knowledges about the Near Future Designmethodology through inclusive, collaborative, experimentingprocesses; secondly, Nefula is working on the previous NearFuture Education Lab’s project, born in 2014 with the aim ofredesigning the future of education system. Tis project took usto the definition of Knowpen Foundation, that we will discoverand expand through this text.

Tis work is composed by two different phases: the first(chapter 1, 2), the research phase, will identify the context, gainimportant elements from the already existing research and showthe project hypothesis describing in a theoretical-conceptual way the creation of the project as we know it today. We’lldescribe the entailed social and technological implications,inspired by evolutions of digital cultures, new horizons openedby new systems for knowledge sharing, alternative currenciesand possibilities to build big relational networks. Te secondphase (chapter 3), based on the outcome of the first one, creates acommunication design project to let this contents accessible and

comprehensible to anyone, using the tools offered by Speculativeand Near Future Design.

«Te future doesn’t exists. It’s a performance. »


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As human beings, currently, we are loosing an incredibleopportunity.

Te world has changed, economies have changed, productionhas changed, scientific research has changed, jobs have changed.Information and knowledge have incredibly changed, in qualityand quantity, and in how both are created, communicated,experienced, shared, and used.

In this ubiquitous shift (in paradigm, someone says) everythingtends to move from the physical domain to the digital one:everything is transforming into information.

Tis is not a new concept: everything IS information, as weknow from DNA, from epigenetics, from epistemology, fromEinstein, Schrödinger, Shannon, Gödel, Davies and, well, fromany sincere and competent scientistIn these years, this concept is reaching new grounds: with theadvent of data (possibly of the “Big” kind), the possibilities forunderstanding massively complex relations (between humanbeings, organisations, substances, places, cultures...), with 3Dprinting (which is now reaching the scale of molecules) and with the wide presence of ubiquitous technologies which areaugmenting our bodies, places, spaces, times, offices, homes,

schools, cities and environments, this transformation isbecoming something which leaves the laboratory and enters oureveryday life.

We seamlessly can pass from files to objects, from bodies todata, from large social interactions patterns to data, from datato national policies, from data to things happening in our city,office, home, body.

In this transformation two processes, in particular, happen:data becomes part of our perceived landscape; and all industriestendentially become cultural industries.

Te first: data has started shaping how we perceive andexperience our environment. Tis is a clear fact which is widely

understood (maybe without realising it) by most people. Youexperience data (through social networks, reviews, maps,augmented reality, GPS navigators, wearable technologies andmore) and your experiences and actions in the world mutate. Tisalso has extreme consequences. In February 2016, the New York imes has published ( Ignore the GPS. Tat Ocean Is Not a Road by Greg Milner, 2016, nytimes.com) an opinion article whichdescribes many examples of how multiple human beings haveplaced more trust in their GPS than in their own eyes, believing what the onboard navigator described as a road and, instead, wasan ocean, or a hole, or a cliff, with disastrous consequences. Datais not truth, but is starting to seem like it, ever more. For sure,data shapes our environment, so much that it has become partof our environment, creating new possibilities for human beings,plants, animals, organisations, trees, mountains, buildings, whichcan now communicate and be perceived in different ways.

Te second: all industries are progressively becoming culturalindustries. With the transition from “atoms to data” (and back, wemight add), all industries (have to) start dealing with information,

knowledge, communication, human networks and how theyrelate, what unites them and separates them. With culture,practically. It is becoming every industry’s main occupation. Whether it is a chemical industry or a communication agency.

Tis is why, for example, the European Commission haslaunched in 2016 the SARS program: Science, echnologiesand the ARS. Because engineers and scientists are not reallyused (yet) to this transformation. Tey are not used to beingcultural operators, they do not understand or know howto operate with social data, with cultural interactions, with

SALVATORE IACONESI

Interaction designer,robotics engineer, artist,hacker.


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psychology, anthropology and with the emergence, tactics andcreativity of people’s everyday lives. Tey know how to handledata, not this form of ubiquitous, cultural, social, emotional and

emergent data which is now becoming our world, whether youserially produce objects in a Chinese factory or working in aresearch lab.

Tis fact had been described in Pine’s and Gilmore’s ExperienceEconomy: they noted how arts and creativity were progressivelybecoming an expected asset in any workplaces, as all production was transforming into cultural production, through the need toproduce “experiences”, the only valuable product in the world.(what happens when I can copy/reproduce/make anything athome with a 3D printer? It happens that the “object” looses any value, and the only thing left with value is the experience)

Hans Magnus Enzensberger described it in its“Industrialization of the Mind”, in which he explored the waysin which organizations needed to start understanding how todeal with “troublemakers” (that is the word he used in his texts),those extremely creative people who were able to subvert, toradically innovate, to disrupt.

Te solution?

Te solution is to create new forms of organisations which areenvironments, ecosystems, not hierarchies.

Te organisation of the near future is focused on information,knowledge and on the possibility for free, unrestricted flow ofinformation and knowledge. On top of that, it is an environment,an ecosystem, in which the kernel of the environment itself –information and knowledge – is a commons, shared among allthe ones who take part in it, just like we (should) share air, water,space. Furthermore, in this ecosystem, it is not really defined who does what. It is a situation in flow, deriving from the need

for engineers to collaborate with artists, chemists to work withdesigners, accountants to construct with information visualisers,bankers to work with poets, politicians to make decisions with

hackers. In this scenario, everyone will be learning and teachingsomething at the same time, all the time. And new, morefundamental, conceptions of trust, reputation and relation willneed to be formed. Because very different people will need to work together, if they want to achieve something fundamental, valuable and meaningful. Tis will require new economiesto be brought up. Also counting on the fact that all of thesecollaborations will just not work if they are not based on shared values, objectives, interests: art and creativity are not mere“decorations” in this context, they are fundamental parts of theconcepts and of their implementation.

Tis, in practice, is what Knowpen is about: a culturalorganisation which becomes an environment, an ecosystem. It isa new t ype of university which is also a complex ecosystem, withall the characteristics highlighted in the previous paragraphs. Forthis reason, it is of fundamental importance, as it is the (near)future of education, production, economy and, maybe, also the ways in which we could build meaningful human relations.


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LAYNE HARTSELL

Researcher at P2PFoundation for

Alternatives.

In spring of 2014, the P2P Foundation and Korea Center forDigital Humanities participated in a series of video meetings with the students and professors from F lorence and Rome to

explore the Near Future of Education. Te participants werenumerous students, media artist Don Ritter from City Universityof Hong Kong, Michel Bauwens of P2P Foundation, JonHusband, developer of Wirearchy, Leif Edvinsson from LundUniversity, Bonnita Roy a systems philosopher at Alderlore,Salvatore Iaconesi professor, engineer, and hacker and OrianaPersico, an artist and professor, both from the design school inFlorence, and myself. Te platform was hosted by Living BridgesPlanet and Bert-Ola Bergstrand from Gothenberg, Sweden.Our major observation or premise was that education was ina crisis, which was resulting in two serious consequences. One was the fact that students were simply consumers of a product,a degree process, which is aimed at producing themselves forthe market. Iaconesi and Persico indicated that such a processis not a real performance in life. Te second was that fewer andfewer students could access education due to skyrocketing costsas states were withdrawing support for national education, in the West. As universities gave up various courses in the humanities,or cut back severely, the technology areas were well funded, andthis aspect was global, we considered about the possibilities

for a better educational system and the emergent ubiquitouscommons of code, design, and knowledge. Here I will give thereasons for education, a comment on open knowledge, and thena possible direction for solutions.

Te first observation is the term of education itself, or whomit is for and what does it mean. In other words, education for whom and for what? I rely almost wholly on what I consider tobe one of the most remarkable events in history as a matter whichconcerns all of humanity, and that is the Enlightenment. Tereasons are numerous but generally follow the fact of openness

in knowledge, freedom of person and of thought, equality, and justice as fairness. In the society of the late Renaissance, these values form a thread that runs from Copernicus to Kepler

to Bruno and finally fully evolving in Galileo by the time ofhis trial in 1633. Tis thread would form the basis for a fullydeveloped education for all in national systems, which Wilhelm von Humboldt would enact in the 19th century in Prussia. Laterthe same system would be copied over to the United States, aplace which until then was highly religious in education, a milderform of the Scholastics with which Copernicus and Galileo were in conflict. Not long after Galileo, Hobbes would also addthat he thought all human beings could be educated in what was called at the time, philosophy. Natural philosophy was what we call science today and then social philosophy or ethics andthen metaphysics were other branches. Religious knowledge wasthought to be its own area and dealt with revelatory knowledge. Te better values of the Enlightenment were not idle thoughtsbut had been put into action by the late Renaissance, whichled to the direct application of full-scale realization in modernscience and eventually affected how modern governments wouldoperate. Education was to be for all, including the “savages”according to Hobbes’ enlightened thinking, and going backto Copernicus and Galileo there was to be open dialogue on

knowledge development creating a “system” which was anti-authoritarian (not anti-authority) and thus anti-elitist. o getan idea of how concrete such an open system was asserted andpracticed, think of Galileo in 1633, by then nearing 70 years oldand infirm, being physically walked through the torture dungeonto view what was in store for him if he would not abdicate.

It has been hard for many today to realize the value of thatperiod of history, up until recently, I suppose due to the factthat many of us in developed countries have been born intosemi-democratic systems which had great push back against

Te Near Future of Education: A way forward


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authoritarianism from the education and the labor movements,and with great success. I write, “up until recently” becauseover the past few decades that particular system of education

has been largely eroded. Terefore, to answer the question ofeducation for whom, we can rely on Galileo et al. – educationand participation is for everyone, which in general terms meansfull space for ones creative capacity, and society benefits from itsinvestment in those who want to learn.

Von Humboldt was in a position of setting up a nationalsystem and though he had written his Limits of State Action(1792) a virtual anarchic statement on minimal governmentand wide personal freedoms, he also thought that to guardpersonal freedoms and to increase culture it would be necessaryfor the overall good if the people should pool their money inthe governance structure and provide for national education, or what I will call the commons of knowledge for all. Te university was a knowledge commons protected by the community, nation,and state. Tis investment by society was the essence of Mary Wollstonecraft’s (1759-1797) argument that it would include women. Te values of freedom and equality in governance andthe social contract came after, not before, Copernicus, Galileoand the emergence of modern science. Von Humboldt argued

that both theory and practice should be in the same location, whereas, elitists argued that they could just teach theory andstudents would have to accept their authority on practicalmatters. In structure, the modern university was essentiallya community of learning where professors set up class andstudents formed community around that knowledge center, or what I call a knowledge rich environment. Tus was born themodern university. At about the same time in the U.S. there were two major arguments on education which were made.If one wants to avoid slavery, then education is the way tocombat slavery – this message came through clearly in David

Walker’s (1796-1830) Appeal to Colored Citizens of the World and Notes on the State of V irginia , and Frederick Douglass’s (1818-1895) autobiography. Tese are major works on the value of

education and freedom. Ten, came Emerson and Toreau withthe necessity of both physicality and intellectual developmentin education; and through education we could resist “the vulgarprosperity that retrogrades ever to barbarism.” Education wasthe path to resist slavery of person and the slavery of vulgarprosperity or what Adam Smith called the vile maxim, which was accumulation to the detriment of others. In the U.S.,education and scholarship was to mean that the educated person was embedded in the world, in everyday life and physicallyactive. Tis modern educational system led to some of thegreatest scientific and cultural advancements as a contributionto humanity via theory and practice within an open knowledgecommunity. Unfortunately, it’s a legacy now being mostly deniedto young adults today who are wondering what has happened tosociety (and to nature). Why should they or anyone have to “pay”such a price?

When I think of this modern system, I think of Jonas Salk’spolio vaccine, which was funded by the people and then madeavailable for everyone who needed it. Or, I think of the precursor

to the Internet we know today, which started as the ARPANE,all funded/developed within the university system. I canremember when I was doing medical research, I would write toa friend at the U.S. Geological Survey in Denver through thisextraordinary thing we called email. oday, using P2P networks,new forms of teaching are already beginning as “teachers’ circles”are forming which provide access to knowledge. Students realizethat they can pay teachers directly and get an education which isaffordable, since the other way or marketized university is eitherclosed to them or they will go into tremendous debt and end up with few opportunities and with little culture. Why go through


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a non-caring, uninspiring repetitive system, amass oppressivedebt, and still not be able to find a job? Why not just by-passthat and get a real education and participated in the excitement

of building up an open knowledge system? I think what willhappen is that the combination of these peerist learning circlesand social organizing will push the system towards a betterarrangement for all who want education, which I will discussbelow.

Te next point is what is education? Here Wollstonecraft would enter the debate in the late 18th century and give ascathing critique of the rote education system of the time andadd her powerful argument that women are essential to thenation and need education because they have the children andteach them – Vindication of the Rights of Women. Te idea fromthat time, especially with von Humboldt was to show a path andthen the student or learner will, through his or her own instinctsand curiosities, explore self and world. Tere is a path there witha guide, but it is not fixed. In the past, the student might havebeen studying how to do art, but with the teacher’s guidance s/he was learning both theory and then practice in the laboratory ofhow to mix various minerals and chemicals together to producepaints; and then how to apply them to the canvas. Once the

theory and basics are known, there can be near infinite creativity which could come out of learning as the student moves on tomore intensive graduate study and produces work which isadditive to humanity and its knowledge. Schooling, as opposedto education, on the other hand was associated with virtualslavery and known to guarantee that things would stay aboutthe same as they were in the past. Tis was because in schooling,the student learns quickly that to survive they are expected justto reproduce the mind of the professor. If we read the leadingthinkers of the Enlightenment their writing would be alongthe lines of our use of profanity today – they hated the “soul

crushing” system of rote and authoritarianism. Later in the 19th century, abolitionist and writer, Mark wain said that he refusedto let school get in the way of education. Te militancy at the

time around freedom and creativity was quite strong, because forsociety to have a real culture, people have to be educated – thetheme which I chose as recurrent through this essay.

oday, many are asking how to educate but I think the vonHumboldt system is fine and thus I mentioned organizing asthe way to “fix” that system. I think people are actually tryingto find out how to exercise the IC enablement of learningin the digital age. Te information and knowledge we have isextraordinary, and it is equally extraordinary in how we canaccess it making access to essential technology a matter of humanrights, in my view. With a little handheld device connected intothe technosphere, we can access virtually all of the knowledge ofcivilization. And, with a small handheld projector, I could holda class virtually anywhere in the world complete with theory,diagrams, pictures, video, and audio. Full curricula, and in fact,entire open universities could be created using digital resourcesfrom the Internet Archive, Project Gutenburg, Google Scholar,Google Cultural Institute, Open Culture, Wikipedia, Sci-Hub,and then curated work at the P2P Foundation and others.

Tere are plenty of resources for the continued push for openknowledge and better education.

Education is also vital as a matter of how to study andcreate knowledge. Te major hurdle is how to determine richinformation from poor information; how to discern informationand create useful knowledge. For a practical example of theconsequences facing counties, the heavy manufacturing countriesin East Asia did not transform to the knowledge economy andsocietal innovation and have fallen into a phase of decline astheir workforce ages and innovative capacity lacks. Japan has


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had a number of recessions and the Abe administration has beentrying to reverse this trend which has unfortunately turned into adecades old crisis, and South Korea and China will follow as they

begin to show strains. Not many countries are actually doing well, however, the Nordic countries I think are worth consideringand supporting.

For the process of learning, it will take a certain amount ofguidance help the student to know what to look for, and to notfall off into erroneous information. It is like an explorer startingup a mountain but s/he has no guide and simply cannot find thetrailhead. oo much fumbling around wastes time and energy. And, even if a teacher points out the beginning of the trail, thereare no assurances that the explorer will be able to stay on thetrail without encouragement, and also without falling off a cliff or wandering somewhere else. So, in the world of knowledge theteacher shows the student the trailhead and guides the studenton the way. Te teacher admonishes the student to not go toonear the cliff, for example, indulgence in conspiracy theories, orto not wander off of the trail, which might waste a lot of time.Eventually the student reaches higher levels and then can beginto see farther. At this point, education is its own gratification andcarries the student to the summit where on the way, they might

experiment and find through their own developed knowledge andcreativity a new and better way to do things. Ten, they becomea teacher. Lifelong learning, which was another Enlightenmentidea, is when the student sees other peaks stretching on intothe distance. More learning to do. Terefore, the reason or thewhy of education is for the humanity of the student and greaterculture through their own free expression. All benefit and inthe advanced technological civilization of today, such trainingis essential. I would imagine that the jobs today and of the nearfuture will be ones where critical thinking and knowledge arekey and thus the marketized university is actually making itself

obsolete.

Te current planetary movement for open knowledge and

education is, I think, simply basic or innate human interestspushing against a rapacious, contemporary capitalist system, which has worked to marketize virtually everything in people’slives. Te university began to degrade into the marketized tradeschool, churning out a “paper mill” for jobs and with value beingdefined narrowly in market terms. When I was an undergrad we could see this happening, so the term “paper mill” has beenknown for a while. At the same time, I was fortunate enough toattend one of the great land-grant universities and also scienceand technology centers – Virginia ech. I feel a great senseof gratitude to the faculty and university and pass this on tostudents in the only way such great “debts” can be repaid to those who took time to teach me and to discuss outside of class. I stillmaintain a friendship with my mentor and past vice presidentof the university who retired recently. It is certain that any ofmy professors were smart enough to go to Wall Street and makemoney, but they chose physics, chemistry, biology, philosophy,and to promote knowledge and culture which radiated out fromthe university community. oday, the university “center” canbe radiating from anywhere due to the ubiquity of technology.

Quite astounding, I think, as the basis for the opportunities ofthe Near Future of Education is already in place.

When we hear the term open science or open knowledge, weshould see that the adjective “open” is simply a cognitive necessityfor dialogue under current conditions, since in the actual case, bydefinition going back to Galileo, knowledge and science are justthat openness. By the late Renaissance in Venice and Florence,the printing press had transformed society. All matters were beingdiscussed due to dissemination of knowledge and thus modernscience emerged rapidly in this way since people at the time


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would copy diagrams or drawing of mechanics and would travelaround discussing and debating all matters. Tough the Churchis criticized, rightly, it was also fairly open to new developments

at this time in Italy. Since science was a mechanical endeavorat the time, there were two ways to do science. If one coulddemonstrate a principle, then that was to be shown directly suchas Galileo’s pendulum experiments using a string and a weightthrough which observation of gravitational force was seen. Adirect connection such as “this object has to directly touch thatobject ” had to be demonstrated for accuracy in the mechanicalunderstanding of early, modern science. However, they realizedmost proofs were too big for direct demonstration, so diagrams were accepted as proof. And, since diagrams could be copied,then all could participate as these diagrams were disseminatedso as many “eyes” as possible could evaluate them. Herein is thedemocracy inherent in science. Te current militarization ofscience and fetisization of technology is not Galileo and modernscience but technification or some kind of obsessional technics. Another topic.

Importantly, in the middle to late 20 th century thepostmodernists would point out, accurately, that no bodyof knowledge seems to get the whole picture. Karl Popper

(1902-1994) said that science is always value-laden; and thencame Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions . oday, it isgenerally accepted that science is be value-laden, but the actualepistemology is able to give us a best estimate of reality, andhere I mean empirical reality being that nature has uniformityand consistencies in it. Tink of the difference between theconstructed traffic light at the intersection or “red for stop”(culture), and then the outcome of two cars in collision as theygo through the red light and try to “share” the same space (lawsof physics). Both are “reality,” but the red light is far more relative whereas the laws of physics follow the uniformity of nature. Te

traffic light for stop might be red in the U.S. but blue in China,however, the fact of collision of the cars will happen if the driverconfuses cultural location. Te postmodernists also rightly, and

harshly, criticized the lack of openness and the power structure, which opened a serious sociological critique of science. I thinkthis to be the most important of postmodern critiques and it isone which is alive today as there are still few women in the scienceor SEM disciplines. Tis most revealing charge that there arefew women in science also includes few women deciding on what science is to do. For example, a mixed group of womenand men are far more likely to vote for funding for scientists toproduce vaccines for children or for a cure for malaria than theyare to fund 25 different male baldness drugs. Te postmodernists were echoing the early thinkers who argued for full participationsince no one individual or group would be able to understandfully; here again the maxim of “we need as many eyes on realityas possible” revisits. Instead of SEM, in contrast, for many thisacronym has been changed to SEAM with the “A” being arts.Maybe an “N” should be added for nature making the acronym– SEAM’N. Finally, for epistemic accuracy, Elizabeth Pollitzerat Portia, which is a group that studies gender and science, hasshown that mixed research groups are the most effective at actualscientific accuracy.

Incidentally, the mechanical model is the most stringent ofscientific models and by the time Galileo wrote the Dialoguein later life, he would realize that the matter of understandingmight be beyond the grasp of humans. Tis can be seen whenhe said essentially that gravity and nature are just placeholders.Gravity is what we call when things go down, and natureis what we call when we throw a stone in the air and after itleaves the hand, it keeps going. Later, Newton would come tothe realization that the mechanical model was out as he andeveryone else were stumped by action at a distance, which drew


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harsh criticism from Leibnitz accusing Newton of regressing intothe Scholasticism of the past. oday, there is a massive effort toseek for gravity, which could provide some answers. I think that

what happened between the time of Newton and Hume was thatthe limitations of mechanical models and human understanding were beginning to enter in as scientists and philosophersevaluated the principles and empirical findings or inability toproduce empirical findings. Te mechanical model was in troubleby the time of Hume (1711-1776), and by the time of Machand Einstein the mechanical model was gone for good. oday, when we use the term “physical” we are using a placeholder, asneutral monism has given way to what we are finding throughemergence studies, which I’m seeing in some of my work. One way to understand emergence is given by Sandra Mitchell in herexample of the beehive which shows a high level of emergentcomplexity and yet with downward causation on each individualbee in the hive through various signals such as nectar load in thecells or how long a bee has to wait to unload nectar and so forth.Emergence challenges a strict reduction to or from componentsbut not to take away anything from Jaegwon Kim’s necessarydiscourse on the problem of the term, emergence. Anotherextremely complicated example is quantum entanglement wherecomponents are put together but the emergent outcome doesn’t

reflect at all, any of the components. Ten, there is spooky action which physicists talk about. All of this is quite exciting to learnabout.

Te rough plan that I give for the near future of education isto strengthen the social democratic aspects of the current statesystem and make sure funding is there for national education. o do so will take people organizing and maintaining solidarityand not becoming distracted. Tey will need a better organizingsystem than what Occupy experimented with, and better focus.For example, I’d recommend a grassroots delegate system out of

various groups or neighborhoods which would delegate membersto a larger assemblies. Delegates would be mandated to do the wishes of their group and delegates could be recalled at any time.

Tis system for organizing can make use of workgroup softwareand IC to increase efficiency. For complicated social systems,the Occupy model proved to be too tedious and inefficientleading many to be discouraged with direct democracy. I don’tthink they should lose hope but to organize better. Ten, for theactual educational system the sheer fact of open source can beadditive to the new, emergent system. Te best lecturers in the world can be watched through MOOCs and those can be viewedby students outside of class, whereas, in class the time is openedup, like in the past, both in the Enlightenment and also fromancients, going back to Socrates – direct discussion with studentsand facilitation of learning by the teacher. In class, discussion canrange from casual conversation to the more combative debateand it is the teacher’s role not to tell people what to think butto facilitate discussion, to interject new ideas such as “what ifs,”and then to correct any errors. Since education is free and notgraded, the teachers are free to discuss their ideas about societyalso, without students feeling threatened. Personally, I engage indebates directly on Facebook and then in cafes typically usinga method of asking a person to make a valid argument and to

give evidence. rust me, these days teachers can’t make verymany errors because everyone has a smart phone and are lookinginformation up in real time! At other times, I might meet withstudents and we draw or do calligraphy, or discuss various topics. Trough ubiquitous software like Slack or Scrum, learninggroups can be formed outside of class where students can createfurther richness and sharing of information. Te students’ groups,I think are crucial to learning. Say if I am a student and in agroup of four people, then we can expect that one of us got theright information from class or from the MOOC, and also out of


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four students in a group, various new ideas and experiences willenter and be shared. Finally, research tasks can be divided up intoa flexible division of labor.

A new development at your school in Florence is the Koinoosor Knowledge coin, which are a unique invention by Iaconesiand Persico and would be a great experiment to try in studentdirected groups. For instance, if I am in a group and I need a pdf which I can’t find, but someone else has it and will send it to me,I can send them a Koinoo. Te Koinoo is a knowledge currencyand not pegged to the actual monetary currency. Koinoos arenot accumulated, but are used as simple recognitions of sharing.I suppose upon enrolling for the school, each student is given acertain number of Koinoos, then the value is created in the blockchain, which records these transactions. Te block chain wouldbe a record of knowledge transactions and could be studiedas part of the new library science. It think the Koinoo couldbe a tremendous addition to education if it passes empiricalapplication. Te other remarkable asset there with Florence andRome is the Rural Hubs you have, such as with Alex Giordano. Tose Hubs can be developed further for integration with theeducational system. Perhaps a connection with Slow Food inItaly might be an option. Te Italians have worked ceaselessly to

maintain their food culture in the face of the massive onslaughtof fast, cheap food and inevitable physical suffering and culturaldegradation that follows. Regular contact with nature is anecessity for an integral educational program, as is some formof travel and contact with cultures different than one’s own. Terefore, the true scholar is not a brain walking around with abody dangling under her or him, but a regular person exploringself and world.

When these student led learning groups aggregate back intothe classroom to meet the teacher each week, then at that point

is where the refinement occurs. Te student also learns aboutplurality and a certain reasonable tolerance, at least to hearpeople out, and also, to rely on argument and explanation rather

than rhetoric and personal attack. Another basic practice is toquote what someone said before we respond to them; and in thesame manner another practices is to provide evidence for our real world claims. At this point, I can pre-empt some student concernsbecause, rightly so, a student might want this type of system Idescribe but feels either overwhelmed with part time jobs andthen competition to get the grade. Students will thus spend alot of their creative energy just figuring out which professors aremore lenient, and then how to do the bare minimum to get thebest grade, including cheating if necessary. Tis large inefficiencytakes time and energy and is detrimental to the student and toknowledge. Tere is also the socialization aspect of the university years (~17-21 year olds), which impede development of youngadults due to strains of grade competition, and trying to makeends meet. Tese two concerns can be solved by free tuition andopen enrollment, which means no grading structure. Certainlystudents should be evaluated but not through a grading system which is oppressive to their actual learning and creative, freeexpression. And, since there is no tuition and open enrollment, ifa student doesn’t pass the class, since standards would be strict,

the student could just take the class again. In mathematics andscience, it would be easy to do evaluations since, for example,either the student can give the theory and then demonstrate thePythagorean theorem or not; set up a distillation experiment ornot. Overall, grading should be done in a far more wholistic waysuch on a series of linear accomplishments to recognize progressin certain areas but intuited as a whole spectrum of developmentin a final synthesis.

Such a program as I describe of open enrollment and free tuitioncould be affordable to any major state and I think the Nordic


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countries are a good model, but also less affluent countries likeMexico are doing this, for instance, the major universities, andone of the best in the world, Universidad Nacional Autónoma

de México (UNAM), provide free or significantly reducedtuition. Mexico has more than 100 years of solid educationalcommitment going back to the 1917 Constitution and withMinister of Public Education José Vasconcelos. Tere is plentyof wealth around, so funding is not the problem of the currentglobal crisis in education. As a matter of fiscal conservation, Ithink it possible to reduce the number of years down to three years of undergrad. Te curriculum would have the first yearfocused on critical thinking, applied ethics, science literacy andthe arts. Ten, in the second and third year can come the fullarts and sciences along with a semester of travel and a thesis orproject. For graduate and professional training, these are tradeschools where I think it necessary to have grades for those levelsdue to the need for the best talent to be in the right place insociety. For example, if someone has excellent motor skills along with mathematical ability, solid memory, and abstract, mentalspatial ability then they would excel in neurosurgery or in beinga pilot. For those kinds of expert systems, there should be refinedtraining and competitive grading.

Terefore, the way forward is multivariate with a pluralityof thinking which is able to meet the particular conditions,even though this is a global or universal matter. Students andcommunities can take over the university of today and make itinto a more fully democratized place. As they say, “Occupy It,”and while doing so continue to create a planetary ubiquitousdigital commons of knowledge, while dissolving the mental andknowledge barriers between the Global North and South. Asindicated, organizing is necessary for moving the state toward apartner state and then people can work together to fully realizethe development of the knowledge commons for everyone to

participate in if they wish. oday, there is a whole system ofexclusive knowledge, which was previously behind a pay-wall,all leaking out. Te “tank” preventing people from accessing the

much needed “water” is cracking all over the place. Millions ofscientific studies have been released online in the information wars showing that we are at a point where we need a bettersystem of access to knowledge. Here I might be slighty moreconservative than the hackers and pirates in the sense that Ithink to destroy the current journal curating system we have isan error, though leaks are going to happen and can be seen asnecessary if they serve openness. I think the system of curationneeds to be rethought and reformed and what better way to doso than to involve the open art, science, and code communitythrough the interaction with current expert systems (official). Iknow that professors who do readings and commentary are notpaid for this work, and thus, I think a reasonable reform wouldbe welcome within the academy also. How the system of curationof knowledge and how education will occur is essentially up topeople working together and I hope from the values I mentionedin the opening arguments. Te digital age has fully arrived withplenty of opportunities, and as I have said before, if central Italy was the “landrace” for the applied values I described above, then why not it being the place for a further emergence for planetary

society based on real education?


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« It’s too elitist, because it uses a complex language and it gives toomuch information at the same time. You are not really includinganyone, as you are expecting to. »

[referring to a recurring criticism directed to this p roject]

Te viewpoint expressed in the above quote may in turn alsobe « too elitist », as it suggests sotto voce that existing structuraland decision-making systems do not really need to be changedin any significant way. Including stakeholders in significantchange or transformation requires making those stakeholdersaware of and familiar with the context and landscape of thechanges occuring in the domain(s) in which they are involved.However, it seems clear that there is a critical need for substantive visible and tangible change and that this need is growing, notablyin the domain of post-secondary education. Tere are importantreasons and strong forces that have led to the development ofnew means of education such as; a vocational orientation to thecurricula at many post-secondary institutions that has led or isleading to a withering of funding for humanites, art and culturalstudies, MOOCs, curricula that do not include lecures or classtime and (in North America at least) burgeoning bureaucraticstructures and dynamics that are placing significant financialpressures on the costs of acquiring a credentialed education.

Pedagogy and educational institutions are undergoingmassive changes due to a number of key factors. Many of theconventionally-accepted reasons for pursuing an education in agiven field are beginning to seem less and less releavant to newgraduates who have to make their way in a turbulent world.It is no longer a secret nor is there lack of awareness thattoday and for the foreseeable future the conditions for usinginformation and acquiring and using knowledge (key aspects ofobtaining / undergoing an education in a discipline or field) arenew and different than has previously been encountered in thehistory of humankind.

Te interconnected Knowledge Era is truly upon us. It is not

going away. Hyperlinks, search and platforms where peopleconnect and exchange information of all sorts have rapidlybecome ubiquitous. Tey represent the substrate and the toolspeople use to educate themselves and others. While some of the terms emerging in use are new, or areneologisms, it is clear that all domains of human activity arefeeling the impact of digital social networks, huge amounts andflows of easily-accessible information, and scale and reach suchas has never been encountered before in human history. Tus,it has often been suggested that the widespread and ubiquitouspresence of things digital demands, or will demand, new vocabulary and new concepts.

It is also the case that coming to terms with rapidly-increasingcomplexity demands experimentation to probe and sense whatmay work and what will not work in order to respond moreeffectively to the complex conditions. New realities and newpressures require new ways of going about things and, oftenenough, new ways of describing initiatives that are seeking tocome to terms with the new realities and pressures.

Language creates reality, and languages are living systemsthat evolve with and within new conditions. In our opinionit is entirely reasonable that the kinds of changes facing the

Near Future Education Lab and the Knowpen Foundation willgenerate new or emerging concepts and practices, and it isalso entirely reasonable that there will be new words and new ways of describing the changes, possibilities, opportunities andchallenges that face students and professionals in the field ofpost-secondary education. Indeed, failing to recognize thiscan be seen as a significant obstacle to experimenting with andengaging in meaningful and constructive change.

JON HUSBAND

Creator of the conceptof Wirearchy, anecosystemic p2p model.


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MICHEL BAUWENS

Founder and directorof P2P Foundation for

Alternatives.

Every civilization needs an appropriate education system. Inthis transition period from a unsustainable extractive system toa hopefullly sustainable system, we are apt to see the germs of

the next educational system.

Before we look at this, it may help do to a quick tour ofEuropean educational history, and show that indeed, successiveforms of civilization did spawn eductional reforms.

Let’s start with the Roman and Greek academies, which werereally a lot more like the ashrams of the East than we’d liketo think. When the Roman empire disappeared and its citiescollapsed and emptied, so did also their educational institutions, which gave way to the rural monasteries of the Christian monks, which became the key to the knowledge transmission in thisperiod, roughly dominant from the fifth to the tenth century. After this period of ruralization, the First European Revolutiontook place, in which the monks of Cluny, in alliance with thepoor masses, imposed the Peace of God charters that imposedthe first regulations and limitations on the extraction of the warlords, eventually created the new feudal social contract, which eventually would give rise to the rise of the new cities,a doubling of the European population for the next three

centuries, and also, a new educational institution, i.e. the peer topeer university which started in Bologna in the 12 th cy., wherethe student ‘nations’ hired and managed their teachers andteaching, and which would eventually crystallize in the greatchristian institutions of learning. By the 15th century, the city-zens managed to escape the dominance of the one christianchurch, using the printing press to diffuse the new independentinterpretations. During the three centuries of religious civil war that were sparked by this new situation, the universitiesbecame sectarian and ceased to play their progressive role. Tis

is why the 16th but especially the 17th century, saw knowledgetransmission move to the informal sphere of the Republic ofLetters, through which the new intellectual elite of independent

scholars would correspond with each other, using letters,magazines, and forewords and afterwords of books to transmitthe new vital knowledge. Eventually, this would be consolidatedand mainstreamed in the Royal Academies until in the 18 th century, the new capitalist realities created the basis of a neweducational system, based on the universities as we knew them,developed by Prussian reformers, and with the labs, PhD’s andthe trappings we are familiar with.

It’s probably fair to say that after the heyday of thedemocratization of this type of education in the sixties andseventies of the last century, it’s started being destroyed withthe conservative and neoliberal counter-revolution that startedin the eighties with Tatcher and Reagan. From now on,universities had to become businesses, education an investmentin one’s future marketability, knowledge privatized through IP,and professors competing most of all with each other for thescarce research funding that was no longer available for simplydeep and fundamental research. Tis neoliberal barbarism hasfundamentally undermined the role of universities in knowledge

transmission and hence it is not a accident that a new Republicof Letters arose with the second phase of the democratizationof the internetworks which started in the 90s. Just as the newmedieval city-zens massively jumped at the technologicalaffordance that was the printing press, so the first democraticallyeducated generations of youngsters, flocked to the internet asthe chance for permissionless communication, self-organisationoutside the state and corporations, and joint value creation.

So today we have again to competing spheres of knowledge

Educational Renaissance


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creation and transmission, one is the decaying and calcifyinguniversity system which is no longer affordable without studentsgoing into massive debt dependencies; and a vital sphere of

internet based co-learning, where the important transitionknowledge is created and diffused.

Tis has created a great contradiction between a not yetlegitimated sphere of informal learning, that evolves at anincredible speed, and the slower sphere of official legitimateformal knowledge. Te big netarchical corporations of ournew era have already understood where the real dynamism andexpertise lie, seeking and mining open source depositories likegithub to find the real talent. But they are still the extractivebusiness models that our era wants to go beyond, and needs togo beyond, to get at generative entities that can create livelihoodsfor all those citizens who contribute to the joint creation ofshared resources that are available to all.

So this is where the context of the following study comes inand why it is of great interest. Te old is not yet dead, and thenew is not really born yet, so in this transitional state, everythingneeds to be experimented, so as to determine which of thenew seed forms will be most appropriate for a sustainable,

commons-based society and economy, which no longer destroysour biosphere and does not create permanent social instabilitybecause of its unacceptable le vels of inequality.

«So follow our young heroes as they are inventingthe educational system of tomorrow! »


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What if school becomes an ubiquitous process?

What if any place in a city – a park, a supermarket, your favorite restaurant – can

be transformed into a classroom?

What if a group of students and professor decide to face increasingly financial cuts

to public education systems, by unite themselves into a foundation? o reinvent

the future of education, to get out of the constant state of emergency and the

usual rules of the protest, and implement a model in which students participate

in the co-creation of their future and of the future of the school?

Knowpen Foundation is an ongoing global effort to reinvent the future of

education involving thousands of students, activists, researchers and organizations

all over the world sharing a few simple assumptions: education is a common and

anyone in the planet needs to access to it. Anyone can contribute to it.

It concerns all of us, as society and individuals.

Education is the basis and foundation of our future(s).

1.What is Knowpen Foundation and how we got there

t h ed o e s n o t e x i s t

i t ’ s a p e r f o r m a n c e

F u t u r e

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“What happens during a crisis? ransformation. Necessary change.Tis is what happened at ISIA Firenze, a design school in Florence, wherethe students are leading to a disruptive effort to co-create their own future ofeducation”.

Luca De Biase, Nòva journalist, Il Sole 24 Ore

1.1 How it has started: the Near Future Education Lab

Te starting point of the project took place at ISIA Firenze, a design school basedin Florence which I attended for five years. During november 2013, the school star-ted to face a crisis due to financial cuts and an imminent eviction. Te risk of closurebrought to a massive student mobilization: we organized flash mobs, we createdcommunication campaign, we asked the institutions to listen to us (especially tothe Municipality of the city, to the Province and to the Ministry of Education). Testory of the protest is documented on a umblr1.I - as someone who participated actively to this protest - watched its high and lows, while I was really hoping that what we were doing could lead to a solution. But inthe end, I had the confirm that this kind of actions (even if spontaneous, legit andimportant) brings only to the starting point, always. When our teachers, Salvatore Iaconesi and Oriana Persico, suggested to dedicateour Near Future Design course to the redesign of the future of the school, I sawa different way to get over the crisis we were going through. After a few hours ofdiscussion in the classroom, the decision was made: we started to work on the NearFuture of Education. Tis choice entailed a lot of excitement among my class: we

had the chance to be designers and students at the same time, finally able to carryon our protest with a new point of view and alternative instruments. We were goingto apply what we were learning in that very moment (the Near Future Designmethodology) to a concrete and significant issue. Soon enough, our project and our voices started to spread outside the walls of the precarious building we were goingto be evicted from.

Tat’s how the Near Future Education Lab was born: it’s a group of students, tea-chers and researchers that want to change the future of education. We consequently create an open Facebook group2, that is still active nowadays, anda twitter account3 to let our idea spreading.


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1.1.2 How we got organized

As soon as our aims were set, we split into working groups in order to develop va-rious aspects of the project. Five working areas were defined:

• Future map: this group worked on the visual representation of the NearFuture of education, built on the study of the state of arts and technologiesand on the ethnographic observation of the emerging rituals;

• Organizational Models: this group worked on the analysis and definition ofthe suitable organizational model onto which the Foundation would havebeen built on;

•

Calls and Partners: inside this group we looked for suitable european callsthat would have helped to finance the project and, furthermore, we identi-fied private or public subjects that (for strategic interests or vocation) couldhave been potential partners of the Lab;

• Community: this group worked on pinpointing the communities, groupsand opinion leaders as points of reference in the educational field;

• Identity: this group created the brand identity and all the communicationaspect of the Foundation.

Herein, we’ll give a general overview of what we did in order to define Knowpen as we know it nowadays. Te work done inside the Identity and the Calls and Partnersgroups will not be deepened any further due to the need of focusing on differentaspects of the project.

1.1.1 The Lab set its objectives

Before starting the concrete act of redesigning, the preparatory step was the defini-tion of our objectives:

• to design the Near Future of the education system in order to shift the per-ception of possible ;

• to design (and create) an independent juridical entity that could assure us asafe environment to enact our project: a Foundation.

We had to find a way to set us as peers among the other public or private entities involved. At first, we focused on the constitution of an association, then discarded for

an ideal legal status: the Foundation. Tis passage was extremely important because,through the Foundation, we would have “moved the goalposts” and also obtaineda real autonomy. Te Foundation is indeed the container of the project, but also aninstrument that allows us to be considered as peers in comparison of any other partinvolved.

Te Near Future Design class at work.


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1.1.3 The need of communicating our vision

We immediately understood that, in order to make this project real, we would havehad to spread it outside our classroom: the first step we took in this direction, wasthe presentation of the project to the whole school. Tis happened during the scho-ol assembly occurred on the half of January 2014, where I participated as a speakeralong with other school mates. We tried, above all, to communicate the most im-portant message: the desire and the possibility to turn ourselves into an active andindependent subject, able to co-create the future of education. Tis matter involveda lot of people, not only my class. In our future, we all wanted to keep on living andnot just surviving. Meanwhile, we kept on working on the Near Future of education.

In the following section we are going to document this process that took us to the

definition of the core project: Knowpen Foundation.

Te school assembly occured on January 2014.


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1.2 The Near Future of Education

1.2.1 The Near Future Design methodology

o better understand the purpose of this paper, it’s necessary to investigate the me-thodology that lays behind its outcome. Te main steps will be explained as follows4:

[STEP 1] CONSENSUAL REALITY

We start from the observation of what we call the “Consensual Reality”.Given a certain culture, historical era, or context, the Consensual Realityis constituted by all of those things for which there is a shared, common,understanding for.It is our “normalcy” field. Tese are the things we think we understand andfor which we perceive our understanding to be not too different from theunderstandings of other people in the same context.It is about the ways/times in which we go to work; where/how/when we doour shopping; how we entertain ourselves; how we establish relationships; where we get our energy; how we eat; how we cure ourselves; and more. Tis is an interdisciplinary observation, which is context-driven (but withpotentially global implications) and which involves anthropology, psycho-logy, sociology, technology and more.

[STEP 2] CURIOUS RITUAL

Consensual Reality is dynamic: it changes according to the transforma-tion of our communities, cultures, technologies and organizations.

How do they change? o understand that, we observe what we call the “Curious Rituals”.Curious Rituals may be large or small, disruptive or moderate, local orglobal, fast or slow. Tey are the things which people and organizations are doing now, in ourpresent, but for which we don’t have a shared, common and easy under-standing yet.Is someone doing “curious” things with technology? Is someone establi-shing some peculiar eating habits? Is someone organizing the ways in which they work in peculiar ways? Is someone getting their energy inpeculiar ways? Or initiating peculiar mobility practices?

STEP [3] THE “STRANGE NOW”

What we described is an ethnographic observation.Its purpose is to understand how the Consensual Reality is elbowing its way into the future, pushing and pulling towards the future, by trial anderror, by experimentation, by innovation, by establishing new rituals andpractices. Te sum of the Consensual Reality and of the Curious Rituals becomes

what we call the “Strange Now”. Te Strange Now is the current scenario with all the things we (think) ful-ly understand and the things which exist, but which we don’t understandfully or easily.

[STEP 5] NEW NORMALS

Among Possible (Near) Futures we choose the most credible ones, nomatter how positive or negative they might be. We call these the “New Normals”.New Normal is an hypothesis of how the next-normalcy field could be orhow the next step of the Consensual Reality might be. Moreover, it con-cerns all of its implications: how it could affect people’s daily lives or jobs; what the fallouts on the environment/energy/health might be, and so on.

[STEP 4] CURIOUS RITUAL

Ten we look at the evolution in technologies and practices, observing theevolution of the State of the Arts and echnologies. What are the most innovative technologies? What are the ones which aremore promising, sustainable or pointing in interesting directions? What are the ones which are more being explored? What are less beingexplored? By which subjects? We add all of these things up (the Strange Now and the State of the Artsand echnologies) to create combinations and remixes. Tese are the Possible (Near) Futures. Among them there may be really odd futures: innovative ones, conserva-tive ones, dangerous ones, wonderful ones, sustainable ones or disruptiveones.

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[STEP 6] PRE-TOTYPES

We give forms to the New Normals using elaborate transmedia narratives, which seamlessly go back and forth through different media to implementa state of hyper-reality. Not only designing a prototype of a certain objector service which will be in the “New Normal”, but also its manifestationsin our cities, online, in our daily lives, in our work-life, in the environment. We implement the New Normal using a simulacrum, a hyper-real simu-lation, using transmedia narratives. We call these simulacra the “Pre-totypes”, before the prototypes.Sometimes they are fully working, sometimes they elaborate simulations,most of the times they fall somewhere in-between. Teir aim is to materialize the New Normals into the world, making it ascredible as possible they are hyper-real, indeed- together with all their im-plications, which may be social, political, relational, environmental. Teyall regard our daily lives, health, well-being and relations, to name a few.

[STEP 7] ENGAGE GLOBAL COLLABORATIVE DISCUSSIONS

Tis action provokes a shared performative space. When faced with anhyper-real pre-totype, people have to deal with it and with its implica-tions. At this point discussions and emulations will start. New models will bediscussed and re-invented. Critique and appraisals will take place.In this phase we design ways which allow us to capture feedbacks arousedfrom our Pre-totypes; whether they happened online, in cities, in ruralareas, in conferences or somewhere.

[STEP 8] CAPTURE, ANALYZE AND SHARE FEEDBACK AND REACTIONS

Ten we make the collection of these reactions available, so that they canbe used to extend the discussion, going beyond the limit of understanding

what the possible futures are, but also discussing what the preferable anddesirable futures are, and for which communities, organizations and individuals.

F U T U R E

POSS I B I L I T I E S

T H E S

TRANG E N O W

DESIGNFOR

THE NEWNORMAL

CONSENSUAL REALITY

E S T

A B L I S

H ED NAR R A T I V E S

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1.2.2 How we applied the methodology

Now that we found out more about the Near Future Design methodology, we canfocus on the way we applied it to develop our project.

owards the Future Map

As a real map, the purpose of the Future Map is to orientate us towards the bestdirection to follow in order to reach our goal. It's a precious and necessary instru-ment to rely on. We started to observe the present in order to define a map that wasable to show us various directions to the preferable and most desirable future(s) ofeducation. Te outcome was a visual representation of the future of education as a

result of the information collected, the curious rituals, the tendencies and what isperceived as "possible", "impossible", "desirable" or "imaginary".

Te Future Map, then, describes the possible changes to the education system thatare being identified through Knowpen Foundation.It is the resulting outcome of two components: the research on the state of the artsand technologies, and the ethnographical (also digital ethnographical) analysis ofthe “Strange Now”.

In Superflux's words5 the Strange Now are “the disruptive forces that are hiddenbehind comforting metaphors”: recurring behavioral patterns that are progressivelygrowing in frequency and that are not yet fully comprehended by societies: a sha-red social/political/economical/psychological meaning has not yet been assigned tothem. Tey are the emergent behaviors, as they emerge, methodologically observedto understand hidden potentials.

Te analysis started from the observation of global innovation matters related toeducation, in order to understand what is the level of development of technologies,the presence of relevant contexts and the arising tendencies in this particular field. While analyzing the state of arts and technologies we asked ourselves: which are

the changes actually happening? How are the new technologies and devices chan-ging the education system? How are the physical places where we learn transfor-ming themselves?

On the next page: the Pinterest board, gathering part of the research to build the Future Map.

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With the ethnographic analysis, we observed the human behaviors to comprehendhow knowledge is produced: how we create and share it? What are the emerging hu-man behaviors? Are there cultures that are influencing this process? Te unison of the research on the State of the Ar ts and echnologies and of theStrange Now generates the Future Map, a map of possible futures at varying degreesof likelihood, interconnected to form a network of interdependent possibilities whichare scenario-based. Te Future Map is an Agile object6: it is constantly re-discussed, forked, led through various paths of parallel, alternative developments, submitted for appraisal to widercommunities (constant beta version), merged when positive outcomes become widelyrecognized.

On the previous page: the Pinterest board, gathering part of the research to build the Future Map.

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Te Future Map so far.

5150


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[1] Technologies

Ubiquitous technologies; mobile, nomadic technologies; critical technologies;

meshed networks; open hardware and software; Te application of these technologies, such as tablets, digital blackboards,holograms and augmented reality that will be integrated to physical lessons. Tey will create a new concept of educational material.

[2] Architecture

Te conformation of space, both physical, digital and across;How we are going to interact with it? Laboratories, fab lab, interactive libra-ries, sports, cafeteria, gardens. Te conception of "classroom" will radicallychange, as open, mutable and full of technologies and ways of interaction.

[3] Infrastructures

Networks, social media, peer-to-peer infrastructures for interconnection, collabo-ration, participation, accessibility, sharing;In the era of the Internet, a speedy connection will assure a safe and naturalinterconnection between people, items, places, devices.

[4] Methodology and tools

Agile methodologies; social learning; peer-to-peer learning and production; platforms; ecosystems;Methodologies will be completely transformed, as new devices will assistteachers in personalize the study programs for each students. In some case,teacher could even be replaced by such devices (a controversial point). Scho-oling will be done at home, with a wide choice of educational plans.

[5] Time

Te flow of time, and its modalities, across learning, teaching, production, private,social; We could face a more personal management of time, different paces relatedto particular scenarios, desires, activities. ime as an agile, customized, mal-leable concept that can adapt to each individual.

[6] Identity and sense of belonging

Rhizomatic identity, meaning that everyone involved in some process of the

ecosystem (active participation) is part of the ecosystem itself, and everything re- flects it; Te sense of belonging will face a radical change. We won't feel just mem-bers of a certain university, we will feel as members of a wider reality: acommunity willing to learn, teach, collaborate, research and share knowled-ge, interests, stories. Age won't matter as a fundamental parameter to aggre-gate people in these communities. "Classrooms" will turn into a worldwidenetwork, where everybody is free to change their role as a student, teacher,researcher and so on.

[7] Participation

Everything is designed for active participation;Sharing knowledge will involve a wider range of people, not just the stu-dents of a university or school. A permeable knowledge that will spread worldwide thanks to an open online exchange of information. Te edu-cational material will be shared freely with anyone, with the possibility toexpress opinions, corrections and suggestions.

[8] Commons and intellectual property

Knowledge as a common; A model in which information and knowledge are shared freely and widely.Furthermore, this will have to be safeguarded in a certain way.

Te axes of transformation

While focusing on the building of the Future Map, we analyzed the state of arts,technologies and ethnography. Te outcome is the definition of 11 topics that we na-med "axes of transformation": they represent the directions to focus on to understandthe passage between the current condition to the future of education. Tese axes con-stitutes the structure of the Future Map.


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[9] Privacy

Both in physical and digital spaces;In an environment where communication and the sharing of knowledge areopen to everybody, the concept of privacy ought to be revised. Open lessons,public materials and other possible factors will make the safeguard of priva-cy a necessary matter.

[10] Permeability, boundaries

Blurred conceptualization of boundaries; everyone is part of the ecosystem, throu-

gh active participation; the ecosystem is open to the city, to other researchers, to bu-sinesses, administrations, other universities; the university as a “protocol” which isethical and technical, in which anyone can participate and make; We'll face a radical transformation of the concept of "boundaries" as weknow it nowadays. Everything and everyone will be free to join multipleand different environments where any kind of knowledge is shared.

[11] Collaboration, multi-modality

A project is also an opportunity to teach, learn, dedicate resources to personal inte-rests, to collaborate with the ecosystem;University will not be just dedicated to its students, but it will be the knotof an interacting network. Communication towards external environments will be widen by a different range of collaboration, openness, diversificationof the involved parties.

infrastructures

architecture

technologies

methodologyand tools

time

collaboration,multi-modality

permeability,boundaries

common and intellectual property

privacy

participation

identity andsense of belonging

On these 11 axes we based the development of Knowpen. We analyzed some pos-sibility of change and improvement for each axis: we made a visual representationof the effort needed to enact a change on each one. Tey convert to a central vertex(representing a value of zero) and grow until a maximum value (representing the maxlevel of effort needed to enact the change). Tis visualization is a generative picturesthat variates according to the development of the research around the axes. Te picturebelow is a still frame of the investigation at the time when the study occurred.


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1.2.3 The definition of an Organizational Model

Te research about organizational models was a fundamental step to identify thebasic structure of the education system that we were thinking; we applied the same while structuring the Foundation, which represents the operational instrument ofsuch system. What’s an organizational model, then? It establishes how and in whichenvironment the processes take place and how these processes are developed. Tereis a main distinction between the existing models is: the centralized and the decen-tralized ones.

In a centralized model , the upper layer’s role is to manage and control the lower levels. A clear example is represented by the hierarchy, a pyramidal system. Tis model isoften used to

coordinate information, but when it’s applied to companies or institutions, it pre- vents knowledge to circulate and grow spontaneously.

In a decentralized model , instead, the decision-making is distributed and knowledgecan be shared easily, since we are in front of a p2p process. Our research, then, focu-sed on the existing p2p models that could have helped us to create a permeable andopen ecosystem where knowledge is inclusive.

Te strategic shift we opted for.

Te research identified seven different p2p models. Tey are mainly applied in businessenvironments, but we tried to see them under a different perspective. Te description andfeatures of such models are illustrated as follows:

[1] Self-organising

“Essentially having no structure. Employees are encouraged to work on whatever they wantto find the projects that engage them and do the best work of their lives.”

• Pro: any member is free to specialize in any preferred area of interest without realboundaries;

• Cons: the absence of an organizational structure and managing entities can con-fuse the members.

[2] Agile-squads

“Instead of an engineering department, a design department, and a marketing departmentthat each collaborate on products with dubious ownership, they organize vertically around

products (or more specifically pieces of products) and traditional disciplines are loosely heldhorizontally.”

• Pro: interconnections among the working groups always keep clear the aims, theoutcomes and the paths of the organization;

• Cons: the structure is quite rigid and doesn't give enough freedom to the singlemembers; roles and area of interests are extremely defined.

[3] Holacracy

“Authority should be distributed, everyone should be able to sense and process (solve) thetensions (ideas/problems) they perceive, roles and employees are not one-to-one, and that theorganization can and should evolve toward its “requisite structure” (the ultimate structure

for its current environment).”

• Pro: the organization allows flexible groups where each member is free to operateaccording to their skills; members can enact any action to better express their keyrole; the organization considers the aim as important as the members;

• Cons: the operation is not intuitive .

[4] Sociocracy

“Te sociocratic method is proposed as an ideal way to shape our society. Sociocratic the methodis an “empty” (or “generalized”) method. In other words, it can be applied to any type of orga-


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nization. Tis method starts from the notion that people are unequal, only people that shouldbe equivalent from the decision-making process.”

• Pro: each member represents a different and peculiar "resource"; there is always aninteraction among working groups, even if they focus on different topics;

• Cons: decisions are accepted just with unanimity; each working group allows justtwo interaction roles.

[5] Heterarchy

“If hierarchy is the power system of centralized systems, then heterarchical power is the powersystem of decentralized systems and Responsible Autonomy is the power system of distributedsystems. Tis distinction is derived from the work on ‘triarchy’.”

• Pro: there's a network structure with temporary working teams; decisions are di-stributed among these teams; knowledge is shared and under worker manage-ment;

• Cons: some assets are redundant.

[6] Google-cracy

“When you give engineers the chance to apply their passion to their company, they can doamazing things”

• Pro: each member-employee is able to express their opinion on a different com-pany sector; the model gives an important role to the members' ideal mood;

• Cons: there's a good consideration for the employees but their highly tied toGoogle.

[7] Wirearchy

“Wirearchy a dynamic two-way flow of power and authority based on information,knowledge, trust and credibility, enabled by interconnected people and technology Wirearchywill continue to emerge and have impact. Te generations coming into the workplace haveinteractive games, ICQ, Napster and chat rooms under their skin. it’s second nature to them.”

• Pro: its horizontal structure highlight the social aspect and the cooperation, im-proving relationships among the members;

• Cons: it may depends too much on the network.

As the project developed, we selected and compared three of the analyzed models. Wechose the ones that could suit our needs better: Holacracy , Google-cracy and Wirearchy .

Hierarchy is present butemployees have much freedom

Collaboration and interaction inthe work team

Hierarchy

GOVERNANCE

lookscasual

Operational Principles

motivation, individual idea, collaboration

20% of the working time is dedicated to individual ideas or projects

the last choice ismade by the wholecompany

open source open call to professionals

Opportunity

HIGHERLEVELCIRCLE

LOWERLEVELCIRCLE

CIRCLESsemi-autonomous

self-organizing

Each circle is givena purpose by its

higher-level circle

A lower circle isalways linked to the

circle above

Individualactions

Circlemeetings

DynamicSteering

IntegrativeElections

Ristorative Justice

Rep link

Lead link

accountability forthe lower-levelcircle’s results

representativeelected from within

the lower-level circle

If such action goesagainst exsisting

policies

Tactical(frequent)

Governance(less frequent)

Never looking forthe “best solution”

but for a fast,workable solution

Integrative electionprogress after open

discussion

Restorative justicessystem rather than

a punitive one

[a] HOLOCRACY

[b] GOOGLE-CRACY


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1.2.4 Wirearchy: an ecosystemic model

After comparing the three chosen models, we opted for the Wirearchy . It suitedperfectly the Foundation we intended to build and, furthermore, it represented agood instrument to set the basis of the relational and interactional system we weredesigning for the future of education.

Wirearchy 7 is a concept by Jon Husband, that defines himself as a “social architect”.He’s a blogger, a strategist and a futurologist focused on the evolution of the wor-king system and the organizational structures. He’s particularly interested in thechanges (socially and anthropologically speaking) that are happening af ter humanbeings faced the digital and interconnected world.

Wirearchy is based on the distribution of a network, a system in which the linksbetween the individuals have a fundamental importance. It concerns information,knowledge, trust and credibility. It’s better define it as an ecosystem, which intent isto represent an evolution of the traditional hierarchy model. Tere’s no true hierar-chy, just a co-participation of knowledge. Tis ecosystem is continuously adaptingaccording to the live feedback it receives from the constant flux of information,learning, responsibility that flows through the Social Learning.

Wirearchy works thanks to a bidirectional flux, where the Communities of Practiceand the Work eams are constantly interconnected: the first ones manage the deve-lopment of knowledge, the second ones share the “outcomes” of it (projects, services,goods, etc.).

[c] WIREARCHY

Horizontal

GOVERNANCE

TWO DIMENSIONAL

DYNAMIC FLOW

OPERATIONAL PRINCIPLESbased on

Kn o w l e

d g e

T r u s t

C r e d

i b i l i

t y

THROUGH TECHNOLOGYAND SOCIAL NETWORKS

OPERATIONS

WORK TEAMS

Share complexknowledge

COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE

Solve problems,test new ideas

SOCIAL NETWORKS

Increase innovationthrough diversity of ideas

ESTABLISHING CONNECTIONSDiscussions about relevant topicsand issues, knowledge production

PROJECTS


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After we chose and started to look for an application of this model, something wonderful happened: Jon Husband himself joined the Near Future Education Labon our Facebook group. We had the chance to have a direct discussion with himand solve some of our doubts. Tis fact represented the very first proof of a growing"ubiquitous school" which we were already part of.

After the creator of Wirearchy joined the group, an interesting conversation occur-red between him and a member of the Near Future Education Lab. He asked aboutthe concept of "gainsharing".

Jon Husband:

« Hi, Bruno. With respect to the next parts of your question «using the term “Gainsha-ring” in the line “Structural change”? You may also clarify the role of the binomial “Hola-cracy / Sociocracy” in the org design and effectiveness and how these models interact withthe wirearchy system» . Gainsharing is a type of remuneration (pay) strategy or phi-losophy that had a few years of interest/popularity in the late 1980’s/early 1990’s.It is of interest, I believe, in the (eventual) re-structuring of organizations becausehow people are currently positioned in organizations and paid for their work is di-rectly related to traditional hierarchical concepts derived from aylorism and Fordi-sm. Given that it appears that more and more people wi ll eventually be working ininterconnected/networked conditions, the traditional ways of paying people basedon hierarchy (of knowledge & skills) and seniority are very likely to come underincreasingly intense questioning and scrutiny. Gainsharing in a nutshell is based oneveryone sharing (via being paid) in the improvements and ‘gains” made by an orga-nization based on people’s efforts at work. With respect to Holacracy and Sociocracy ,both of those approaches to organizing work and people are, I think (based on whatI understand so far) a packaging and commercializing of approaches based on theprinciples of socio-technical systems theory and/or (in the case of holacracy) theuse of some of the key elements of Elliott Jaques’ Requisite Organization theory(which in turn is mainly constructed around his ime-Span of Discretion theory).Both have some degree of self-management and greater and decentralized decision-making autonomy woven into the methods. Tese are evolutionary. We will see moresuch approaches, I believe, which is a good thing. Learning by experimenting! Both,

I think, are also approaches that could have been derived or designed ‘under’ or usingthe notion of wirearchy as an organizing principle (I try to stay away from beingprescriptive about wirearchy), it is in my mind not a solution, prescription or definedapproach, but rather a principle to be used to design based on context and purpose.I would say that though, wouldn’t I? Does that make sense? »

Te Wirearchy concept will be explored again in the next chapter, in order to givea better understanding on how we applied to Knowpen (cf. chapter 2, par 2.1.2).


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1.2.5 Community building

In this Near Future Design project, there’s a last aspect that is important to focuson: we worked on the creation of a network that could provide fundamental con-nections to let Knowpen grow. Te research has been done mainly online, where weidentified potential interlocutors and communities interested in the matter of edu-cation. Teir contributions and opinions about the future of education was relevantfor the development of our project.

In the first phase we identified some keyword that helped us to select different topicsand areas of interest. We started to look for groups, web sites, personal profiles andorganizations related to these keywords. Tis has been done mainly on Facebookand witter.

Te selected keywords are:

In the second phase we listed the communities we found according to t

Documents

Knowpen Foundation Thesis