KOTO-TSUKURI

Journal Paper on “Content Slicing” and Low-Code Solutions for Engaging Classrooms

March, 2024

A followup paper on the big changes that the pandemic brought to our online teaching, with a description of the low code tools that power a “ZEAL” (Zoom-Enhanced Active Learning) approach. Includes thoughts on adapting “flipped” learning to use in university settings, a borrowing of the notion of “horizontal slicing” and “vertical slicing” from software development, and why visually attractive materials (DX) are especially important online. Full paper coming soon in PUPIL: International Journal of Teaching, Education and Learning.

Short Paper on LangChain and Pinecone Databases in Education

March, 2024

It's a bit of a diversion from the regular koto-tsukuri contents, but AI is my speciality, and one of my students went off an made an “Ian-GPT” by pulling together LangChain and other software. It's just a short paper, but you may find something interesting in LangChain Unleashed: Advancing Education Beyond ChatGPT's Limits (📄 pdf, 2 pages) . This was presented by the student at the Japan Society for Educational Technology, Spring National Convention.

“Koto-tsukuri” and “Learning from Events” papers at the 2022 Asian Conference on Education

February, 2023

Getting through a full three years of online classes was a challenge. The paper on “Koto-tsukuri: Education at the Interface” (📄 pdf, 13 pages) gives some background on how koto-tsukuri ideas helped. This was presented as a workshop at ACE, and the link is to the full text on the publisher's site. A companion paper “Learning from Events” (📄 pdf, 14 pages) explores how the experience of running a large music festival was also a source of inspiration. Again, the full version is at the link. ResearchGate also has the presentation materials for the second paper (📄 pdf, 39 pages) .

New book chapter: “The Dawn of Reiwa: Waves, Revolutions and an ‘A.I. Society.’”

September, 2021

We provided the concluding chapter on “Waves, Revolutions and an AI Society” for the “Handbook of Higher Education in Japan”, which is the first volume in the new Japan Documents Handbook series. The book tells the story in 25 chapters of how Japan’s HE system has become what it is now. You can check the online availability of the book via the publisher's distribution sites https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1zckxc3. For our chapter, we have a limited number of pdfs to distribute for personal use to ResearchGate users requesting the full text, access by clicking on the chapter title link above. We made a brief video on some of the chapter themes, which you can view/share on YouTube.

New paper on “Building Capacity for a Sustainable Future in Vietnamese Eduction”

July, 2018

This paper draws on many years' of eperience of conducting workshops and other events to explore how the training of educators is one of the pillars of sustainable development. Presented at International Conference on Leadership and Management in Higher Education in a Globalized World (link on the SEAMEO site: https://www.vnseameo.org/). Download the “Building Capacity for a Sustainable Future in Vietnamese Eduction” (📄 pdf, 10 pages) from our koto-tsukuri site.

New paper at Culture & Computing in Kyoto

September, 2013

Our work on using Scratch to help students learn in a meaningful way was presented at International Conference on Culture and Computing 2013. We signpost a possible way for Japan to tackle the problems with programming education in the country. Here is the paper to download: Linking University Curriculum And Community - Learn Programming with Scratch, Get Projection (📄 pdf, 2 pages). This paper presented by Ian.

New paper on Wayfinding and Education

June, 2012

We presented a new paper exploring how to connect “wayfinding” ideas to education, at the "International Conference on Responding to the 21st Century Demands for Educational Leadership and Management in Higher Education", Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The paper uses environmental graphic design and navigation as starting points to ask what we might learn about education and educational leadership: "Which Way for Education?" (📄 pdf, 10 pages).

New LAN paper

March, 2011

Both Ian and Malcolm were at Global Learn Asia Pacific 2011 ― Global Conference on Learning and Technology, to present a paper inspired by some of our work on Scratch and working across cultures. The conference papers are available via the LearnTechLib site (https://www.learntechlib.org/p/37217/ for our paper), or download here: “Closing The Loop: Towards A Low-Cost ‘LAN’ (Learning through Authentic Narrative) Infrastructure for Community and Cross-Cultural Empowerment” (📄 doc file, 10 pages).

New Paper: Starting From Scratch

May, 2010

We have a new paper available on "Starting from Scratch – Lifting the Educational Resource Curse". It brings together some common themes that have been motivating both our workshops and our "regular" teaching. The paper was presented at Global Learn 2010, Global Learn Asia Pacific 2010 ― Global Conference on Learning and Technology in the "best practices" stream. LearnTechLib (https://www.learntechlib.org/p/34356/) has the full papper, or use this link for our paper draft (📄 doc file, 6 pages).

iPED 2009: Making the CML

June, 2009

At the 4th International Inquiring Pedagogies Conference, at Coventry in the UK (Sep 14 to 15th), we present on "Creating Meaningful Learning" (📄 pdf, 2 page abstract) in a 30-minute session. This talk details our design and introduction of a "Center for Meta-Learning" (CML) at our home university. We also run a 60 minute workshop on "World Class Thinking" (📄 pdf, 1 page abstract) that gives a brief experience of koto-tsukuri activities. Full conference proceedings are available and the iPED research network has also produced a book on Academic Futures: Inquiries Into Higher Education and Pedagogy (Amazon)

New papers: Technological Thinking, with no Technology

June, 2008

Two new papers on our workshops will appear at the 6th Australian Conference on Computers in Education (Wikipedia's ACEC link). Since we found that the trend in our workshops is to reduce the amount of technology, we wondered how much technological thinking could be taught without using technology. This led to the full paper TNT: Technological Thinking, with No Technology (📄 pdf, 13 pages), and a workshop paper delivered as a 60min experience: Technological Thinking: A Teaching Challenge (📄 pdf, 4 pages). The conference is in Canberra, with an opening keynote by Education Minister Julia Gillard.

New "Koto wedge" paper

January, 2008

Our most recent paper on koto-tsukuri ideas is now in The International Journal of Learning (Volume 14, Issue 9, pp.83-92): "Learning from the Koto Wedge: The Sphere and the Shawl" (📄 pdf, 13 pages). The paper introduces a new conceptualisation (the “koto wedge”), and pulls together many examples and stories (including the sphere and the shawl of the title). Please respect the journal's policy that downloads from authors' sites are not re-distributable in any way. Refer people interested to this koto-tsukuri site, or the official CHScholar journal page for this paper.

Koto-tsukuri in South Africa

January, 2007

Koto-tsukuri will be presented at the 14th International Conference on Learning, in South Africa. We will be giving a 60 minute workshop and describing the paper "Lessons from the Koto Wedge: The sphere and the shawl", which gives theoretical and practical insights into the koto ideal. The conference runs from June 26 - June 29 2007.

Australian Conference on Computers in Education

October, 2006

This paper on the educational philosophy behind our workshops was presented at the 5th Australian Conference on Computers in Education (Wikipedia's ACEC link). The paper is available for download: Lessons from Indigenous Thought -- Working with "koto" and robotics (📄 doc, 65K). The conference was held in Cairns under the theme "IT's up here for Thinking", with an attendance of around 1000.

New Web Pages Open

September, 2006

We opened our new-look web pages, with more information and a new design. We invite you to drop by from time to time: we hope the pages will be part of the springboard for expanding further the scope of our workshops. Our thanks to Hiori-chan for the flagship Japanese caligraphy.

News Digest