Self-directed learning is a continuous engagement in acquiring, applying and creating knowledge and skills in the context of an individual learner's unique problems. Effectively supporting self-directed learning is one of the critical challenges in supporting lifelong learning. Self-directed learning creates new challenging requirements for learning technologies. Domain-oriented design environments address these challenges by allowing learners to engage in their own problems, by providing contextualized support, and by exploiting breakdowns as opportunities for learning. Economies of educational knowledge constitute an emerging concept in which communities contribute toward the creation of information repositories, which can be reused and evolved by all members of the community for the creation of new environments. We argue and demonstrate that domain-oriented design environments can serve as models for these economies, that a software reuse perspective provides us with insights into the challenges these developments face, and that the creation and evolution of these economies are best understood as problems in self-directed learning.

ISBN 0-9667818-2-1.ABSTRACT The transitory nature of some participatory planning settings means that traditional PD methods are not feasible during early stages of technology development. Role-play represents a promising technique for addressing this situation. We present our experiences in using role playas a participatory assessment method on two variants of a system for participatory planning. We summarize systemrelated assessment results and discuss limitations and potential improvements of this method.

The transitory nature of some participatory planning settings means that traditional PD methods are not feasible during early stages of technology development. Role-play represents a promising technique for addressing this situation. We present our experiences in using role playas a participatory assessment method on two variants of a system for participatory planning. We summarize systemrelated assessment results and discuss limitations and potential improvements of this method.

A major role of new media is not to deliver predigested information to individuals, but to provide the opportunity and resources for social debate, discussion, and the creation of new knowledge. In collaborative design, the knowledge to understand, frame, and resolve problems does not exist, but is constructed and evolved during the process, exploiting the power of "symmetry of ignorance" and "breakdowns." From this perspective, access to existing information and knowledge (often seen as the major advance of new media) is a very limiting concept. To illustrate this theoretical approach towards collaborative learning, the participants in this interactive event will engage in collaborative design activities supported by the Envisionment and Discovery Collaboratory (EDC). The EDC merges physical interaction, handheld devices, simulations, end-user modifiability, and evolving web spaces to support a) the integration of problem framing and problem solving, b) the creation of shared understanding articulated as externalizations, and c) computer-supported learning among stakeholders. We will design the interactive event such that the participants will form a community of interest (defined by their collective concern with the resolution of a design problem) as they take on the roles of stakeholders from various communities of practice (such as city planners, transportation designers, and citizens). The event will illustrate the possibilities and limitations of the EDC for providing unique and innovative computer support for collaborative learning.

Designing and assessing systems to support neighborhood participation in design is difficult due to the challenges of involving real participants and the fragile nature of early instantiations of technologies aimed at supporting open-ended and ill-structured design tasks. We report on a scenario-based, semi-realistic field trial of two prototypes of the Envisionment and Discovery Collaboratory, an environment for supporting community involvement in design activities. By engaging subjects in playing participant roles, we have been able to gain some crucial insights into the facets of the design at multiple levels as part of an ongoing design process.

Open source software provides an example not only of a viable software development methodology, but also a model for collaborative construction of artifacts. Open source communities exemplify principles that are important in collaborative learning environments. This paper explores how open source efforts can be used as inspiration for the creation of collaborative learning experiences in a university course. Concrete public deliverables and use of collaborative technology help students explore ill-defined projects that are personally meaningful. This paper provides a description of open source principles, their role in designing collaborative learning experiences, the application of these principles in a university course, and the findings based on analysis of course projects and collaborative technology.

Like all other branches of cognitive science, distributed cognition seeks to understand the organization of cognitive systems. Like most of cognitive science, it takes cognitive processes to be those that are involved in memory, decision making, inference, reasoning, learning, and so on. Also following mainstream cognitive science, it characterizes cognitive processes in terms of the propagation and transformation of representations. What distinguishes distributed cognition from other approaches is the commitment to two related theoretical principles. The first concerns the boundaries of the unit of analysis for cognition. The second concerns the range of mechanisms that may be assumed to participate in cognitive processes. While mainstream cognitive science looks for cognitive events in the manipulation of symbols (Newell, et.al, 1989), or more recently, patterns of activation across arrays of processing units (Rumelhart, et.al, 1986; McClelland, et.al., 1986) inside individual actors, distributed cognition looks for a broader class of cognitive events and does not expect all such events to be encompassed by the skin or skull of an individual.

Complex design problems require more knowledge than any single person possesses because the knowledge relevant to a problem is usually distributed among stakeholders. Bringing different and often controversial points of view together to create a shared understanding among these stakeholders can lead to new insights, new ideas, and new artifacts. New media that allow owners of problems to contribute to framing and resolving complex design problems can extend the power of the individual human mind. Based on our past work and study of other approaches, systems, and collaborative and participatory processes, this article identifies challenges we see as the limiting factors for future collaborative human-computer systems. The Envisionment and Discovery Collaboratory (EDC) is introduced as an integrated physical, and computational environment addressing some of these challenges. The vision behind the EDC shifts future development away from the computer as the focal point, toward an emphasis that tries to improve our understanding of the human, social, and cultural system that creates the context for use. This work is based on new conceptual principles that include creating shared understanding among various stakeholders, contextualizing information to the task at hand, and creating objects to think with in collaborative design activities. Although the EDC framework is applicable to different domains; our initial effort has focused on the domain of urban planning (specifically transportation planning) and community development.

One fundamental challenge for the design of the interactive systems of the future is to invent and design environments and cultures in which humans can express themselves and engage in personally meaningful activities. Unfortunately, a large number of new media are designed from a perspective of viewing and treating humans primarily as consumers. The possibility for humans to be and act as designers (in cases in which they desire to do so) should be accessible not only to a small group of high-tech scribes, but rather to all interested individuals and groups. Meta-design characterizes activities, processes, and objectives to create new media and environments that allow users to act as designers and be creative. In this paper we discuss problems addressed by our research on meta-design, provide a conceptual framework for meta-design, and illustrate our developments in the context of a particular system, the Envisionment and Discovery Collaboratory.

This paper is based on the fundamental claim that one of the major roles of new media is not to deliver predigested information to individuals, but to provide the opportunity and resources for social debate and discussion. For most design problems (ranging from urban design to graphics design and software design) that we have studied over many years, the knowledge to understand, frame, and solve these problems does not exist, but is constructed and evolved during the process of solving them, exploiting the power of the "symmetry of ignorance" and "breakdowns." From this perspective, access to existing information and knowledge (often seen as the major advance of new media) is a very limiting concept. Many social and technological innovations are limited to provide primarily better access, leading to "consumer" cultures. Our approach focuses and creates support for lifelong learning activities grounded in informed participation and empowerment, allowing learners to incrementally acquire ownership in problems and contribute actively to their solution.To illustrate our approach, we present the Envisionment and Discovery Collaboratory (EDC), an integrated physical and computational environment supporting informed participation through new forms of knowledge creation, integration, and dissemination. The EDC empowers users to act as designers in situated learning and collaborative problem-solving activities. It addresses the integration of the userís consumer and designer roles, not by translating them into an "either-or" type of support, but rather by providing users with the flexibility to move along this spectrum according to needs, opportunities, and personal interest and engagement in particular learning situations.