How Do We Infuse Our Institutions, Networks and Relationships with Trust?

A previous blog post took a look at Ray Kurzweil’s vision of the future in which he believes a massive network of human and artificial intelligence will infuse the universe with intelligence and order and ultimately control it. The blog post also briefly examined “The Quantum Theory of Trust” developed by leading network theorist, Karen Stephenson. The post concluded with a mention of betrayal -- the opposite of trust (for Stephenson) and how betrayal seems to be endemic in so many of our institutions today (my perception). If Kurzweil’s vision of a future universe infused with both intelligence and order is to be realized, it seems that we need to make sure that trust is the basis of that universe.

One person who has dedicated his life to developing an interpersonal communication process that engenders trust, among other positive values, is Marshall Rosenberg. Rosenberg’s process is called Nonviolent Communication (NVC). At the core of NVC are honest self-expression and empathy. Rosenberg believes that everything we humans do is an attempt to meet our human needs. A central tenet of NVC is that when mutual understanding and compassion exist between two people the needs of both persons are more likely to be met.

NVC posits that if two people communicate in terms that are objective and free from judgment, then greater understanding and compassion are likely products of that communication. NVC self-expression has four components: A. neutral observations; B. expression of feelings; C. expression of needs; and D. making requests.

NVC communication: “I am feeling upset now (B.) because the last time I played with you, you broke my toys.” (A.) “When I play with you my need for respect is not met.” (C.) “Would you be willing to play with someone else?” (D.)

In NVC the listener can show empathy for the speaker by listening carefully and then repeating some of the speaker's words. NVC is motivated by compassion rather than blame, guilt or fear. Its aim is to increase compassion between two people who use it and to create a high quality of connection to self and to the other in the communications. "The ultimate goal of NVC processes is to increase the joy and well-being of everyone."

Wow! How would it be if we started teaching NVC to young school children and by the time they graduated high school they had developed a high level of proficiency in NVC motivated by honesty, compassion and empathy? It seems that we would have concurrently created enormous amounts of trust in our interpersonal communications, institutions and wider networks.

Sources:

· Wikipedia

· The Center for Nonviolent Communication http://www.cnvc.org/

Karen Stephenson’s Quantum Theory of Trust

In a previous blog, Networks of the Future, I described some of the predictions about the rapid advances in artificial intelligence (AI) that inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil has made. In his book, “The Singularity is Near,” Kurzweil lays out his vision of how computers will become ever more powerful until a single laptop surpasses all the human brains put together. According to Kurzweil, at a certain level of power and performance the only possible way to increase the intelligence of the machines further will be to begin converting all of the matter of the universe into massive computers.

Kurzweil believes that the result of this process will be that the entire universe will be made into a giant supercomputer in which AI and humans will form hybrids that will have both supreme intelligence and physical control over the universe. If and when this result materializes, there will in essence be one vast, powerful network that controls the universe.

Humans, who have initiated this process, will, in Kurzweil’s words, have “infused the universe with intelligence and order.” One might well ask, is this the evolutionary imperative of Homo sapiens? If so, the result will be almost unimaginable as seen through our current lens on human behavior. If we as individuals want to help shape this evolutionary vision, we first need to think about what qualities beside intelligence we would like in this all-encompassing network of the future.

Karen Stephenson, a corporate anthropologist and leading social network theorist, has developed what she calls “the quantum theory of trust” in which she posits that trust is the most important quality in networks. According to Stephenson, “A network is a seamless and invisible web of entrusted connections.” Therefore, we need to ask, what is it that makes trust such an important quality of networks?

Stephenson tells us that any organization’s most precious asset is the knowledge and experience of the people in that organization. For her, much of this knowledge is “tacit knowledge” or “the knowledge that people have at their fingertips, at the tips of their brains.” Stephenson offers that this tacit knowledge is not found in computers but rather it “resides entirely within the people of the organization who are connected in invisible “informal” networks.” At the core of Stephenson’s thinking about networks is the belief that, “In organizations, trust is the utility through which tacit knowledge flows.” Thus, trust becomes the critical element because, “organizations with a high level of trust are better able to cultivate and increase collective cognitive capability.”

For Stephenson, the opposite of trust is betrayal, or the breaking of trust. She has written, “You can’t come back from betrayal. It takes you 20 years to build a reputation, it takes two seconds to have it destroyed.” During the last few years, we have only had to look at the headlines to see that betrayal is widespread: the collapse of Enron under its massive fraud; trillions of dollars of public money to bail out Wall Street banks from the toxic securities they had underwritten which were based on fraudulent mortgages or “liar loans”; the betrayal of long-time clients by Bernie Madoff; the betrayal a software engineer felt that led him to fly his small plane into an IRS building in Texas, “What is happening to me? I have done all the right things. I am a God-fearing Christian. I work hard for my family. I have a gun. I believe in the values of the country and my life is collapsing.” The latest news of betrayal is gushing out of a failed oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico.

In the face of such ubiquitous betrayal, an important question remains: How do we remake our government, financial institutions, and other networks so that they are based on trust instead of some short-term value that implodes?

Sources:

* The Singularity is Near by Ray Kurzweil

*Karen Stephenson’s Quantum Theory of Trust by Art Kleiner, http://www.well.com/~art/s%2Bb42002cm.html

* http://www.netform.com/

Using Computers in the Classroom

As ISB moves to a one-to-one status for the sixth grade class next year, those students will have a powerful tool at their disposal 24/7. It remains to be seen how effectively the sixth grade students as well as the rest of the Middle School students take advantage of the laptops. I have noticed that many students in my seventh grade Humanities class waste a considerable amount of time when they use laptops for in-class assignments. Therefore, I need to develop stricter protocols for students who use laptops during class time.

Some questions come to mind for managing student laptop use in the classroom. For example, how does the teacher know what all the students are doing at a given time? In order to know how students are using their time, the first protocol guideline should be a time limit and a specific goal to accomplish during that time. Too often students appear to be at work on the laptop when in fact they are way off task. There can be a way to check on whether students have met the goal within the time limit. Students can print and hand in what they have accomplished, or they can post their work to GoogleDocs which will make it much easier for the teacher to check on the work.

Another guideline for written work should be the often-used audience and purpose: who are the students writing for and what is the purpose for their writing? Students should be required to go through all of the self-editing, peer- editing and teacher/student-editing steps that they now go through for non-blog writing.

If students are given concrete goals to accomplish within a specific time limit they will make better use of their computer time. A little bit of front loading on the teacher’s part will generate greater student accountability for their own learning.

Networking in the Future

Starting in the school year 2010/2011, ISB students in grade six will each be assigned a laptop that they can use in school and also take home. Students will use these computers for in-class work and, more importantly, to connect to networks of other students, teachers and adults outside the ISB community. Other ISB students who don’t have an assigned laptop will still be able to connect to numerous networks. These ISB students will be a small part of the increasingly expanding system of networks all connected by the Internet. We might ask, “What will the extent of these networks be in the future, and what kind of importance will they have?”

We only have to look at FaceBook today with over 400 million users to understand how quickly networks connected by the Internet will proliferate and expand in terms of number of members and importance to those users. And yet, the FaceBook of today is just a tiny and almost insignificant beginning. For a real understanding of the future power of networks we need to look at some of the predictions of one of the premier inventors and futurists of our time: Ray Kurzweil.

Ray Kurzweil has written several books in which he makes predictions of what the future holds for all of us in terms of the explosion of artificial intelligence and how it will change our lives. His predictions:

· Sometime after 2020 a computer will pass the “Turing Test” which means that in a “blindfold” test a person will not be able to tell if she is talking to a computer or a human. (From “The Singularity is Near.”)

· Not long after 2020, a $1,000 personal computer will be 1,000 times more powerful than the human brain. (From “The Age of Spiritual Machines.”)

· In 2045 the “Technological Singularity” arrives: $1000 will buy a computer a billion times more intelligent than every human combined. The Technological Singularity means that artificial intelligence will have surpassed humans as the smartest life forms on the planet. (From “The Singularity is Near.”)

Of course we need to keep in mind that each of these computers, which is a billion times more intelligent than the intelligence of all humans together, will be connected to a network of hundreds of millions or even billions of similarly intelligent computers. It’s truly difficult to comprehend the power of the networks of the future. Kurzweil’s story gets even better as the next step is truly mind-boggling:

Kurzweil has written that when the limit to how small transistors can be shrunk is reached, the only way that computers can become more powerful is to increase in size. Sometime post 2045 Kurzweil predicts that, “Artificial Intelligences will convert more and more of the Earth's matter into engineered, computational substrate capable of supporting more A.I.s. until the whole Earth is one, gigantic computer.” (The Singularity is Near)

Waking Up the Universe

The final step in this process is almost unimaginable for us today:

“At this point, the only possible way to increase the intelligence of the machines any farther is to begin converting all of the matter in the universe into similar massive computers. A.I.s radiate out into space in all directions from the Earth, breaking down whole planets, moons and meteoroids and reassembling them into giant computers. This, in effect, "wakes up" the universe as all the inanimate "dumb" matter (rocks, dust, gases, etc.) is converted into structured matter capable of supporting life (albeit synthetic life).” (The Singularity is Near)

Our students today occupy a small position just at the beginning of this massive, powerful, and intelligent network. The artificial intelligence advances described above will arrive sooner than we might expect since we are used to thinking, as Kurzweil says, “in a linear fashion” and technology advances are speeding up at an exponential rate. It would behoove teachers to help students understand their position at this historical moment so that they can better contribute to and benefit from the AI network.

GOOGLE DOCS

Google Docs is a revolutionary application that lends itself beautifully to promoting student learning both inside and outside the classroom. There are many ways that teachers and students can use Google Docs to facilitate learning. This blog-post will describe three obvious uses.

First, Google Docs can provide a collaborative record of classroom learning. Students and teachers can take notes on the daily activities and learning in their classrooms. Teachers can then monitor and correct the students’ notes so that a correct common understanding is established and agreed upon. This communal record of learning will be invaluable both for students who miss lessons as well as for all students as a study guide.

Second, Google Docs can serve as an active collaborative learning tool. In our 7^th grade Humanities class, Ms. Williams and I have had students choose a country and then do individual research about the food security/insecurity and hunger issues for that country. Then, in groups of four, the students set up a Google Doc and post a comment about their findings. Students then comment on the findings of the other students in their group. When each student uses a different color script for his/her comment, it is easy for the students and teacher to track and monitor each individual’s contribution or lack thereof. This method has generated a lot of discussion and understanding for our Humanities students.

Third, Google Docs is an invaluable tool for the writing process. When writing essays, students can post their first draft, the teacher can make corrections/comments in another color and then students can revise and correct for further teacher review. By using Google Docs for this process, the teacher can work at school or at home and the student can then immediately access the teacher’s comments. Google Docs makes the entire writing process much more efficient for both students and teachers.

In summary, Google Docs offers a platform available 24/7 for sharing individual or collaborative work. Students, teachers, and any and all collaborators are now free from geography and time constraints in having their work available for the widest possible audience. With Google Docs, today’s students are getting an introduction to a technology and real-time collaborative method of sharing work that will certainly be a hallmark of the future.

Final Project

The Final Project for Steve Guthrie, Robin Ulster, David Healy and Jean Williams can be found at:

http://www.coetail.asia/page/Connections+for+Change

How do you manage the use of technology peripherals with students? What are some things you’ve learned and hope to implement?

The technology peripherals that we currently use in seventh grade Humanities are Skype and student and teacher blogs. Both are powerful applications for connecting students to learning networks outside the classroom. In addition, I envision that very soon our students will all have their rss reader and their own personal web.

 Also, it seems that a device such as the iphone will become the choice of students instead of the laptop. This device will offer students unlimited portability and 24/7 access to the Web. Collaborative work, research, social networking, media sharing, notetaking – all would be available at one’s fingertips and would be backed up by the power of the cloud. In addition, smart objects will become ubiquitous allowing an amazing access to numerous objects and surroundings and their stored data.

 Technology advances are making it easier for all of us to connect to collaborative networks. In so doing, productivity gains whether in the classroom or in the workplace should be enormous.