Human-Machine Collaboration
The Magic of Numbers
A Curiosity-Driven Approach to Leveling Up Education.
The specific objective of this project is to help level up educational resources, address the Access agenda, and demonstrate the value of the Humanities by linking material on Cabinet designed for GCSE and A-level students to Oxford undergraduate material with curiosity-driven learning, by using more flexible, user-created pathways to test the capacity to meet the needs of students in their free time.
Project Motivation
To use Oxford collections, expertise, and technology to create innovative means of firing the curiosity of young people raised on fantasy literature and cinema to take an interest in subjects they might otherwise neglect or dislike, beginning with science and mathematics.
Piloting means of achieving these goals will require work at four different levels: content creation, platform development, business model, and operating model.
CONTENT CREATION
Objects from Oxford and elsewhere will be identified as the basis of props and sets of the Harry Potter series, beginning with those of a mathematical or scientific nature. Expertise in explaining those objects will come from the History of Science Museum, Mathematics Faculty, and the Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine.
PLATFORM DEVELOPMENT
Platform development will reconsider how Cabinet could be overhauled to facilitate the more innovative aspects of this technology, ensuring that further development of the Cabinet platform is informed by the results of this experiment.
BUSINESS MODEL
Business models will then be explored for curiosity-driven pedagogy. By this we mean educational resources made available through a business model in an open way that involves interactions between a digital content providers and consumers/public users.
OPERATIONAL MODEL
Experiment with external experts and state-of-the art facilities.
Principal Contributors
Prof Howard Hotson
Prof Marcus du Sautoy
Kathryn Eccles
Dr Stephen Johnston
Downloadable PDF
Testbed - PDF