KBSI 2021

World Economic Forum speeches, climate protests, and action groups—including Knowledge Building Tomorrow’s Innovators—suggest the power of individuals and groups taking action for public good. Yet, the role of education in the world’s ‘ecological crisis’ is hardly in sight. Crises demanding action include climate change, exhaustion of human and natural resources, ethical and religious tensions, conflicts in multicultural societies, growing gaps between rich and poor across all spectrums of life, and unstable societies leading to record numbers of people fleeing war, violence or persecution. The challenges are profound, requiring collective responsibility, sustained creative work, and the ability to deal with complexity well beyond that required by school tasks and token activism. Knowledge Building engages students directly in the means by which knowledge in the world is advanced, and then asks them to do heavy-lifting of their ideas so they are on trajectory for making the world a better place. Please join us in taking up this challenge together at this year’s Knowledge Building Institute. Together – we can make a difference. 

In this context we welcome submissions concerning:

• Designs for extending KBSI international collaborations with focus on knowledge for public good, including initiatives that incorporate UN sustainable development goals
• Case studies of knowledge building practices
• Knowledge Forum developments—for example, user-interface, analytic tools, designs for meeting new people and new ideas in knowledge building’s metaspace—and design of the metaspace itself
• Knowledge building analytics to support researchers, teachers, and students
• AI and knowledge building developments
• Research which contributes to insights and understanding of the students’ knowledge building process; the role of the teachers; the role of supporting technologies
• Implementing knowledge building in whole school approaches
• Educational leadership for knowledge building
• Knowledge Building International networking and collaborative research proposals
• Hackathon sessions for development of supporting tools; user interfaces; implementation strategies
• Workshops and demonstrations (student/teacher exchanges, demonstrations, knowledge building classes and presentations)
• other relevant themes…

Who Should Attend the Knowledge Building Institute?

• Individuals: Teachers, students, administrators, researchers, policy makers and computer scientists worldwide who want to become better acquainted with knowledge building concepts and approaches and advance their work in light of “Knowledge Building Practices and Technology for Global Hubs of Innovation” and models of an inclusive knowledge society.
• Organizations: Schools, ministries of education, universities, community organizations, businesses, health care organizations, etc. interested in introducing knowledge building into their organizations and establishing state-of-the-art approaches to knowledge creation.