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School of Co-Creation

One White Bit Vision | Aims | Manifesto | People

One White Bit HEAD One White Bit HAND
One White Bit
One White Bit HEART One White Bit HUMOUR

  1. One White Bit What is a University?
  2. One White Bit Co-creative Learning Teams
  3. One White Bit Self Evaluated Learning Framework
  4. One White Bit Our Relevant Publications
  5. One White Bit Languaging Co-creation
  6. One White Bit A Creative Approach
  7. One White Bit Some Workshop Examples
Making education viable
  • We admire UNESCO’s vision of the University as an agent of global change.
  • In the UK this kind of long-term purpose appears to have been forgotten.
  • Perhaps it is because our Government sees universities as generators of growth(★).
  • If so, why do we have one million young NEETS (Not in Education, Employment, or Training)?
  • Why are our universities in financial hardship?
  • Why do so many students avoid university for fear of a lifetime of debt?
What is the Purpose of Universities?


One White Bit Cannon Fodder

  • Today's dangerous world is short of vision and purpose.
  • In reminding ourselves of the ecological purpose of learning we envision regenerative learner communities that use their collective creativity and resourcefulness to survive.
  • We therefore aim to develop new pedagogies from within micro-local citizen-led networks.
  • We will encourage them to be more long-sighted, inclusive, inventive, transdisciplinary, nimble, and adaptive.
  • We hope our findings and methods would ultimately lead to a more synergistic economic paradigm, globally.
We will reimagine the fundamental purposes of learning
  • Our approach is therefore likely to change the types of people who wish to activate learning.
  • If learning is perceived to have immediate value to local communities then we can develop a more regenerative business model to sustain it.
  • For example, learners might expect to cover zero or nominal costs on a pay-it-forward, or payment-in-kind basis.
We will de-centre and de-centralise learning
  • If learners were allowed to follow their individual interests and agendas, (how) would this work?
  • How might education encourage (a resurgence of) curiosity instead of teacher-defined assignments?
  • How would institutions of learning maintain order without a common curriculum as a reference?
  • Would teachers be better employed to teach students to become highly effective auto-didacts?
  • Suppose the education system were to be organised more on behalf of learning-teams, less on individual students? *Would co-creative learning teams work better?
  • We will cultivate small ‘learner teams’ that bring reciprocal benefits and responsibilities to its members across learning styles, life circumstances and locations.
  • We aim to reconcile curiosity with career aspirations, balancing what is with what could be, to improve the viability of co-creative teams in a real world context.
We will reduce the need for grading
  • Our SELF framework (Self Evaluated Learning Framework) helps learners to map, then to co-create their career paths.
  • It encourages them to imagine personal and professional scenarios that focus on key, self-reflexive relationships. *Originally developed and tested in 1995, we adapt it to mitigate the cognitive debt often produced by today’s generative AI systems.
Strategy and Process
  • Our initial beneficiaries will be up to 15 young (16-29 years old) learners and local communities.
  • We will keep a detailed record of progress over its initial year and convert relevant methods and findings into a template for replication and development by others (i.e. on a Creative Commons ShareAlike basis).

A learner-centred summary

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  • What is it? One White Bit - an experimental part-time foundation course
  • Who is it for? One White Bit - open-minded 16-to-29 year olds living around London
  • What's its point? One White Bit - using your creative potential for opportunity-finding
  • What would I learn? One White Bit - to understand who you are and who you want to be
  • How would I learn this? One White Bit - you will work in mutually supportive learning teams
  • Who designs the syllabus? One White Bit - study themes will not be fixed by a rigid syllabus
  • Where would it be located? One White Bit - we will work in different locations across London?
  • How much would it cost me? One White Bit - you deposit £250 (100% repayable on completion)
  • When will the course take place? One White Bit - most weeks (e.g. Saturdays) throughout 2026-7
  • What about my specialist knowledge? One White Bit - we aim to think within/across the disciplines

Bibliography

  • Anscombe, G. (1957), Intention, Harvard University Press
  • Ashby, W.R., (1956), “Introduction to Cybernetics”, Wiley, New York
  • Backwell, J., & Wood, J., (2009), “Mapping Network Consciousness: syncretizing difference to co-create a synergy-of-synergies”, chapter in New Realities: Being Syncretic, 11th Consciousness Reframed Conference Vienna, 2008. Series: Edition Angewandte Ascott, R.; Bast, G.; Fiel, W.; Jahrmann, M.; Schnell, R. (Eds.) 2009, ISBN: 978-3-211-78890-5
  • Backwell, J., & Wood, J., (2011), ‘Catalysing Network Consciousness in Leaderless Groups: A Metadesign Tool’, in Consciousness Reframed 12, Art, Identity and the Technology of the Transformation, editors Roy Ascott & Luis Miguel Girão, University of Aveiro, Portugal, pp. 36-41
  • Beck-Gernsheim, E. (1998). On the way to a post-familial family from a community of need to elective affinities. Theory, culture & society, 15(3), 53-70.
  • Behrens, T. E., Hunt, L. T., Woolrich, M. W., & Rushworth, M. F. (2008). Associative learning of social value. Nature, 456(7219), 245-249.
  • Belbin, R. M. (1993). Team Roles at work. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann.
  • Burns, T. R., & Engdahl, E. (1998). The social construction of consciousness. Part 1: collective consciousness and its socio-cultural foundations. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 5(1), 67-85.
  • Kauffman S.A., (2000), Investigations, Chapter 9: The Persistently Innovative Econosphere, Oxford University Press, 2000, pp. 211-241
  • Koestler, A., (1967), The Ghost in the Machine. London, Penguin reprint 1990: ISBN 0- 14-019192-5.
  • Kuhn, T., (1962), "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions", University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1962
  • Kvitash, V. I., Gorodetsky G. M., (2003) “Relonics Systems Information Modeling in Clinical Depression” in M. H. Hamza (Ed.): Proceedings of the IASTED International Conference on Modelling and Simulation (MS 2003), February 24-26, 2003, Palm Springs, California, USA. IASTED/ACTA Press 2003, pp264-269
  • Lovelock, J. (2000). Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth: A New Look at Life on Earth. Oxford Paperbacks
  • Maturana, H., & Varela, F., (1980): "Autopoiesis and Cognition (The realisation of the Living)”, Reidel, Dordrecht, NL.
  • Maturana, H., & Varela, F., (1992), The Tree of Knowledge; biological roots of understanding, Shambhala, Boston
  • McGilchrist, I., (2009). “The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World”. USA: Yale University Press. ISBN 030014878X
  • Meadows, D., (1999), “Leverage Points; places to intervene in a system”, The Sustainability Institute, http://www.sustainabilityinstitute.org/pubs/Leverage_Points.pdf (accessed 18th November, 2011)
  • Merton, R. K. (1936). The unanticipated consequences of purposive social action. American sociological review, 894-904.
  • Minsky, M. (1988). Society of mind. Simon & Schuster
  • Polanyi, M., (1969), "Tacit Knowing", in "Knowing and Being", Routledge & Kegan Paul, London 1969
  • Reber, A. S., (1993), "Implicit Learning and Tacit Knowledge, an Essay on the Cognitive Unconscious", Oxford University Press
  • Rittel, Horst; (1984), "Second Generation Design Methods," Interview in Design Methods Group, 5th Anniversary Report, DMG Occasional Paper 1, 1972, pp. 5–10. Reprinted in N. Cross (ed.), Developments in Design Methodology, John Wiley & Sons, Chichester, 1984, pp. 317–327
  • Schön, D., (1985), "The Design Studio", RIBA Publications Ltd., London
  • Stempfle, J., & Badke-Schaub, P. (2002). Thinking in Design Teams; an analysis of team communication. Design studies, 23(5), 473-496.
  • Stevenson, H. W. (1954). Latent learning in children. Journal of experimental psychology, 47(1), 17.
  • Tham, M., and Jones, H., (2008). “Metadesign Tools: Designing the seeds for shared processes of change”, 10-12 July, at Changing the Change, Turin.
  • Minsky, M. L., (1988), “Society of Mind”, Simon & Schuster, New York
  • Udall, N., (2008), The Way of Nowhere, Harper Collins, ISBN:0007263570
  • Van Nieuwenhuijze, O., & Wood, J., (2006), “Synergy and Sympoiesis in the Writing of Joint Papers; anticipation with/in imagination” International Journal of Computing Anticipatory Systems, edited by Daniel M. Dubois, published by the Centre for Hyperincursive Anticipation in Ordered Systems, Liège, Belgium, Volume 10, pp. 87- 102, August 2006, ISSN 1373-541 (11,693 words)
  • Wittgenstein, L., (1921), “Tractatus Logico Philosophicus”, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1961
  • Wood, J., (2007), “Designing for Micro-utopias; thinking beyond the possible”, Ashgate, UK, ISBN 0-7546-4608-4
  • Wood, J., (2009), "Auspicious Reasoning; can metadesign become a mode of governance?” article in the journal of Postcolonial Studies, Volume 12, Issue 3 September 2009, pages 315 - 327
  • Wood, J. & Backwell, J., (2011), "Harnessing hidden knowledge for paradigm change, Journal of Writing in Creative Practice, Volume 5, Issue 3, Dec 2012, p. 477 - 497 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1386/jwcp.5.3.477_1
  • Wood, J., (2011), ‘Languaging Change from Within; can we metadesign biodiversity?’ Journal of Science and Innovation, ISSN 2078-5453, Volume 1, Number 3, October 2011, pp. 27-32*Chamberlin, K., Yasué, M. and Chiang, I.C.A., 2023. The impact of grades on student motivation. Active Learning in Higher Education, 24(2), pp.109-124.
  • Wood, J. article about creativity and Art Schools)
  • Hitz, Z., 2019. Lost in thought: The hidden pleasures of an intellectual life. Princeton University Press.
  • Humphrey, N., Curran, A., Morris, E., Farrell, P. and Woods, K., 2007. Emotional intelligence and education: A critical review. Educational Psychology, 27(2), pp.235-254.
  • Levin, K., Cashore, B., Bernstein, S. and Auld, G., 2012. Overcoming the tragedy of super wicked problems: constraining our future selves to ameliorate global climate change. Policy sciences, 45(2), pp.123-152.
  • Biely, Katharina, 2024, Paradigm changes in research: Kuhn meets socio-ecological transition theory,

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