Learning companion systems, social learning systems, and the global social learning club

This talk reviews our work in the past and presents a vision of future research based on our current approach. I take a rather personal perspective in describing how the idea of the learning companions emerged. Then I discuss how, after the development of a series of experimental systems over some years, the idea of the learning companions was extended to a class of systems which we call social learning systems. Failures or successes of some of these systems are discussed. After that, I describe the recent readjustment of our approach and take a leap to aim at a global social learning club. It is becoming clear that such a virtual learning community will be typical or prevalent in the next century.