Authenticity in learning has been one of the key issues in the learning sciences in recent years. Authentic activities are recognized as providing learners with the motivation to acquire new knowledge and to apply such understanding to their existing knowledge. Researchers and practitioners have advocated views of learning as happening within various forms of authentic contexts such as those embodying problem-based, scenario-based, cognitive, meta-cognitive, social, linguistic, cultural, artefact, and authentic task elements. In this talk, we explore these various contexts as providing a continuum of different forms of authenticity, and review the role of technology in supporting learning within these different contexts as well as across contexts. In particular, we look at learning in a community of learners such as schools, and how we might bridge learning across to a community of practitioners by designing inter-community augmentation supports.

(Keynote speech is based on reseach of the speaker and David Hung, Associate Professor and Head of the Instructional Science Academic Group in the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.)

Chee-Kit Looi is an Associate Professor in the Instructional Science Academic Group in the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He was the president of the Asia-Pacific Chapter of AACE, a member of the executive committee of the International AI & Education Society as well as regional editor of the Journal of CAL. His research interests include: AI and Education, Intelligent Tutoring Systems, Computer-Supported Collaborative Environments, Inquiry Learning, and Knowledge Organization. He has published widely in conferences, journals and chapters of books.