EDUCATIONAL POSSIBILITIES IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE AMBIENT INTELLIGENCE CONCEPT

In 2001, IST Advisory Group, as an advisory body of the European Commission in the field of information and communication technology, introduced four scenarios of the future development in information society forming an Ambient Intelligence (Ami) environment. This vision is a relatively new concept that is being developed at both theoretical and practical levels. The problem is that although the concept of AmI has a strong technological orientation, there are also social, psychological, ethical or legislative dimensions that have to be taken in to consideration. Successful application of AmI requires entwining technological, managerial and other aspects to a complex soft system. In order to design and create an appropriate architecture of this intelligent environment, which will match given requirements, it is necessary to acquire qualitative description of future stakeholders' needs. One needs appropriate tools or techniques to be able to comprehend such complexity and people in general usually do not possess needed skills or tools. Therefore, the role of education is of a crucial importance here. The paper describes the AmI concept and outlines its relation with educational issues. Experience obtained while implementing of so-called learner-directed educational approach together with achieved findings and lessons learned are introduced.