So, today we are going to continue our talk about what the use of agent-based modelling is and what you can apply it to and where it has been used before.
So, let us talk about education and communication.
Agent-based models essentially can help us communicate our results to others.
They essentially encapsulate maybe a theory we have about a complex system and the way it might work.
And then we can transfer this model by providing it to somebody else.
They encapsulate that knowledge in a way that is very easily transferable.
And what is nice about that is that this knowledge could be a brand new theory about the world or could be a very old theory about the way the world works.
So you could take, for instance as an case in NetLogo done in the past, theories of electromagnetism, build models about electromagnetism, and then use them to teach children about electromagnetism in new and different ways.
They encourage exploration around those theories, around those pieces of knowledge. Because they allow, both children and [modern] adult learners to, kind of, play around with those tools and, kind of, see what comes out of them.
Agent-based modelling can also be used as a touchstone.
And by touchstone what I mean is an object that many people who might be talking about a particular subject can use and actually physically interact with in order to understand the properties of that theory, that system. Right?
These are also sometimes are called focal objects, because they focus the thinking done in a particular area. Or Papert, Seymour Papert called them 'objects to think with'.
They are objects that you can use to share your thoughts with other people.