EDUC 8845 Mod 3 Blog Post
In his talk Rheingold (2008) gives
us examples and reasoning to support the innate nature of people to band
together for a common goal. The goal
need not be stated, or it can be, but together we develop synergy that
increases yields.
He used Wikipedia as a prime
example of modern collaboration. Each
person with access to the web can participate, give a little or a lot, and the
collective benefits where all can search and find information. This type of cooperation, voluntary, does
seem to support the idea that we can band together and create something without
some specific remuneration for the act.
This would violate the tenets of capitalistic theory, wherein Adam Smith(1776) said we all act in our own
best interest and the collective becomes the invisible hand that creates our
society and social systems.
Using this idea of technology to
expand the opportunity for collaboration we can become a society somewhat
different than the model of Mr. Smith.
Now we can collaborate over distance and irrespective of time. Does this diminish the profit motive of
self-interest? Where one might suppose
so, it is increasingly becoming apparent we will participate through blogs,
wiki’s (Wheeler, Yeomans, & Wheeler, 2008) and other types of cloud
computing that allow us to interact over cyberspace.
Giving students access to this type
of collaboration will allow more discovery and can integrate multiple
disciplines (Brown, Brown, & Merrill, 2011). The opportunity to bring together ideas and
concepts takes collaboration to new levels that make sense for the workplace
today’s students will see. We can create
the environment where collaboration occurs (Sullivan et al., 2011) or simply set the parameters
for the final projects. Either way, or
multiple others, there is potential for the students to learn and teach each
other, may us too!
References
Brown,
J., Brown, R., & Merrill, C. (2011). Science and Technology Educators’
Enacted Curriculum: Areas of Possible Collaboration for an Integrative STEM
Approach in Public Schools. Technology & Engineering Teacher, 71(4), 30–34.
Rheingold,
H. (2008, February). Howard Rheingold on collaboration [Video file]. Retrieved
from http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/howard_rheingold_on_collaboration.html
Smith,
A. (1776, 1904). Wealth of Nations. Library of Economics and Liberty. Retrieved
from http://www.econlib.org/library/Smith/smWN.html
Sullivan,
F., Hamilton, C., Allessio, D., Boit, R., Deschamps, A., Sindelar, T., Vargas
Ramos, G., et al. (2011). Representational guidance and student engagement:
examining designs for collaboration in online synchronous environments.
Educational Technology Research & Development, 59(5), 619–644.
Wheeler,
S., Yeomans, P., & Wheeler, D. (2008). The good, the bad and the wiki:
Evaluating student-generated content for collaborative learning. British
Journal of Educational Technology, 39(6), 987–995.
doi:10.1111/j.1467-8535.2007.00799.x
Jeff,
ReplyDeleteI agree that technology has allowed for greater collaboration, and students of all disciplines and levels should be encouraged to use the collaboration to their benefit. Is training needed to teach students how to properly use techology for collaboration, and if so, what types of training do students need in order to properly use technology for collaboration purposes?
Absolutely! Students will need to know how to access and edit each other's work coming up with a collective final project. Of course, we may need the students to instruct the teachers on how to do that before they can train the students to use it...
DeleteJeff,
ReplyDeleteWell written post. I love how you mentioned the benefits and possibilities of collaboration within education thanks to blogs, wikis, and even programming like Google docs. It becomes very difficult to not get somewhat idealistic and think how this type of collaborative technology might allow technology to become more global and transcend, not only out of the classroom, but also out of the community, state, or country. Have you thought at all about this possibility and if so do you have any perceptions about the future of collaboration if it does become more global?
It will have to change some things. Like the monetization of nearly all ideas. Using collaborative platforms will see limited success within organizations, we are already seeing that, but greater collaboration requires fewer barriers. Until we can figure that out there will be issues. After having watch one of the Star Trek movies in the last week, we see a society that does not rely on money to advance. So, all we have to do is evolve beyond our economic base...
Delete