Since I proclaimed my love for Wikipedia, I figured it appropriate to quote a definition from the site. Wikipedia defines Collective intelligence as a shared or group intelligence that emerges from the collaboration and competition of many individuals. The article goes on to explain With the development of the Internet and its widespread use, the opportunity to contribute to community-based knowledge forums, such as Wikipedia, is greater than ever before. These computer networks give participating users the opportunity to store and to retrieve knowledge through the collective access to these databases and allow them to “harness the hive” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_intelligence)
I think well known clichés help start the discussion on both the advantages and disadvantages of collective intelligence. As my mother says ‘Two heads are better than one’ however as my granny argues ‘too many cooks spoil the broth’. This topic is very wide therefore I have decided to focus on the use of collective intelligence in a closed school forum to discuss further.
As teachers (nearly) I think we have to use our discretion on when the use of collective intelligence is appropriate in the classroom. This is also important when we allow our students to roam the web- especially web 2.0.
For collective intelligence to prosper there has to be a free flow of information. This information has to be processed in some way to form knowledge rather than random opinions/facts. The teacher can harness the students’ information in a private forum easily acting as a facilitator as and when required. In my opinion this is excellent for the students as they can read the thoughts and contributions of their peers and hopefully increase their learning. However without the harnessing of information there is a risk that:
1. Students go off task, discussing this, that and everything.
2. Information that is factually untrue is left uncorrected and therefore believed to be true.
3. Some students dominate the discussion forums.
4. Other students don’t participate.
5. Repetitive contributions may flood the forum
6. No finish point is ever established
Collective intelligence involving the technology that is now at our finger tips, in most schools, I think will be an exciting but very worthwhile project. Like all lessons, careful planning will be needed to ensure maximum learning. Social Constructivism is becoming a popular teaching method in our classrooms and this is a great tool to achieve this.
Whilst the merits of collective intelligence and social constructivism are many, I still think there's a time and a place for students to work individually to nut out specific concepts. The flaws of one teaching style may be the strengths of another, it's the melding of styles that, I think, develops stronger learners.
ReplyDeleteI quite agree that collective intelligence won't flourish in the classroom without a clear structure to guide students. It is important to have a finishing point, so the teacher has to organise and co-ordinate activities to ensure students don't stray too far off-topic and do actually make progress towards the stated goal(s). Although social constructivist teaching is not typically teacher-centred in the way that more traditional teaching may be, it's often the case that it's more demanding for teachers than older transmission or behaviourist models of education.
ReplyDeleteAnd I agree with Matt, too, that an eclectic pedagogical approach has many merits.
I think you are right about the need for the eclectic approach being needed. As Simon said (http://simonkidd.wordpress.com/category/education/), the students will need the traditional skills as well as digital literacies, and the role of teacher as mentor is more important than ever.
ReplyDeleteThe discipline involved in finding better ways to express a thought (and introducing it politely in a group project) is challenging for young authors - sometimes more challenging than fact-checking and referencing. Part of the aspect of getting quiet students to participate,I think. Is this one of the challenges in the social-constructivist e-tech approach - bringing class-group-work-manners into the solitary keyboard online world, while avoiding groupthink?