I do believe humans have a basic instinct to “interact and work as a group”. When you think back to how the Pyramids, or even this country was built, there had to be collaboration of individuals working together to reach a common end. Technology has rapidly increased our ability to work collaboratively. In the past, people would fly all over the world to hold business meetings. Now the same meetings can be held from the comfort of one’s home or office. I can now be in the same class as someone on the other side of the earth, and we can be working on solving the same problem.
Rheingold discussed hoe people use collaboration to feed their own self-interests, but when you can find mass groups of people with the same interests, the payoff for the individual can be even greater. Technology allows people with a common cause to unify easily, form groups, and attract more individuals. With different members of the group having strengths in different areas, they can teach others, who will then construct new knowledge for themselves. This is more likely to happen because the individual already has an interest in a given topic. The technology allows the person to find many experts from which to learn.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/howard_rheingold_on_collaboration.html
I responded to Duane Coleman and Shane Fairbairn
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Kiana I really like your thoughts about bringing groups of interested individuals together to form a more effective group. I liked your statement about Rheingold's ideas about our self interest. I agree with your thought that the payoff can be even greater for the individual, but I think that the payoff is even GREATER for the group itself if everyone is interested in the concept.
ReplyDeleteKiana
ReplyDeleteI agree that when people with the same goals work together good things happen. The old saying, “Two heads are better than one” has become a common practice in society because we see the benefits of communicating with others, sharing resources, and creating new ideas together. As you mentioned, technology is making it possible for experts from all over the world to work together. It only takes a minute to obtain an expert or second opinion using a cell phone or the Internet. In the past, our communication resources were drastically different and people relied more on their own individual abilities and resources. Now, we are eager to ask for the opinions of others and enjoy debating various topics.
My concern is how do we foster this excitement about collaboration in schools. Even though our resources have improved, and some students are excited about collaborating with others, most students want to work together to let one person do all the work, or play with friends instead of work. We can plainly see that the collaboration mentality of business versus students is drastically different. For example, people in business have deadlines, financial incentives, and other important aspects that bond people together in accomplishing a given task. If a student decides not to help complete a project, someone else will do the work and nothing bad will happen. However, in business, if someone does not do their share of the work, he or she will be fired or receive a pay cut for not working. How do we teach students how to collaborate effectively and enjoy the benefits of sharing resources and workloads without taking advantage of others?
Amy
Kiana,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed your comparison to building our country. It was built with common ideas and several people working together. I agree that technology has increased the want to work together. Like you said meetings can now be held with a company on the other side of the globe and you can still be home for dinner!