I believe God designed us to be inhabitants of the earth in
order to work together to preserve it. When God created Adam, He then created
Eve as a “helper” (Genesis 1:26-2:25). God designed us to be social beings. When the explorers came to North America it
was by working collaboratively with the Native Americans that allowed them to
become established on this land. They
didn’t read about what to do or solely draw from their past experiences to
guide them. I do believe humans have a
basic instinct to interact and work together as a group of learners in every
capacity. Rheingold referenced the
OpenSource sites such as Wikipedia and ThinkCycle as two technologies that have
emerged as a means of working collectively (2008). Both of these sites draw from those that wish
to participate to produce a product that will ultimately serve others. Online encyclopedia’s offer the same product
as Wikipedia, but the latter was able to provide it for free online with no
overhead of “professional experts”.
ThinkCycle posts problems for anyone with knowledge to submit ideas on
how to solve the problems.
Technology facilitates this collaboration because of the
ability to reach globally for anyone to collectively contribute to the
idea. Social media sites have everything visible
with a click of a button for anyone to partake in. However, other forms of technology, wikis,
blogs, and websites allow others to type in keywords and instantly come to the
knowledge they wish to know more about or contribute to a cause.
This research article discusses how the “cognitive load” is
easier to understand when divided up among group members and recombined as
opposed to learning all individually.
Reference: Rheingold, H. (2008,
February). Howard Rheingold on collaboration [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/howard_rheingold_on_collaboration.html
I commented on the following blogs:
http://kburrough2012.blogspot.com/2012/10/collaboration.html?showComment=1350190492628#c5314217351430087423
Hi Tiffany,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the analogies you used. I too agree that God created us as social beings with an innate desire to be around others. Consequently, the advantages of working together far outweigh the disadvantages. As the old saying goes, “two heads are better than one!”
Danita