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Gradual Unveiling #2: Talk amongst ourselves

A series of worthwhile, and leading, blog entries that others have written and I’m starting to link together for you: Smart Mobs quotes “Horizon Report on emerging educational technologies (of cooperation)”:

Collaboration is increasingly seen as critical across the range of educational activities, including intra- and inter-institutional activities of any size or scope. As the ways in which researchers, students and teachers can collaborate with each other increase, knowledge is becoming a community property, and the construction of knowledge is becoming a community activity. A renewed emphasis on collaborative learning is leading to an exploration of the science of gaming, context-aware environments and devices, and their application for teaching and learning.

Karen Lofstrom said,

October 5, 2006 @ 1:35 am

Those institutional bozos should talk to those of us who have been fighting it out in the trenches of Wikipedia. Throwing a wiki open to every human being with net access is starting to seem increasingly nuts to me — articles created, torn down, recreated, endlessly. Every new editor to be educated all over again — and rejecting education, because of course it is his or her Jimbo-given RIGHT to say whatever he or she pleases. Nothing to govern this but an adversarial process that takes months to weed out the trolls.

It’s educational in a way — I’ve learned a great deal about the thought processes of Hindutvadis, Salafis, Shi’a, anti-Muslim bigots, and obsessed fans. But it’s exhausting.

Restricting a wiki to those with institutional credentials (only those with PhDs and tenure allowed to contribute) also seems like a recipe for inanition. You’re going to end up with people saying the “right” things to stay on the right side of those with power.

Making it work requires some serious thought about how to run collaborations. I don’t think anyone has started to do this yet. I’d like to be wrong. Am I wrong?

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