Institutions vs. Collaboration

After watching the Clay Shirkey video, I was reminded what annoys me about things like TED Talks.  We get generalizations that sound like nifty "outside the box" thinking, but are really false analogies to the issue at hand for most.  If this was a speech aimed specifically and only at creating institutions to organize information on a topic versus community collaboration, it makes a good point.  If we try to say that this change has consequences in other arenas of life...well, maybe.

When he gave the Flickr example, the thing I kept thinking was "Great, I can easily get pictures of the Mermaid Parade or Iraq.  What's stopping me from accidentally getting a picture that is incorrectly labeled?"  And that's what I worry about when applying the community model to education.  What is more dangerous- information being slightly sparse and difficult to find, or plentiful and potentially incorrect?  I would say the latter is of greater concern.  As a student teacher, I remember being told "If you don't know the answer, don't try to fake it.  This isn't a term paper where you're supposed to know the answer.  These kids will believe what you say."

We look to collaboration in the classroom both in terms of resources, and as a way for students to process information and build knowledge.  In terms of resources, I know I'm skating perilously close to Wikipedia territory.  I'm going to dodge that bullet by saying that the far left of Shirkey's graph, in reference to Wikipedia, are highly concerned with accuracy of information.  The same can't be said for Flickr.  In that sense, Wikipedia takes on traits of both collaboration and institution in that those on the far left of the graph have been known to take an "edit first, ask questions later" attitude.  In terms of collaboration between students, we have to address the same concerns- if they are going to learn from each other, we had better make sure what they're saying is right.  This can probably be addressed with clearly defined group roles and redundant responsibilities, but it's not quite certain.

And this segues nicely into reinforcing effort in cooperative learning.  Keeping open lines of communication between the teacher and the groups can keep students interested, on task, and ensure that the information they are learning is accurate.  On long-term projects, Edmodo is a nice tool for this.  But even having students create blogs like this one would suffice.

Ultimately, cooperative learning can be effective and gives students a variety of skills.  However, it differs from a collaborative business model.  What does it cost Flickr if a few of their Iraq photos are labeled incorrectly?  But if we give students incorrect information, it could take years for that to be undone.