Chapter Four: Learning in the Collective
Quote: “Our ability to produce, consume, and distribute knowledge in an unlimited, unfiltered and immediate way is the primary reason for the changes we see today.” This sums up the counterargument to the age old “you won’t always have a calculator in your pocket”, by identifying the key aspects of modern society’s advancement.
Question: How can we address the limits of collectives? How can we effectively educate and make use of these tools when, as the author insists, “any effort to define or direct collectives would destroy the very thing that is unique and innovative about them”?
Connection: This topic reminded me of our blogging and google community work, because these are each forms of a collective being formed.
Epiphany/Aha: Modern education relies much more on uncertainty and the undefinable, keeping students ready for the future.
Quote: “Our ability to produce, consume, and distribute knowledge in an unlimited, unfiltered and immediate way is the primary reason for the changes we see today.” This sums up the counterargument to the age old “you won’t always have a calculator in your pocket”, by identifying the key aspects of modern society’s advancement.
Question: How can we address the limits of collectives? How can we effectively educate and make use of these tools when, as the author insists, “any effort to define or direct collectives would destroy the very thing that is unique and innovative about them”?
Connection: This topic reminded me of our blogging and google community work, because these are each forms of a collective being formed.
Epiphany/Aha: Modern education relies much more on uncertainty and the undefinable, keeping students ready for the future.
Chapter Five: The Personal with the Collective
Quote: “Is public versus private really the best way to frame the distinction anymore?” This touches on how, even in broader topics, technology has changed our society.
Question: Is the collective really that different from the public, when anyone in the public can often gain access to the collective?
Connection: I thought the idea of crowdsourcing that they mentioned reflects a powerful way to use this classroom environment. Having each student read a different article and share their findings, it’s possible to gain a great deal more information in a much shorter timeframe.
Epiphany/Aha: Collectives are emerging throughout life, and making the way we interact with the world at every age much different than it was before.
Chapter Six: We Know More Than We Can Say
Quote: “Different people, when presented with exactly the same information in exactly the same way, will learn different things.” I felt that this did a good job of adding depth to the usual discussion of learning styles in education.
Question: Is there a way to effectively balance the drive to move toward inquiry and the interest in tacit/content knowledge?
Connection:I thought about the struggles my department in clinical practice is facing in balancing the old content-based style with the new need for critical thinking?
Epiphany/Aha: This reminded me of my favorite thing about college; as long as I could perform on assessments, I was able to get access to the information by whatever means worked best for me.