Reflective Post #4: Collective Intelligence and Personal Learning Environments

Collective Intelligence: What it could mean for education Summary:

In Bullock’s Article, he describes why the digital natives and digital immigrants shouldn’t be separated, but be working together through collective intelligence.  Bullock says that technology (Web 2.0) can be used to reform the education system in North America in “powerful ways.”  The education system in NA is geared for the individual and is restrictive to collaboration and group efforts.  However, by adopting collective intelligence, NA can promote collaboration, cooperation, and sharing of information through the use of social media, wikis, and documents.  Bullock says “Teacher educators have a golden opportunity to disrupt the effects of mass acculturation through traditional schooling by using digital technologies that are likely to contribute to collective intelligence.”

How Collective Intelligence Redefines Education Summary:

                In this article, Ilon first explains how the school system is “governed” from the top down.  He shows how the student is set up to learn “facts” from the so-called “experts” in each field.  This way, the student can be accurately tested and the growth/understanding can be measured.  He points out that a school is setup similar to a factory, where all working parts are trying to create the same end product.  He states in today’s current system there is no place for collective intelligence.  Ilon also points out the fact that many schools have sites such as Wikipedia.com blocked from use.  One of the biggest factors to overcome, in implementing collective intelligence, is the structure of the current system.  The article states, “If formal educational systems are to embrace collective intelligence, they will require a systemic revamp.”  Ilon then goes on to illustrate how effective collective intelligence can be in the education system with examples of use in the real world.  By relating the collective intelligence system to our current economic system, Ilon claims that collective intelligence is valid and we can use our economic system as the framework.

7 Things You Should Know About Personal Learning Environments Summary:

                A personal learning environment or PLE “describes the tools, communities, and services that constitute the individual educational platforms learners use to direct their own learning and pursue educational goals.”  These differ from LMS’s (learning management system) which are more course-centric.  The article summarizes the growing use of PLEs in colleges and universities and where the future of PLEs could take education.  The effects PLEs could have on the classroom are endless, but the article focuses on the collaboration and orchestration of collecting information, rather than memorizing facts.  The drawbacks, as shown in the article, would include students referencing resources that are “taken down” or no longer available through technology and students misinterpreting opinion for fact.

PLE Video Summary:

                The student begins by showing us how her PLE is set up.  She is working through Google docs and has her background separated by academics and personal files.  She starts by showing us some of the features of her Google docs and then jumps into her agenda for science class.  We see she is doing a report on animals, more specifically the box jellyfish.  She shows us where she got her information and how she created a glogster (page of information) to display the research she found.  She shows us numerous ways in which she is peer reviewed and even contacts a couple “experts” on box jellyfish to check her work.  At the end of the video, the student comments on how much better it is to research in this fashion rather than using a textbook or notebook and paper.

Reflection:

After reading the first two articles on collective intelligence, I can see the benefits and why people are pushing to implement this system into education.  It is a great way to instill collaboration and cooperation between peers, students-teachers-parents, and worldwide classrooms.  People sharing, adding, collection, and organizing information to work toward the same goal can only lead to good things.  As Ilon’s article states, the current system we have implemented will need to be reformed before we can incorporate collective intelligence.  I find myself trying to implement these types of projects/methods of learning, but I find I don’t have time and I know other teachers out there who feel the same.  I don’t mean time in a day or time to plan, but with the “almighty” test approaching, there is no time to steer off course from that material.

We just had a county wide meeting where our curriculum director talked to us about teaching to the test because in the future we might move to merit pay…  She said people always ask why she wants us to teach to the test, and her response was “is there anything on the test you don’t think the students should know?”  Well, this is where the problem lies.  While everything on the test may be important, who is to say that Johnny or Susie doesn’t know the material because they didn’t answer one question about it correctly at that one time.  This is where collective intelligence could benefit students because they will have access to the information and can utilize available resources rather than memorizing facts.

The article and video on PLEs was very interesting.  I enjoyed seeing a PLE in action, and would like to utilize that in my own classroom.  The PLEs allow students to work through at their own pace with more internal goals driving their learning.  One flaw I see in my own classroom, however, is the fact that students have no technology skills to begin with.  At my school district, we do not have any technology classes until high school, so setting up something like a PLE will take months, starting with the basics of technology.  Granted, there will be students, who know how to do/pick up on things easily, but overall, it will take time (and again time is something I don’t have to give).

I would like to see a reform of the current system.  The push with differentiation is a step in the right direction, but even so, we are differentiating the students to learn the same thing for the same test.  Hopefully in the future we will see collective intelligence utilized and PLEs set up in the classroom, but with the current structure of our education system I don’t think it will happen.