Shirley Brady

Module 3 Blog Post

Do you believe that humans have a basic instinct to “interact and work as a group,” as Rheingold proposed in his discussion of the evolution of Wikipedia as a collectively developed encyclopedia? How can technology facilitate collaboration among learners based on constructivist principles? Find a current research study that has been conducted in the last 5 years that supports collaboration as an effective tool for learning.

Howard Rheingold: Way-New Collaboration http://www.ted.com/talks/howard_rheingold_on_collaboration.html

In our workplace there have not been a lot of examples as to how collaboration works.  As individuals we envision collaboration as what works for oneself.  Howard Rheingold makes mention of the “Split Game.”  In this game two individuals who are not familiar with each other are placed in different rooms and given a problem.  They are given a $100 dollars and one of the individuals decides what is to be done with it and the other has the choice to accept or reject the idea.  The offer was only accepted when the offer was very close to the even split of being evenly divided.  Rheingold pointed out that it is to no advantage to reject even the $1 against 0 but is does happen.

As we get a better understanding of what collaboration really is and seeing the benefit individuals working together to achieve the same goal. A good example of this is Wikipedia.  This site provides many instances where people are collaborating together to put together enlightening users of all available information and no particular individual reaps these benefits.  If a way can be found to convince individuals that everybody can benefit from a reward other than oneself, this will increase the drive to collaborate.