History points to it. Technology is increasingly leading the human population towards increased collaboration. In his TED talk, Howard Rheingold speaks about how many of the advancements in recent times (17th century on) are attributed to collaborative processes. Cooperative arrangements have moved to the forefront in many disciplines. This is evident in all aspects of our society. Peer-to-peer software programs exist to share everything from music to important documents. We see wikis (like wikileaks) popping up everywhere to hold the individual elite accountable to the masses. Open source programs (open office, linux, etc.) are becoming increasingly popular. All evidence points to society placing an increased importance on collaboration.
The same is no different in science and science education. Birnholtz (2005) explains that authorship in physics is becoming increasingly difficult since many research papers take the combined efforts of hundreds and thousands of scientists. As I mentioned a few posts back, science knowledge is generated through collaboration and this is a skill that should be taught to students. If the current trend continues, then it is essential that students understand the importance of collaboration.
The last school I taught at had many bright students (I mean MANY). One student had developed a program that intakes various biometric data sets and provides a diagnosis of breast cancer. She took her idea and program to the International Science Fair and won first place in Computer Science. She later uploaded the entire program into the cloud and allowed anyone the ability to access it. She is the future; she is the student we must be prepared to teach.
Not all students will be superstars, but we can nonetheless foster the idea of collaboration with all of them. Wikis are a great way to foster collaboration in a science classroom. It offers the students the first tastes of a peer-to-peer interaction. Students will encounter this interaction many times should they choose to pursue an academic career in the sciences. It also helps to illustrate how knowledge is the sciences is socially constructed. Many people praise Einstein for his individual intellect. However, they fail to see the mighty framework upon which his theories were built.
Dropbox, Google Drive, wikis, and other collaborative technologies are moving education in the right direction. They are technologies that I am excited to use in my own practice.
References
Birnholtz, J.P. (2005). What Does It Mean To Be An Author? The Intersection of Credit, Contribution and Collaboration in Science. Journal of the Amercian Society for Information Science and Technology, 57(13), pp. 1758-1770.
Rheingold, H. (2005). Howard Rheingold: The new power of collaboration. Accessed from http://www.ted.com/talks/howard_rheingold_on_collaboration.html on July 17th, 2013
Significant Comments:
http://misspariseau.weebly.com/4/post/2013/07/collaboration-and-cloud-computing.html#comments
http://jillianmacdonald.wordpress.com/2013/07/17/topic-7-collaboration/comment-page-1/#comment-13
The same is no different in science and science education. Birnholtz (2005) explains that authorship in physics is becoming increasingly difficult since many research papers take the combined efforts of hundreds and thousands of scientists. As I mentioned a few posts back, science knowledge is generated through collaboration and this is a skill that should be taught to students. If the current trend continues, then it is essential that students understand the importance of collaboration.
The last school I taught at had many bright students (I mean MANY). One student had developed a program that intakes various biometric data sets and provides a diagnosis of breast cancer. She took her idea and program to the International Science Fair and won first place in Computer Science. She later uploaded the entire program into the cloud and allowed anyone the ability to access it. She is the future; she is the student we must be prepared to teach.
Not all students will be superstars, but we can nonetheless foster the idea of collaboration with all of them. Wikis are a great way to foster collaboration in a science classroom. It offers the students the first tastes of a peer-to-peer interaction. Students will encounter this interaction many times should they choose to pursue an academic career in the sciences. It also helps to illustrate how knowledge is the sciences is socially constructed. Many people praise Einstein for his individual intellect. However, they fail to see the mighty framework upon which his theories were built.
Dropbox, Google Drive, wikis, and other collaborative technologies are moving education in the right direction. They are technologies that I am excited to use in my own practice.
References
Birnholtz, J.P. (2005). What Does It Mean To Be An Author? The Intersection of Credit, Contribution and Collaboration in Science. Journal of the Amercian Society for Information Science and Technology, 57(13), pp. 1758-1770.
Rheingold, H. (2005). Howard Rheingold: The new power of collaboration. Accessed from http://www.ted.com/talks/howard_rheingold_on_collaboration.html on July 17th, 2013
Significant Comments:
http://misspariseau.weebly.com/4/post/2013/07/collaboration-and-cloud-computing.html#comments
http://jillianmacdonald.wordpress.com/2013/07/17/topic-7-collaboration/comment-page-1/#comment-13
RSS Feed