To simply put it, collaborative intelligence is to use the knowledge, understanding, intelligence of everybody to create one greater result that is celebrated and appreciated as everybody’s work by everybody, and is available for everybody, thus using collaborative intelligence for better humans.
The tools out there to help create an intelligent collaborative atmosphere are too many, and they are getting greater in number and better as we speak. I am sure that all of us are careful about finding the best technological tool to do something, but what I urge us to do is to pick whichever and do something. I know that we have to think twice before we learn a new piece of software because time is limited and you know the rest of the excuses, but I urge us to start with as little information as possible and learn along the way, mostly from our mistakes; that will count for an adventure, and we as teachers rarely have any adventures.
The second time we try to learn a new thing is always easier than the first; the same goes for the application. What I am trying to say is that we do not have time to pre-assess and over-analyze what we need to do, and how we can do it as best as we can. It is a mere practical field, where we have to shoot down a line of sight; we cannot predict the future anymore. The only thing that is promising is that we get better as we try more and more. The urge to start using these tools whether they are Google Docs, blogs, websites, forums, wikis, applications, social media integration, etc. is not for the mere benefit of our students as learners, but for them to become better human beings. The whole culture will slowly start to change from a secretive culture where we hold tight to our information as if it were our little child to the culture of information abundance. Students will carry these experiences later on in their lives. They will be able to work in teams better, they will not be seeking to steal information from anyone, but above all, they will be willing to take the initiative more to contribute to the wellness of the world.
I know this might sound a little Utopian, but what I know for sure is that I have definitely wasted all the precious hours I spent on researching (in-depth) which technological tool I should use with nothing good happening to me or my students, whereas all the clumsy beginnings with almost unknown tools (at least to me at the time) led to some considerable concrete positive changes in my students and me. I can say that from what I noticed in their behavior later and from what they keep telling me, but what I can be confident about is that these experiences have changed me, and made me want to share everything I know with the world and be willing to learn from anybody. This has done great work on my ego as well. As Einstein said once that “Ego = 1/knowledge.”
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