After reading Knapp's Google and Wikipedia: Friend or Foe I am reminded of Who Wants to be a Millionaire and the 'Ask the Audience' lifeline. Its not a coincidence that the audience usually has it right... with a few exceptions. The same seems to be the case for Wikipedia and the 'wisdom of crowds.' The greater the 'sample size' the greater probability that the information at hand will be accurate... and what greater 'sample size' can be created than through Google and Wikipedia?! Perhaps we should suggest two other lifelines for the TV program: 1) Google it! and 2) Wiki it! From there we could go on to perform a quantitative research study on whether these lifelines lead the contestant to the correct answer....??? (Experiment is subject to Pat's approval... of course :)
May I go "meta" for a moment, Eleni? ;-)
ReplyDeleteI am pleased to read that you were thinking about the wisdom of crowds idea, because it is one of those concepts that is both rich and interdisciplinary. At other times when we've worked with wikipedia we've used it to explore epistemology--how we *know* As we contemplate the social dimension of knowledge via the wisdom of crowds idea, we open up *all kinds* of interesting questions about knowledge, trust, verification, and social interactions with the world.
So glad that this caught your attention, Eleni...keep thinking about these ideas, and about where you might explore them in your teaching.