Mass Collaboration:

All great projects require mass collaboration. The pyramids of Giza, the Great Wall of China, and The Chunnel are examples of engineering marvels that would never been possible without the Mass Collaboration of shared knowledge and physical labor. Blood, sweat, and tears are not necessary when it comes to Mass Collaboration via the web. One only needs an open mind and willingness to share challenge and justify ideas. It is now possible to for thousands or more individuals to collaborate in an efficient manner via the web. Wikipedia is essentially a Mass Collaboration site in which people freely share their knowledge with others. This knowledge is grown and filtered by other users of this mass collaboration tool. In fact a young student from Ireland recently posted bogus material on Wikipedia which was soon caught as inaccurate by other users, but not by the print media. M.C. allows for people of varied backgrounds and skill sets to contribute to almost any project. Challenging and building ideas in a diverse environment can yield unexpected, yet very positive outcomes. As teachers we work to instill the virtue of cooperative groups and the positive aspects of synergy. It is important for us to model M.C. to our students and give them a chance to participate in M.C. projects. This can be as simple as setting up a chat room discussion with other classes based on an academic theme, or organizing a community service project. It is also important that we set up norms for M.C. and think about what are the optimal conditions for certain projects. Although M.C. can be extremely helpful, sometimes it is possible for people to get distracted or bogged down with minute details. It is important that we pick appropriate projects for MC and use protocols that assist with avoiding analysis paralysis.