Book contents
- Should You Believe Wikipedia?
- Should You Believe Wikipedia?
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction Design and Social Behavior
- 1 Are Online “Communities” Really Communities?
- 2 What Can Online Collaboration Accomplish?
- 3 Should You Believe Wikipedia?
- 4 How Does the Internet Change How We Think?
- 5 How Do People Express Identity Online, and Why Is This Important for Online Interaction?
- 6 What Is Bad Online Behavior, and What Can We Do About It?
- 7 How Do Business Models Shape Online Communities?
- 8 How Can We Help the Internet to Bring Out the Best in Us All?
- References
- Index
4 - How Does the Internet Change How We Think?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 January 2022
- Should You Believe Wikipedia?
- Should You Believe Wikipedia?
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction Design and Social Behavior
- 1 Are Online “Communities” Really Communities?
- 2 What Can Online Collaboration Accomplish?
- 3 Should You Believe Wikipedia?
- 4 How Does the Internet Change How We Think?
- 5 How Do People Express Identity Online, and Why Is This Important for Online Interaction?
- 6 What Is Bad Online Behavior, and What Can We Do About It?
- 7 How Do Business Models Shape Online Communities?
- 8 How Can We Help the Internet to Bring Out the Best in Us All?
- References
- Index
Summary
Focuses on “knowledge-building communities,” and how the internet changes how we think. People increasingly come to learn things not alone but as part of a group—what everyone else around you believes shapes what you believe. The internet is a catalyst for this process. When a group of people work together to accomplish a task, they form what is called a “community of practice.” Collaboratively constructing knowledge online is a process that takes place in a community of practice. I’ll explain how communities of practice operate, through the work of Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger. The knowledge-building process is strongly supported by elements of the software environment as well as the people working together. This is a kind of “distributed cognition,” and work by Edwin Hutchins can help us understand it better.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Should You Believe Wikipedia?Online Communities and the Construction of Knowledge, pp. 91 - 117Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022