Knowledge Commons
With my interest in social networking in schools, I have started reading some about the knowledge commons. With the expansion of the internet, knowledge can now take on some of the characteristics of “commons” as we know it from the natural-resource world. There are two main differences though between natural resource commons and the new knowledge commons - knowledge commons are non-depletable and non-rivalrous. Knowledge resources often multiply the more people are a part of the network, so they grow in richness rather than become more scarce. Because there is not a finite amount of knowledge, there is no competition among consumers.
One of the issues with knowledge commons in schools is that it doesn’t fit the age-old paradigm of knowledge creation and consumption. This paradigm primarily rests on the idea of individualism. Because of our assessment models, learning is quite commonly perceived as individualistic. While collaboration occurs in the classroom, it does not have the same richness as a knowledge commons supported by digital technologies.
As with other commons, knowledge commons must have its own set of clearly defined norms in order to function successfully, otherwise members of the community can abuse the knowledge creation process and cause the network to degrade or even collapse. These, too, are issues that we are struggling with as we encourage a knowledge commons in school.
How do we shift the mindset (of all school community stakeholders) from learning as individualistic to learning as common? I think that is my struggle at the moment.
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