Tremblaye’s Weblog

“communities however, are held together through the mutual production and reciprocal exchange of knowledge” (Jenkins 27).

The term “mutual production” is a key term that Jenkins uses. It would not be collective intelligence if it was only one person or one person doing most of the work. This work has to be done by multiple people by the community. The word community could mean everyone or just the online community or the community of users of the website. The idea of “reciprocal exchange of knowledge” is also something important to understand. The fact that groups fall apart when there is no communication is an example of this, this is why coaches are always yelling at their players to talk. The Wiki experience showed me that Jenkins knows what he is talking about. The class was our community and the group was my section of this small community. Without communication my group was not very successful but after we began to talk the ideas were flowing. I think that Jenkins is right that in order to have a functioning community or a functioning Wiki page, there has to be an interaction and swapping of information. This idea of collective intelligence is key in order to have a good Wiki page. I think that collective intelligence is a good way to work. I have never been a fan of group projects because I like to do the work on my own. Now I see a different side of group projects. This is the same concept as the phrase, two heads are better than one. If people pool their ideas together they might understand the subject better. I liked it at times because I got to see different perspective and when I see something a different way I understand the topic a lot better.