"Caveat emptor" might be a saying well worth following. Here are a couple of interesting blog posts that question some assumptions. This posting is somewhat of a follow-on an earlier one http://digitalhornbook.blogspot.com/2008/08/digital-natives-attitude-or-competence.html.
Michelle Martin writes in Masters of Technology? from Work Literacy about "A new report, sponsored by the British Library and the Joint Information Systems Committee, debunks the myth that young people are “masters of technology,” finding that while teens may have the basic technology skills to use tools like search engines, they lack the information processing and higher order thinking skills necessary to really use them effectively. "
On the Mashable! blog, Mark Hopkins writes Wisdom of the Crowds Isn’t the Answer for Everything where he questions the validity of the phrase and gives some good examples of where it fails miserably (remember the "Emperor's New Clothes"). Wikipedia's section on Wisdom of the Crowds lists four elements required to form a wise crowd as:
- Diversity of opinion: Each person should have private information even if it's just an eccentric interpretation of the known facts.
- Independence: People's opinions aren't determined by the opinions of those around them.
- Decentralization: People are able to specialize and draw on local knowledge.
- Aggregation: Some mechanism exists for turning private judgments into a collective decision.
How many times do we have that combination?
