On Tue, 10 May 2011, Cindy Harper wrote:
> I know I've been told that "authority is dead", but I think it's a
> legitimate research question whether crowds limited to "academic"
> members would differ in book/page rankings from unlimited crowds.
Hi Cindy:
Consider Critical Thinking to be absolutely basic, more significant than
any piece[s] of information or data. The *process* should be taught in
secondary schools [and libraries, prisons, corporations, media
enterprises, governments, the legal system, etc.] as basic to human
knowledge processing, rather than be considered an [elitist?] "academic"
discipline.
> How do you ensure the crowd is using Critical Thinking?
Patience and self-evaluation. First, work toward making instruction in
Critical Thinking even more interesting and important that sex-education
or physical education or the multiplication tables or the use of the
library catalog or shopping. 2nd, make "Critical" evaluation of crowd and
individual decisions part of the required curriculum to effectuate the
crowds' evaluation of themselves.
We can't rush to throw out babies with the bathwater if the babies aren't
born yet and the bathtub hasn't been filled, but that is exactly the
direction crowd and individual decision-making has been going for some
time (human history) and is *increasingly* trending.
Cheers!
jgm
John G. Marr
Cataloger
CDS, UL
Univ. of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM 87131
jmarr_at_unm.edu
jmarr_at_flash.net
**There are only 2 kinds of thinking: "out of the box" and "outside
the box."
Opinions belong exclusively to the individuals expressing them, but
sharing is permitted.
Received on Tue May 10 2011 - 14:42:28 EDT