There is an ongoing discussion about how to understand intelligence in groups/networks. The discussion revolves around the distinction between collectivism and connectivism.
Post by Terry Anderson
Collectivism and Connectivism
Post by George Siemens
Collective Intelligence? Nah. Connective Intelligence
These two concepts are interesting to a discussion of where knowledge is situated in organizations – or in broader networks. An interesting aspect of the concepts is that they describe learning and knowledge in relation to social interaction on the web. I believe the concepts could be informed by theories such as activity theory, communities of practice and distributed cognition.
On the other hand, these concepts and the new forms of social interaction on the web challenge these theories, because the theories are not developed with such interactions in mind, and, thus, need to be rethought or expanded.
