Practicum 7 - A Final Wrap Up

I've spent a lot of time this semester researching, making a powerpoint, rereading articles, applying concepts, and writing this paper all for the sake of this practicum. I chose to do my practicum project on specialized information sites and in even more detail I picked a very heavily commented articled entitled "Creating an effective Facebook Post" by Carley Knobloch on the information website eHow. While I did learn a few new aspects of the new Facebook in the article what I learned most was how specialized information sites affect the concept of collective intelligence and the community on these types of sites are very user information consuming. Articles are written to teach and inform instead of be critiqued and analyzed. The site eHow does accurately fit Pierre Levy's three aspects of Collective Intelligence. While the real-time coordination of intelligence is a bit of a stretch it can be argued that authors can upload their articles onto the site as soon as they're written. For the most part specialized information sites such as eHow are an endless source of information that allows users to gain and understand skills that they did not have before. Facebook has become a very important part of the internet and is used as the way to post comments on an eHow article. While the community on the actual site is not very active, the eHow page on Facebook is updated with new articles where users from all across the globe constantly comment and debate different ways and tips to enhance each users experience with the article. In the end I searched and read through many how-to articles to find one that showed community and that interested me. When I found the article that fit my needs I was able to learn and discover about the idea of collective intelligence.