knowledgeer-at-large

I just joined a Ning social network called The Mistake Bank. No big deal, I have several others I belong to including a network I launched called Knowledge Work Innovation and quickly let go dormant… (maybe I should try to develop that again), but the Mistake Bank network is quite interesting.

The premise: to share one’s mistakes and subsequently learn/benefit from the mistakes of others is a fascinating concept.  However, I see several challenges for the Mistake Bank.

First is the issue of simple reuse.  The construct of a mistake has to be a story. There will be a context from which the mistake occurs which makes categorization and comparative analysis difficult.  The Mistake Bank is just keyword searching list and will not really address this issue.

Second, and the more relavant issue: can information regarding someone else’s experience effect one’s own knowledge creation and subsequently guide one’s future behavior.  I have a strong sense that this is a very weak possibility.  I believe that many other knowledge construct mechanics will be held much stronger.  So, when a Mistake Bank mistake is read/viewed/heard that reinforces one’s previously held thinking/beliefs I think it will be taken as a slight addition to one’s rationale.  And, when a mistake is read/viewed/heard that conflicts with one’s previously held thinking/beliefs it will not be accepted until the scope of the context for the mistake is uncovered/developed to a much greater degree, so that either the case for the mistake is very compelling or that the context no longer matches the previously held context.

With all this being said, I am still very interested in The Mistake Bank.  I have always intended to use the basic concept of experiential knowledge development in the knortal project.   Expertise and the positive/negative experiences of others will be very important to leverage if we can.  To this end, I have followed the work of Scardamalia & Bereiter in this area.

I will continue the topic of expertise and learning from other’s mistakes in the future.