Ashley's E-portfolio

Journal 4: Knowledge

 

        Knowledge is all the information that one obtains throughout their experiences and memories. It is part of how we live are daily lives, seeing that for every choice and rational decision we make is based on prior knowledge; lessons and reasoning we have learned and make use of when it is required next. Knowledge is in essence a source of power, one can use the things they know to their advantage and it may also have a ripple effect and cause those who do not have the same amount of knowledge have a disadvantage. Yet too much knowledge can hurt an individual because it attracts unwanted attention from people who may want to use you because you are a resource they need. Knowledge is also a source of self-empowerment, it is a confident booster which helps individuals with self-esteem issues. Knowledge is the everlasting opportunity to improve, to excel, to advance. It is the motivation that keeps you going because when one knows the chances that could present themselves in the future it is in human behavior to pursue what you know will happen. Knowledge is a form of categorizing, each and every subject has a place for itself and knowing the meaning the reasoning behind certain subjects allows for that topic to be categorized into its own group containing only similar information/knowledge.

        Jenkins seems to define knowledge as context that one is familiar with. He states that, “collective intelligence refers to this ability of virtual communities to leverage the combined expertise of their members.” Meaning that collective knowledge helps everyone, it forms a community of people who share what they know and others who look for the answer to things unknown to them. From personal experience this is very true seeing that every time I am unfamiliar with a subject I look it up or ask someone who will most likely be well informed on that subject. This involves collectively searching for what you do not know, when I have an assignment and cannot figure out how to do it efficiently I seek help from friends who are taking a similar if not the same class, but when we both do not know we seek further assistance this is the process that Jenkins speaks about. When two or more people actively search for the knowledge they lack it relates back to the connection between knowledge and teamwork. With that said, in my personal opinion collaboration is definitely crucial to the knowledge-making process. Along with time has come a plethora amount of knowledge that are collectively come from those who discovered and uncovered what use to be unknown and has also lead to theories that have led to more modern discoveries. The collaboration has led us to the world we live in now it is also a way in which we have developed as human beings. Like Jenkins says, “What we cannot know or do on our own, we may now be able to do collectively.” Not one person knows it all therefore, the knowledge of many allows for more efficient and sufficient results of all sorts of knowledge.

        Ferguson’s discussion of remix affected my understanding of the knowledge-making process because it allowed me to see through means that I can relate to that every piece of work is in fact a collaborate effort from previous works, and if not it has its own genre that has been reused over and over again but can be presented in different scenarios in disguised to make it seem original. He reiterates the essence of copying and how it is so common that every time there is a new policy that has stricter restriction against copying in an effort to stop it. In essence he is depicting the idea of borrowing, and how it is true that when one copy’s in their advantage there is no sign of a problem but when someone else copy’s we have an issue, which relates to how humanity is selfish. He has changed my idea of the knowledge making process, I use to believe it was reading as much as you could to know more and be able to defend yourself when the situation presented itself. Whereas now, I believe that the knowledge-making process is in fact, “nature in innovation and is completely inevitable” It is the adopting cycle of evolution in which we captivate, analysis, transform, and combine previous knowledge to make new knowledge and it happens over and over again. It is a system, a cycle. The remix plays an effective role in the knowledge-making process by providing examples in various categories and explaining how the causes have led to the effects, and how it has form different properties that are now known to our society.