The article primarily focused on Project K-Nect, and the results from this study seemed quite promising. Admittedly, the study was not vetted with a formally designed control group, and the students involved in the survey were simply a convenience sample. This means that the results could be skewed.

However, there is one particular finding that I had not considered before: Collective Intelligence as it relates to cell phones outside the classroom.

As I read through the article, most of the content presented ideas/possibilities I’d heard before. The article referenced everything from anytime, anywhere learning to the use of math games on the cell phone to encourage students to engage in learning. The article even mentioned the phenomenon of “shy” students becoming more participative in the virtual realm.

The new idea, related to collective intelligence, was the emerging learning community (not earth shattering yet) that could respond to problems in real time. That was the new element! In asynchronous learning, one issue is that if a student has a problem, then they might receive an immediate response to a post but they might be forced to wait for some amount of time.

If every student has a smartphone (as was the case for Project K-Nect), then students are more likely to receive immediate feedback and help. In the Project K-Nect scenario, the community of learners could help one another in real time. In most online classes, this is only possible if students find a computer and log onto the Internet. However, with mobile technology, help is only a text or post away.

We are beginning to hear some prognosticators declare that most individuals will do a majority of web surfing on mobile devices by the year 2020 (as in the video Did You Know 4.0). Similarly, smartphone ownership is increasing daily. These two trends could easily pave the way for a mobile community of collective intelligence.