"Knowing how" to use wiki

In his paper, Knowing How and Knowing That, Gilbert Ryle makes the observation that there is something different about doing a thing than knowing about it. He notes that you will find people that can do something, but do not know all of the rules concerning that thing. There are also those that know how to do something, but cannot actually do it. Ryle expresses this phenomenon by saying that there is not the same gap between intelligence and practice as there is between theory and practice. He expresses this thought by saying, “Rules, like birds, must live before they can be stuffed.” He makes a good point, but I think he misses one element. The distinction he makes between those who act “intelligently” and those who act “stupidly” is fine, but seemingly permanent. I would argue that there is little that cannot be learned, even in the area of “intelligence”, or what we might call: common sense.

On a different note, Kevin Sheets says that the wiki process helps students to see themselves as a part of a “democratic conversation”. I would agree with him that the process he established in the article, Wiki in the Classroom, was to some degree collaborative, but not democratic. The students who came later in the exercise were not restricted to adding their own content, but were able to alter or eliminate the comments of the students who came before. That would mean that if these comments were on a wiki format, my dissent with Sheets could be silenced by anyone sympathetic to his ideals. How is that democratic? There is the argument that alterations can be reversed, but that ability does not satisfy. It is a rare circumstance that would cause a reader to view the comments that were made before the ones currently posted. In fact, even if the author of the altered text restored it to their original, what would prevent the one who altered it from changing it back, and so a shoving match in sues.