Before concluding, lest we appear to be zealots, overeager drinkers of the newest technological Kool-Aid®, we do understand that solitary writing matters. We acknowledge that in our classrooms we also privilege individual accomplishments, solitary writing, and individual agency. We value the power of the individual to create fundamental change. At times, an individual can be profoundly creative. Although it may be increasingly more difficult to be disconnected from the Internet, surely there are some writers out there now, working in isolation, toiling away in garrets.

We also acknowledge that collaborative writing can be more difficult than solitary writing. From stock market bubbles to real estate bubbles;

from riots to the impassioned pleas of bystanders for suicide jumpers to take the leap; from needlessly off topic, mean reviews of texts submitted for publication to dysfunctional peer groups in writing classrooms, we all know groups of people can act illogically, capriciously, and in some instances viciously. On a personal level, we probably have all had poor experiences working in groups or committees. Collaborative writing can be fraught with difficulties – interpersonal problems, differences in opinion regarding roles and responsibilities, and even confusion regarding how to use specific tools. From James Surowiecki's The Wisdom of Crowds (2005), we know that group think can happen when groups prohibit dissensus and

that riots can happen when the group is composed of a disproportionate number of people who are predisposed to rioting.

Yet we have also learned that when dissensus is permitted, groups of people can be wiser than individuals. Hence, while we acknowledge the difficulties invoked by collaborative work, we believe that today's new online social networking tools, including collaborative gaming environments, present a viable way to develop knowledge claims that may be wiser than the claims developed by individuals. In turn, we argue that social networking tools constitute a major new way to construct and disseminate knowledge.