What+is+knowledge

=Knowledge= toc

**What is it?**
The Oxford Dictionary defines "knowledge" as:
 * 1) Facts, information, and skills acquired through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject and
 * 2) Awareness or familiarity gained by experience of a fact or situation” (Oxford Dictionaries, 2011)

The Wikipedia defines "knowledge" as:
 * 1) **//" //**// a familiarity with someone or something, that can include //[|//information//]//,// [|//facts//]//,// [|//descriptions//]//, and/or// [|//skills//]//acquired through experience or education’’([])//

What is knowledge? If there is no precise definition of knowledge then what is it? B ut, for such broad definitions there is a variety of meanings and understandings associated with the word “knowledge”, it is an abstract thought and is therefore difficult to find a definitive meaning. In the thesaurus other words that mean the same thing are: information, understanding and education. With analyzing these words we can conclude that; information is learned and understood then knowledge is created.

First, its is important to distinguish between knowledge and understanding. Anyone can have knowledge if they can memorize a fact or quote or any other information. Understanding is the interpretation of the knowledge that is received. Some people may be able to rattle scientific theories or history facts because of a good memory, but do they actually undertand what it means?

Knowledge is a familiarity with someone or something, that can include descriptions, facts, information and/or skills acquired through experience or education.([|www.wikipedia.org/wiki/knowledge]). Knowledge can be something that can be passed on through training, teaching, mentoring, etc. or it can be obtained through life experiences where you need a period of time to learn.

Many people agree that knowledge is power, and that the key to life’s successes is what you know, how much you know, and what you can do with it. Knowledge can be based on any subject that comes to mind. For example a person may be knowledgeable in a sport like baseball, in literature, with computer games, scientific elements, accounting, and the list goes on. There is no limit to knowledge because there is always more to discover about an unlimited number of subjects. Knowledge is the understanding of data; it is what is collectively understood to be truth or fact. Numbers and letters are meaningless without context, they are not knowledge, they are information. However, Information can provide knowledge if interpreted correctly.

**Where does it reside?**
It can be argued that knowledge comes from "nature vs nurture". These two forms could have the biggest impacts on the development of knowledge. The genetic factor could physically limit the ability of learning or other way around; for example, some people are talented in different ways. As for the nurture part, a person's surroundings or community create a huge effect on the development of knowledge as well.

Knowledge resides in the hands of the beholder. Figureatively, not literally. It cannot be stored in books or databases, papers or portfolios. It is an intangible, abstract understanding that exists in the mind. One could say that two people have more knowledge than one, or that a business is knowledgeable because the sum of the knowledge acquired by each of its employees collectively, offers a larger net knowledge than one individual.

Knowledge resides in the mind of the person who is knowledgeable about a given subject. The person gains knowledge in a variety of ways and once gained the person cannot give the knowledge back, it stays in their brain. Knowledge is intangible, it cannot be seen, touched, smelled etc. but through experiences and other channels it is gained. To know someone has knowledge you cannot simply just look at them and see the knowledge they possess, you must see that person in action or discussing what they know.

The wide belief that knowledge resides in the brain however is argued against by certain poeple. Some professions such as librarians, knowledge management systems salespeople, and document regulators all believe that knowledge resides in said documents, books, information systems, articles, etc. But until someone learns and gains knowledge from these resources it is really just information. However, it did take knowledge to write the books, articles, and documents (the author's knowledge). In the transition from putting knowledge down on paper and having someone ingest it to enhance their own knowledge, words on a page are really just information. ([])

Consider a book, it holds lots of information and possibly data, however, it does not contain knowledge. Now consider a student who has read said book, digested and interpreted the information, he now has knowledge. The same can be said for television programs, magazines, speakers, brochures, and experiences. The knowledge one gains from all these places is relative to the interpretation and digestion of the information. The process of turning information into some understanding or truth is to gain knowledge.

There are arguably two main types of knowledge a person can possess, there is //"//natural knowledge" and "man-made knowledge". Natural knowledge can be described as common sense, which is something a person knows without having to read a book to learn it. It draws upon human instincts, such as when you feel hungry you know you need to eat. There is no book written that can teach that, even from the moment we are born we have the sense to know what hunger is and what we need to do to satify it. This is how natural knowledge works, no one needs to teach it and we know it from when we are very small.

Man-made knowledge on the other hand is the knowledge people gain from reading, experiencing, watching, and being taught. This knowledge would be what you gain from books and college classes. Much of man-made knowledge is gained voluntarily, as in people choose what they want to be knowledgeable about. A person may want to become a lawyer so that person wants to have the knowledge to get that position, they will voluntarily go to school to gain criminal justice knowledge. Although sometimes man-made knowledge is gained unknowingly, perhaps by reading a book for pleasure a person may gain some knowledge in history.

There can be different areas of knowledge like being "book smart" and "street smart". Would you say a person who has a better score on an IQ test is more knowledgeable than the one who scores lower? The person who scored lower may have knowledge about a subject that the higher scoring person knows nothing about (and cannot be academically tested).

The differences between types of knowledge and how we gain it begins to show how abstract and complicated it can really be. No one thinks of how they know what they know and whether it was natural or man-made. But the exploration of this topic enlightens the complexity of finding the right answer to these questions.

**How is it constructed?**
How is knowledge constructed? Knowledge can be created in many different ways like memory of past events, statistics, analyzing problems, and literature and through different people; the list can go on. Thus knowledge is created in varies of different ways and not just one. Every one has different thoughts and ideas; no two people are the same and actually know everything that the other one knows. Is knowledge an object or a process? Knowledge is a process of thoughts and ideas.

But how can we construct knowledge? Another abstract thought. In order to construct knowledge, we need to create a system that will help us disseminate useless information and data, and organize it in such a fashion that it is useful. Information systems use information technology to perform this very task. Information systems use a five component framework including:
 * Hardware
 * Software
 * Data
 * Procedures
 * People

The **//data//** bridges the gap between the people and the computers. When **//people//** and **//procedures//** work with **//hardware//** and **//software//** efficiently and effectively, we can use the **//data//** to create management information systems that can aid in adding knowledge to a company or business thereby helping said business achieve its goals. Simply organizing the information is not enough, it needs to be done in such a way that the information becomes useful to the reader, it needs to be done in such a way that the information becomes knowledge.

The word "knowledge" itself doesn't describe the process. It should be something like a representation of complex cognitive skills. Knowledge is the outcome of a process, not the process itself. You develop knowledge over a period of time by acquiring it in pieces. You then put those pieces together to be "knowledgeable" on a subject matter. It's like forming a puzzle and finding each piece that connects with another.

We construct knowledge through the learning process, whether it be through reading and memorizing or physical experiences that we learn from. It is constructed through a series of steps in a systematic order, whereby you understand over time how to accomplish something or learn about a subject. Once you have learned the steps, you have the knowledge to teach someone else how to do it. If you have trouble learning along the way, you ask questions and practice till you are able to do it on your own.

**Is it tangible?**
The biggest argument is that knowledge is intangible. It resides in a person's brain until they choose to share it. Words in a book are not knowledge until they are learned, once read it gives the reader knowledge. However, it can be said that the words in a book are the writers knowledge but that knowledge in the book is still in the writer's brain.

There is also an argument that knowledge is tangible, for example you would have to look at what that person is knowledgeable in? If it is baking, then perhaps, knowledge is tangible. You physically make the baked good step by step, along the way gaining knowledge until you put it all together to get the final outcome.

You can also say knowledge is intangible in certain areas/subjects. When it comes to sports, intangable knowledge could be the difference betweeen winning and losing, no matter who has the better teams statistically on paper. It could also be experiences and lessons learned by someone in any profession that would give you an advantage over another person based on history on the matter.

**Is the word misused?**
We misuse the word all the time. Whether we say someone is very knowledgeable, when really they may be "smart" but not with great knowledge, or we just bundle the term knowledge into other terms like smart, insightful, genius, etc. It could also have multiple meanings depending on how you use it and look at it.

I think the positive way of defining the meaning of knowledge should be various. Anything you know about, things you are able to manage etc. Knowledge is not only about the ability of handling issues, or doing well on the tests anymore. As society moves forward, people nowadays cannot be limited by definitions in the dictionary; in order to become a powerful and knowledeable individual.

**Teacher Responses**
We asked Stuart Berry "Whats does knowledge mean to you". He replied "de omnibus dubitandum", which is a latin phrase for "all is to be doubted".

We also asked David Reagan (a psychology teacher at Camosun College). He gave us the following link []

**References**
=** Knowledge (2011). In //Oxford Dictionaries//. Retrieved July 15, 2011

knowledge (2011, July 14). In //Wikipedia//. Retrieved July 16, 2011 Knowledge Management (2008, May 26). In //ulysses-systems//. Retrieved July 18, 2011