Crowdsourcing by Jeff Howe

Introduction

Notes:

The Dawn of the Human Network

The Web produces a subculture unlike anything previously encountered: a country within a country quite capable of entertaining itself. The new media: created by amateurs. 5

Labor can be organized more efficiently (achieve maximum productivity with minimum wasted effort on expense) in the context of community than it can in the context of corporation. Best person for job wants to do job. 8

Potential of the Internet to weave the mass of humanity together into a thriving, infinitely powerful organism. 11 What I wish to see with my program in middle schools. Thriving students working together to establish new ways of learning that interest this generation and are not run on older models that students cannot adapt to, because technology has changed us so much.

The largest computation in history. 12 Let's beat it. The use of computers as a subject in research or study.

Many can work together to outperform the few. Networks hold immense power.

Crowdsourcing emerged organically. Each one of us possesses a far broader, more complex range of talents.13

If I die tomorrow, I want to know that I made a difference today. A positive difference. Not just complain about a problem or issue, but take action and move to help. Even if it fails, I try and try my best. There is no other happiness on earth for me but that. That I made a difference and left them with a smile and a cheerful spirit.

So is crowdsourcing the new outsourcing? Not quite, but it does take advantage of the same disparities between developed and developing economies. Could crowdsourcing really ever yield a Shakespeare play, Beatles song, or Picasso painting? The answer, I believe, is an unequivocal yes, but such masterpieces are unlikely to emerge in the ways we expect them to, from the usual quarters. Past, present and future. 17

22 October, 2008

Notes during class discussion. I enjoy hearing your opinions. Listen and learn. I quote actual sentences and voice my thoughts throughout. Discussion would add to the continual learning process. And, if you'd rather not have me quote you, tell me I will stop.

Thanks, Amanda Anseeuw

http://pilotingpedagogies.pbwiki.com/George-Washington-Hmm

Crowdsourcing by Jeff Howe

Chapter 1 The Rise of the Amateur

The energy and devotion of the amateur comprises the fuel for the crowdsourcing engine.

Cavalcade: a formal procession of people.

Low production values outshine slickness every time.

Ubiquitous: omni-present, everywhere, ever-present.

With crowdsourcing, people gravitate to their calling, devotion. People with highly diverse skills and professional backgrounds are drawn to participate. The quantity and quality of amateur efforts has increased so greatly: Pro-Amateurs, work to professional standards.

Amateurism: term of derision, mockery, ridicule.

Professionalism: seriousness of high standards

Pro-Ams: knowledgeable, educated, committed, networked.

Internet: one giant cabinet of wonders, an acme of nonprofessional achievement.

Citizen education project: here’s how you can help us. Let people create own home page to keep personal checklist. Organize and coordinate. Thousands of extra sets of eyes. Increase knowledge. Knowledge in the broadest sense is commended and admired.

Purpose: acquire knowledge through invisible online research university.

Undergraduate education and scholarship professors for solutions.

Produce well-rounded, interesting, interested, American children.

We can be responsible for some of the greatest expansions in human knowledge.

Amateur, from Latin root ‘amare’ to love. My love, children. I want to help. Nothing compares to the get-up-and-go feeling of finding a novel solution to a worthy problem.

In 1897, the professionals succeeded in having “nature study” removed from Academic curricula of American high schools, resulting in immediate disinterest in the field. By early years of twentieth century, botany had become professionalized.

“After World War II the demography of university students changed, even if the curricula did not. The GI Bill made college educations affordable for the middle classes for the first time. According to College Board, “the proportion of the population 25 to 29 years of age has completed four years of college or more has quadrupled since 1940.” By 2000, a full 63 percent of high school graduates went on to college.”

Education is the motor driving the information.

Shelia Slaughter, University of Georgia professor, “Universities discourage specialization in the sense that they create play spaces in which students are encouraged to experiment widely and broadly.”

College students are specializing by majoring in one subject or another, fewer graduates obtain jobs that reflect their course of study.

Our interests are more diverse than our business cards.

Stewart Brand, 1984, “Information wants to be free.”

A network, by definition, is composed of a multitude of nodes, so that information multiplies rapidly and effortlessly. Architecture of a network flattens all hierarchies. People are empowered with enough knowledge to peek behind the wizard’s curtain.

Wiki gives us the ability to present our education problem in front of an incredibly diverse array of research backgrounds. There are talented people out there who are passionate about education. The professional community will realize what a resource this is.

This wiki has no more regard for professional qualifications than it has for nationality; diversity is more appropriate if we wish to find a solution. The benefit for all is academic achievement mixed with fresh sets of eyes, together, with many eyes, all flaws become evident, and easily amended.

From So Simple a Beginning

Source code consists of English-language commands that once translated into zeros and ones, tell a computer what to do. Open source code is pretty much what it sounds like: open for anyone to see, copy, tweak, and use for whatever purpose they see fit. Because it was open, a spirit of collaboration and free exchange of information developed in computer programming. And because it had been open once, a small group of principaled programmers determined that it should stay open. They couldn’t force Microsoft or Sun Microsystems or Apple to reveal their code, but they could create a free and open alternative. Free software is a matter of liberty, not price. Free as in free speech, not free beer.

Democracy Design Workshop

Eric S. Raymond, “Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow.”

We can see all problems with lots of eyeballs.

Faster, Cheaper, Smarter, Easier

Line between producer and consumer: blurred.

Funding, lower jail rate. Education is knowledge and if all knowledge has to do with street talk, violence and drugs, that's what kid knows most about so that’s what they will do, more information about other things will give more options and get them off the streets.

Redundant, stagnant material.

In trying to solve the problem of education, I realized that there are many, many, problems that need solving. Parents are working for one thing, universities are working for another, schools are in need of funding, teachers are in need of resources, students are either exeling or failing, many districts are lacking violence protection in the streets, everyone has a different opinion, nutrition is failing, the achievement gap is widening, students with different disabilities are placed in a single, electives are absent in public schools, private schools are raising tuition, voucher schools are excelling, creativity in the classroom is lost, science and technology are advancing.

There is beauty in the realization of discovering our similar thoughts.

Anyone interested in the education in America.

We all have different experiences and background knowledge. What a difference we can make. What a passion we will evoke in napping others. Our cultures combine. Our influence inspires. We transfigure. Technology makes this possible. This is communication we can track and change, separate from email.