"Project Classroom Makeover" (9/8/16)

This reading as a whole was extremely interesting to me. The first time I read the text I actually circled the passage selected as a good one for close reading. Every sentence in the passage is impactful and intellectual. In "Project Classroom Makeover" Davidson explores the idea of educating students in unconventional ways. She explains the Duke iPod learning experiment where the students were given the freedom to direct their own learning. They came up with so many uses for the device and "revolutionized the democratization of knowledge" (Davidson 54) For the first time, knowledge could be accessed by everyone. The passage chosen for close reading is a short explanation of what crowdsourcing is and why it is entirely essential in today's education system.

The important words in this passage are expert, collectively, and obviously crowdsourcing. Davidson goes into depth about how not even the most expert individual can accomplish what many people can collectively accomplish. The structure of the paragraph starts off explaining how crowdsourced thinking is different from relying on experts and continues on to connect it to the education system. How formal education is generally a professor telling you what is important and what knowledge to pay attention to. Davidson again stresses the importance of collective learning and ends on a hopeful, positive note by encouraging readers that we can learn by working together. Davidson uses "we" in order to stress this idea even more. She includes herself along with her readers to encourage them that everyone can work together to generate new knowledge, including herself.

This passage ties in with the entire essay and the overall idea of changing the education system. Crowdsourcing was a huge part of the Duke iPod experiment and was the major factor in the success of the program. In addition, collective learning was the main goal in Mrs. Davidson's classroom. She believed in learning for fun and creating experiences and memories to instill knowledge in her students. Mrs. Davidson knew that in order to really learn, students must apply the knowledge in their lives. They must have fun with it and be engaged in their own education. I think both Mrs. Davidson and Cathy Davidson are thinking in ways that the education system can benefit from.