Wednesday, September 7, 2016


The author is communicating the difference between crowdsourcing and credentialing, so these are the most important words of the passage. Crowdsourcing has to do with obtaining information and ideas from people via the Internet while expertise is relying on the qualifications of professionals to find specific answers. The passage basically explains why the iPod experiment falls under crowdsourcing. It is interesting how Davidson uses direct terms such as "teachers" and "relying" when talking about expertise, but uses vague words such as "suspicious" and "assumes" when referring to crowdsourcing. It is as if she is contradicting herself, but actually, she meticulously chooses those words. As she previously explains: "crowdsourcing means inviting a group to collaborate on a solution to a problem, but that term didn't yet exist in 2003 when we conducted the experiment" (Davidson 51). Since the idea of crowdsourcing is still new at the time, there is still no precise definition for the expression. All the reader knows is that formal education dictates and crowdsourcing encourages creativity. Also, Davidson suggests that crowdsourcing is suspicious of experts because they limit the process, and yet at the end, she expresses that anyone can contribute collectively, even such experts. At first she seemed wary of these licensed professionals, but then she ironically invites them to share their insights to prove her point that we are all smarter as a whole. In this passage, the author presents the iPod experiment as an impressive game changer. The reader now understands that the person's college degree or specialization would not determine his achievement; his ingenuity would. The passage categorizes the experiment as a new, exciting idea and compares the conventional way of education to the revolutionary form. Consequently, one better comprehends how innovative the outcome of the experiment is and that the orthodox way does not have to prevail.






2 comments:

  1. Very nice post, Marimar! I like that you draw attention to the vagueness of Davidson's description of how exactly crowdsourced learning works (although you could be a bit clearer on this point). And I particularly like your explanation of how the binary Davidson establishes between crowdsourcing and expertise doesn't hold. Well done!

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