Crowd Accelerated Innovation

Chris Anderson's discussion of "crowd accelerated innovation" provides yet more food for thought regarding the impact of technology on learning.  As Anderson explains, the increased availability of recorded, visual information on the Web has led to a rise in innovation because large numbers of people are now exposed to the work of like-minded individuals, and the opportunity to contribute in such an online community serves to improve the quality of what is produced. While this sort of group-generated creativity has occurred throughout history, the Internet has significantly increased the size of the "crowd", the visibility (or "light) given to individuals in the community, and the desire for recognition within those communities.

Most of the courses in the online MA in Educational Technology program have involved some sort of group work.  Students are generally working adults in the field of education, so it has been helpful to share ideas and view the work of other students as we each construct our own knowledge.

In viewing the student videos for the EDU 590 course, I found one example that might be considered supportive of crowd accelerated innovation.  In the Summer 2010 group, the video about the phases of the moon described the teacher's method of pairing students for peer evaluation and having them contribute their individual reflections to a course wiki.  While the non-technology lesson plan encouraged students to develop their own understanding of the lesson, the opportunity to work collaboratively with other students seemed to engage students more fully, and to perhaps become more creative in how they represented what they learned because it would be shared with classmates via the group's wiki.



I remember completing this video assignment when I was in the EDU 590 class, and I definitely spent some time reviewing the videos posted by my classmates before finalizing my own.  I wanted to make sure I was interpreting the assignment in a way that was consistent with the rest of the class, but I also wanted to be sure that my contribution was unique and innovative.  I suspect that the quality of my video was higher because I was aware that it would be part of a collection created by students in my class; I took pains to learn from what had been done by others, while hoping to be recognized as a valued contributor myself.

Guest presenter: Brian Dixon

Brian Dixon's presentation instantly grabbed my attention because I had to locate, learn and use an unfamiliar technology (www.polleverywhere.com/) within minutes of his introduction.  Thankfully, it was a cool tool with potential for use in my own teaching, so I was eager to figure it out and learn more from this speaker. Like the previous speaker, he offered a practitioner's perspective on using social media to engage students.  Perhaps because he seemed to expect this class to be more technically savvy than we may actually be, I found myself revisiting my long-neglected Twitter account and dutifully following people involved with this class in order to feel "connected" with the community.  His descriptions of using various tools with his students made me think social media is much more viable in the K-12 setting than I had been led to believe.  I really liked the immediacy of Dr. Dixon's presentation - it was a little chaotic, but it required my active participation and full attention, which can be rare in a virtual learning environment.

Guest presenter: Julia Fallon

Julia Fallon was the first of our guest speakers for EDU 653, and while tips on the mechanics of using Twitter were more or less review, I found her discussion of best practices for using Twitter as an educational professional was extremely valuable.  Ms. Fallon provided a practioner's perspective on using social networking tools to build relationships within a professional community.  Her comments about control and privacy were particularly relevant for those working in public education, and I found her candid assessment of Twitter's drawbacks refreshingly "real".

I'm glad that both of our guest speakers have been so comfortable with presenting in an online environment.  Their familiarity with the technology and course content helped to make the sessions engaging, and their willingness to extend involvement with this class beyond the Wimba session (e.g. via Twitter) demonstrates their committment to using technology to enhance learning (in this case, ours).

Wikipedia - worth it?

I'm afraid I don't regard Wikipedia with the same suspicion (or loathing) often attributed to educators.  As an information professional, it is my job to teach people how to locate, evaluate and use information resources.  Wikipedia articles require more careful review than an article in a peer-reviewed, established journal, but its breadth of content and ease of use can make it an excellent starting point for research.

Part of Wikipedia's bad rap is that anyone at all can add and edit content.  This lack of authority compromises the overall quality, but like any collaborative project, the end result can often be superior to whatever any one individual might have created on his or her own. That said,Wikipedia content is constantly changing, and we may not always capture content at its most accurate point.  We can appreciate Wikipedia for conveniently packaging information related to our topics, but should really use it to locate additional resources that substantiate what we learn from Wikipedia.

Unfortunately, I was disappointed when I edited a Wikipedia article about reusable bags with bogus information.  Perhaps the topic wasn't high profile enough to warrant correction, but my misinformation remains uncorrected.  So while group participation typically helps to police the quality of Wikipedia's content, anyone researching reusable bags today should be sure to double-check the accuracy!

Of course the quality of my group's contributed content on situated learning is far less questionable.  In our Wikipedia entry, we cited reputable sources and used our experience with educating adult learners to thoughtfully synthesize information related to the topic. As the group member who handled posting our collaborative article and its references, however, I believe that serious contributors go through quite a bit of trouble to add content.  The wiki mark-up language is not for the casual user, so I have to believe that anyone who would go to the trouble of writing a clear, well-organized article and then footnoting credible resources, as well as adding links to related resources and/or uploading images, charts, etc. is interested in making Wikipedia as useful as possible for all.

Breaking the Curse

Photo: (CC) blakewest: http://www.flickr.com/photos/blakewest/3084965561/

Adults bring a wealth of experience and knowledge to their learning experiences, so why do they find it so tough to learn something new? Even if new ideas they encounter meet all of Chip and Dan Heath's criteria for "stickiness", why don't they stick?

It was actually very helpful to re-read this chapter and be reminded about ways to help students remember key points that I teach. Of course I learned all this the first time I read the chapter, but slipped back into muddying my message by trying to share all that I know. Just like most adults, I'm plagued by the "curse of knowledge" that prevents me from communicating and considering ideas as if they're completely new. As the experiment described in this chapter demonstrates, it's hard to consider new ideas without applying what we already know - and that knowledge makes it difficult to think about what we teach as if we've never learned it ourselves. As someone who instructs adult learners, I have to constantly consider whether my experience and knowledge is preventing me from communicating ideas that stick - at the same time that I must help adult students to temporarily set aside what they know (or think they know) long enough to be receptive to these new ideas.


Heath, C., & Heath, D. (2007). Made to stick: Why some ideas survive and others die. New York: Random House.

Learning Prezi

I consider myself to be somewhat savvy when it comes to learning new web-based tools, especially when the interface is fairly intuitive and online help is provided. Depending on the system, I may begin with whatever “getting started” tutorials are provided, or I may just poke around until I figure out what to do. The beauty of most cloud-based tools is that you really can’t break anything. You can just try various features and delete what doesn’t work.

If, however, you plan to use these tools with students, I do think that it’s important to be as knowledgeable as possible about the features. Even if a feature doesn’t initially challenge you as teacher, there is always the possibility that it will prompt questions from students, and you will have to know how to guide them through it.

I found Prezi to be a fun and simple tool, and I liked that it allowed me to use some creativity to present very basic information. Given that my work often requires me to develop brief tutorials to teach students how to do things like search a database, navigate a web site, etc., I could see embedding short Prezi presentations to guide students through step-by-step processes. I don’t generally make assignments to students since I either work with them on demand, or in one-time instruction sessions, but if a student had an assignment to create a presentation for one of his/her classes, I might suggest Prezi as an alternative to PowerPoint.

Prezi Introduction

Introduction on Prezi