In this series, Nicky Hockly explains aspects of technology which some people may be embarrassed to confess that they don’t really understand. In this article, she explains how you can source the ‘crowd’.
1 I’ve heard of outsourcing – but crowdsourcing?
The term crowdsourcing first appeared in a Wired magazine article in 2006 (www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.06/ crowds.html). The concept is, indeed, similar to outsourcing, and means putting out a public call (to the ‘crowd’) in order to find solutions to an issue. Think of it as a crowd brainstorm. The advent of Web 2.0 collaborative technologies has made crowdsourcing a lot easier, and has given birth to crowdsourced collaborative projects like Wikipedia, where the general public (the crowd) have contributed to the largest encyclopedia in history
2 Can you give me more examples of crowdsourcing?
Crowdsourcing has been used in politics: for example, in 2010 the British government asked its citizens for suggestions of outmoded laws to be repealed. It has been used in business: after the disastrous BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill in 2010, suggestions for how to stop the spill were solicited from the general public after BP’s first efforts failed. It’s used in science: if you’re an astronomy fan scanning the skies for new astral bodies, you can add any findings to a public database. It’s used in computing: open-source software such as Moodle or the Linux operating system were developed by a crowd of interested geeks.
3 So it’s just collaboration under another name, right?
Er, yes. In fact, Jimmy Swales, the founder of Wikipedia, dislikes the term crowdsourcing, and points out that not everyone is equipped to offer solutions or input on all topics. A certain degree of expertise may be needed to solve certain issues (such as the BP oil spill) or to provide meaningful input on a certain topic (such as a quantum physics Wikipedia entry). So the trick is to get the right crowd to input into your issue – more on this below.
4 What does crowdsourcing have to do with language teaching?
Nothing on the surface. But think about it: collaboration, aided by technology, is increasingly the way we work. Many of our (younger) students are already using their networks on Twitter or Facebook to work on or share answers to school and university assignments (see the ‘Visitors and Residents’ project from Oxford University for more on this: http://bit.ly/q9H7ZE). As teachers, we are no longer limited to just swapping ideas and activities in the staffroom. We can now go online and bounce ideas off colleagues from all over the world via online teacher discussion groups, or via our own PLNs (Personal Learning Networks) on Facebook, Google+ or Twitter.
5 But how can crowdsourcing help me?
Let me share an example: for this article I decided to crowdsource a topic that you might be interested in if you are a regular reader of this column. I asked my own PLN to contribute one tip for teachers about using technology in the classroom. The response was overwhelming. You’ll find these crowdsourced tips on my blog at www.emoderationskills.com/?p=629. To get this great list of tips together, I had to ask the right crowd: namely techsavvy experienced language teachers. Well, I have lots of these in my PLN.
I didn’t set up my PLN overnight. It’s an ongoing project which has lasted several years and is a permanent and significant part of my continual professional development. For you to ask the right crowd, you’ll first need to find it – by setting up your own PLN. Below are some resources to get you started with that. Good luck!
- ‘How English language teachers can go with the Twitter flow’, a recent Guardian Weekly newspaper article by fellow ETp writer Russell Stannard: http://bit.ly/ngchcO
- An official Facebook for Educators site with guides and tips:
- Google+ for Educators: http://bit.ly/njThOH
- See also my article on PLNs in ETp Issue 69.
http://facebookforeducators.org/
Nicky Hockly has been involved in EFL teaching and teacher training since 1987. She is Director of Pedagogy of The Consultants-E, an online teacher training and development consultancy. She is co-author of Teaching Online (DELTA Publishing), which was nominated for a 2011 British Council ELTon award. She maintains a blog at www.emoderationskills.com.
This article first appeared in issue 78 of English Teaching professional, January 2012.
