Week 4 in Review: Expertise and Crowdsourcing

This past week, our class explored expertise and crowdsourcing. What fitting topics for the times we are living in! I think that I now have a better idea of how to determine expertise from someone online and how to establish it for myself at some point in the future, but I feel like this is just scratching the surface. There's still so much more research that I need to do into it. 

On the topic of crowdsourcing, I have been immensely pleased by the crowdsourced information about Black Lives Matter that I have seen circulating on social media. Here are a few:

You have to be careful about who you let have access to editing your crowdsourcing software, like Google Docs, but it's good that there are features on there that limit who has that kind of access to it. I imagine that some of these must exist in private social justice groups in order to organize protests and rallies. I could see Nuclino being a great tool for these kinds of groups because although it is a crowdsourcing tool, it also requires that users have to be allowed into the group on the website first. Personally, I am looking forward to seeing more of what online crowdsourcing software can do to bring activists together!


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Applying to Doctorate Programs: What Have I Gotten Myself Into?

Image
I've mentioned it a few times on this blog before, but I'll restate it if you didn't read those past posts: my ultimate goal is to get my doctorate and work as a professor. I feel like this is a bit risky with how many higher education institutions are hiring more adjunct faculty than tenure-track faculty, but I firmly believe that it's what I want to do for the rest of my life. When I first started the ISLT master's program here at FSU I figured that I would work in the field for about 2 or 3 years before pursuing a doctorate, but after this pandemic and all of the turmoil that has been wrought because of it I've come to the conclusion that life is too short and I need to go after what I want. So now here I am, looking up potential programs to apply to on my phone while taking breaks during my work day and getting ready to take the GRE all over again. The practice books that I ordered just came in today, in fact, and I am not looking forward to this process at
Read more

Instructors and Instructional Designers: What's the Difference?

Image
*TW: Mentions of COVID-19 and anxiety* Lately, my anxiety has been a bit high and I've felt a little on edge. It's probably mostly due to the dumpster fire that is Florida's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, but I think it also has to due with getting a new puppy soon and the stress of figuring out how to introduce her to our crazy cat, getting assignments prepared for the end of the semester (I didn't know that the last week of the summer semester is next week because I have no concept of time anymore), preparing for doctorate applications and the GRE, etc. This past week, I read a tweet from someone I follow who is a Ph.D. candidate that said, "Calling it now, the #instructionaldesign job seeker pool is going to saturate due to educators not wanting to go back in the classroom." I don't know why, but it just REALLY upset me. I am graduating in December and the thought of the job market I am going into becoming saturated on top of the destruction the pan
Read more

Collaborating with SMEs During the Design Process

Image
One of the aspects of being an instructional designer that I wish had been discussed in the coursework for the ISLT master's program is how to work with SMEs while designing a course or training program. In my current role, I work closely with our learning designers and they have told me that the only aspect of their jobs that can really be frustrating is working with difficult faculty members and/or department heads. Before starting graduate school, I used to work in both customer service and sales and I will be the first to tell you that I am not a big people person. (Is this something that I should be concerned about if I want to ultimately become a professor? I think so. To be fair, I think that being an instructional design professor is a much different experience than working at Walt Disney World.) I am a bit concerned about having to push back against SMEs who are unnecessarily stubborn, who don't understand nor respect what I do, etc. I can do it, but I don't like t
Read more