Crowdsourcing The Best of Learning & Leading with Technology
Crowdsourcing is taking the writing world by storm!
I’ve seen authors in various fiction genres host their entire publicity tour online, asking readers to take pictures of their books in bookstores, of people reading their books, and of the books in funny situations. The authors offer prizes drawn at random or for the most creative photo. This sort of activity takes the place of costly and time-consuming book signings and release parties.
Crowdsourcing has also been a big topic in education, as educators looked for ways to engage their students in supporting each other’s learning.
A few years back, I wrote a piece for Learning & Leading with Technology called “Five that Survive.” It was a listing of the five most popular articles based on the number of course packet and for-profit reprint requests we had received. (I was the permissions editor at the time.)
When I began conceptualizing The Best of Learning & Leading with Technology, I wanted to do something similar. But I wanted the list to come from somewhere other than just my head.
We now have a lot more tools for gathering information and soliciting feedback, so I decided to use a blog to solicit nominations and feedback. If you want to see how it worked, read the archives at http://bestofll.blogspot.com. I also used reprint statistics and my own impressions of the articles, but it was nice to receive further opinions and validation as I was making the final selections. It also helped with the articles that ran in the magazine after I left—the reader relationship with an article is a lot different than the editor relationship.
I really enjoyed the opportunity to collect feedback from staff, board members, authors, and ed tech luminaries as I was working on this project. In addition, the transparency of the process made the book seem more like a group endeavor.
I have officially become a convert to the joy of crowdsourcing!
What about you? How have you gone to the crowd to help you do your work? Has the crowd ever let you down? Does your crowd include mainly colleagues, mainly students, or some other group? Answer one of these questions or ask a question of your own to be entered into the random drawing to win a copy of the book.
About Jennifer Roland:
Jennifer is a writer living in the Portland, Oregon, area. She holds bachelor’s degrees in magazine journalism and political science from the University of Oregon. Her education also focused on history, economics, linguistics, and educational policy and management. Before embarking on her freelance career, she was a staff member at ISTE. Follow Jennifer on her blog tour at http://edtechjen.com; each tour stop includes a chance to win a copy of The Best of Learning and Leading with Technology.
About The Best of Learning & Leading with Technology:
ISTE’s flagship magazine, Learning & Leading with Technology, is where the organization’s members and industry experts share and discuss the latest and greatest in using technology to enhance education. This collection includes the very best articles from 2003-2008. Along with the articles as they originally appeared in the magazine, the book includes commentary and context introducing the articles as well as short essays from the original authors, who further discuss the issues and topics of their articles and how they’ve affected the ed tech world.
(pic from flickr.com/photos/28326381@N02)
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