reflections of a budding self-directed learner.

and so it begins.  I came to class on the first day, a first-semester freshman thinking I had signed up for "Civilization 2: Letters."  I soon learned that this was not just any Civilization class.  It turned out to be a radical fusion of the future and the past and us in between.  Digital Civilization changed the way I look at learning, and forced me to change the way I go about learning as well.

1. History.  I have heard that history repeats itself, but in this class I was able to learn of real examples.  The parallels between past and present were often intriguing.  I looked long and hard around in all the internets for historic-digital parallels.  I read about Galileo and crowdsourcing and I tried to read as many of the other students' blog posts as I could.  My blog posts about historical context include:

• undercover dogs.
• the four causes.
• a modern-day mr. smith.
• the race for the double helix.
• the experiment.

2. Core Concepts.  I will never forget.  Control.  Information.  Openness.  Participation.  I admit, I cannot help but see those concepts in many facets of daily life.  I think the class focused particularly on openness, which was the cause of much reflection for me on the advantages and disadvantages of increased openness.  Some core concept posts include:

• openness and participation in science.
• cocaine and google's new privacy policy.
• global effects of the digital age.
• for the birds.

3. Digital Literacy.  I am still learning what that term really means, but at the same time I realize that its definition is forever changing.  I suppose part of being digitally literate is accepting the fact that I will need to constantly adapt.  This class helped me with that as well; I had to adapt to changes, as well as a deliberate lack of structure.  I had to use technological mediums to facilitate my own learning.  Before, I had always thought of social networking and other similar things as something completely different from my educational experience.

• Consume.  Through researching for my different DigiCiv topics, I experienced firsthand the woes of internet research.  The internet is a great thing, and research is a snap.  But there's so much information to wade through, it is hard to know where to go to find what I'm looking for.  I wrote a little about this in an open-access dilemma.   
• Create.  We really did create something!  I have to admit, I didn't really understand the point of an ebook at the beginning of the semester, but now I can't wait to read it.  I learned from Digital Civilization that I shouldn't suppress the desire to create something worthwhile, and I shouldn't spend my time creating things for the wrong reasons.
• Connect.  Never before have I had a class where Google+ was mandatory.  It was definitely a different experience for me.  I learned about the benefits of being connected with classmates not only during class, but anytime I needed.  So many people in this class have great ideas, and I was able to access those and be better because of them.

4. Self-Directed Learning.  This was a major source of frustration, most of which came from my inability to consume intelligently, as I wrote earlier.  Every time I looked for something to blog about, I accessed such a random wave of information, I felt as though I was just surfing the internet instead of doing research.  But things got better!  Because of this class I gave some serious thought to how my learning can improve.  In order to be successful at whatever I pursue in life, I will have to learn to take the initiative.  I learned a lot about that in this class.  I tried my best to be self-directed, to act and not be acted upon, and to think independently.

5. Collaboration.  This was essential.  I realize now that this was the only class that I never felt alone in.  Basically everything we needed to do was group-related, and this was important because we will work with people for the rest of our lives.  I participated in Google+ hangouts, met with my groups at late hours, and used Google+ correspondence to coordinate with other group members.  I even wrote a blog post about collaboration called three cheers for teamwork.  I tried to work well with members of my group, communicate with others, and do my fair share of the work.

in conclusion.  Digital Civilization stands out among all of my other classes.  It was so different.  I'm not going to lie, it was frustrating.  It required me to think differently and put lots of effort into things that before I thought were of little value, like writing what I think on a blog.  But what I learned from this class will continue to influence my performance and experiences in many classes to come, and even after college.  It became part of my unforgettable first-semester experience.  Did I bite off a little more than I could chew?  Most definitely, and not just in this class.  I was a gung-ho returned missionary ready to take on everything.  I soon found that spreading myself thin wasn't as fun as I had thought it would be.  But I persevered and gave it my best.  And I'm glad I stuck around.

Thanks DigiCiv!  You're neat!

--garret.

Bidness: An Annotated Biblography

Bidness: An Annotated Bibliography

My research process...?  I don't feel that my research has been much of a process at all - a learning process at best.  I'm still figuring out how to find good, solid sources online.  With all the good stuff the Internet has brought, it has also made the unskilled searcher's quest for relevant and reliable information a bit harder.  It's been good for me, though.  Most of my research has led me to online articles; my book-centered research has been limited.  What really helped me to find some good sources and start to pull ideas together was talking to my Dad, who is an Internet entrepreneur.

Our group claim is that the Digital Revolution is creating opportunities.  This bibliography contains sources that attempt to show the opportunities that are being created through outsourcing and crowdsourcing, both of which would not be possible on such a large scale without the Internet.

Further Reading:

• Howe, Jeff. (Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd Is Driving the Future of Business.  Crown Business, 2008).  Howe coined the term "crowdsourcing" in 2006 and makes a great case for its impact on society and business.  This book shows why crowdsourcing is a good thing for individuals as well as for humankind collectively.  [This was the book assigned to me in class, and I found it fascinating.]
• Rodriguez, Peter. (China, India, and the United States: The Future of Economic Supremacy.  The Great Courses, 2011).  This book/lecture addresses the recent shift in the global economy and its causes.  It is relevant because Rodriguez shows the positive effects of our changing economy, instead of a more narrow American view.  [I was given this book by my Dad, who is always learning.]
•  Bhagwati, Jagdish. (In Defense of Globalization. Oxford University Press, 2004).  The author shows that some of the negative ideas that people have about globalization are not as they seem, and that it is actually a good thing for many people.  [I found this as I scoured the Internet for books on outsourcing, but not as business guides].

Thought Leaders:

• Jonathan Reichental (Chief Information Officer at O'Reilly Media).  I found an article by him called "Will your business survive the digital revolution?" and I will look for other articles, especially on his website  http://www.reichental.com.  [I found him searching on Google+]
• Stan Bassett (President of TechMediaNetwork).  He started an Internet company a few years ago, and with the growth of the company he is now experiencing the good and the bad of outsourcing.  I have been talking with him about the effects of outsourcing in his business.  He has been able to give me good points on both the positive and the negative side of outsourcing - how it is creating and eliminating economic opportunity.
• Steve Gibson ( http://creatingenterprise.com/).  Although I haven't come across many articles written by him, I think contacting him would help.  He has created a successful business college called The Academy for Creating Enterprise, which teaches people in third-world countries basic principles for success in running a small business.  These people are provided with the resources they need to start a business.  That's an opportunity.  [I attended a few social entrepreneurship classes after returning from my mission and they were very interesting.] 
• Ross Dawson (rossdawson.com).  His website says he is a futurist, strategy advisor, entrepreneur, keynote speaker, and bestselling author.  He has authored a book called "Getting Results From Crowds," and I think he would be a good source of information about crowdsourcing (I found him on my Google+ feed, because I am following Crowdsourcing Week].

And...  I'll keep looking!  This is just the beginning.

global effects of the digital age.

The world has had its share of revolutions – some bloodier than others.  Some of the revolutions that have had the greatest impact on humankind and life as we know it were hardly bloody at all; they are the revolutions in which those dethroned are not rulers, but old ways of life.  The Industrial Revolution is among the most important of all revolutions because it has had lasting effects – both positive and negative – on human society.  Because of the changes it brought about, aspects of global economics have been irreversibly changed.  This same process is happening once again, this time as a product of the Digital Revolution.

The Industrial Revolution was born of human genius.  Curiosity and observation led to action, which led to innovation.  The results of that innovation were many, including the steam engine, telegraph, sewing machine, and cotton gin.  These new machines allowed for a new kind of production, one in which people could share the load of hard labor with equipment made specifically for the job.  This led to the implementation of the factory system, and efficiency became forever a crucial aspect of manufacturing just about anything.  Here are two socioeconomic changes brought about by the Industrial Revolution:

1. The standard of living and average income rose substantially.  New estimates released in 1983 by Peter Lindert and Jeffrey Williamson show that real wages in England doubled in 32 years from 1819 to 1851.  They suggest that this was due largely to the effects of the Industrial Revolution.
2. Innovation led to the disruption of certain trades.  For example, textile weavers found themselves replaced by machines that did the same job better, faster, and cheaper.  Their response was, naturally, to try to destroy the machines!  These displaced workers, called Luddites, were in a tough situation.  Change had become their enemy.  That is just one example of how new inventions, while they were great for many things, did make life difficult for those whose expertise was rendered obsolete.  There were some who could adapt, and others who had to start over.

The surge in innovative technology known as the Digital Revolution has already made a tremendous impact on the world, and we are still in the middle of it.  Among the great catalysts in this revolution are the personal computer and the internet.  With the unprecedented connectivity and accessibility that these have brought to the world, we have seen the same two effects mentioned above, but this time on a global level:

1. The global standard of living and average income is rising substantially.  I'm currently reading a book called "China, India, and the United States: The Future of Economic Supremacy" by Peter Rodriguez.  He states that in 1961, Americans had $31 in income for every $1 that Chinese had.  In 2010, the ratio was at $5 to $1.  That is a huge increase in income in only a 40-year period.  Much of that change is due to the shift in manufacturing jobs from the United States to China.  Something similar is happening in other countries, such as India, because that is where American companies are outsourcing.
2. Innovation is disrupting certain trades.  A classic example is that of newspapers.  I'm not saying that newspapers are on their way to extinction in the near future, but they are definitely headed in that direction.  Paper is just not flexible enough.  People no longer have to wait for yesterday's news to be printed, stacked, transported, and thrown on your porch by a kid on a bicycle.  Many newspaper companies are scrambling to find ways to adapt, and those who are not able to keep up are forced out of business.  There is even a website, updated daily, which is dedicated to documenting the demise of the traditional periodical - http://newspaperdeathwatch.com.  Innovation is good for the future, but sometimes bad for the past.  

            I have yet a lot to learn about economics, but it seems to me that both the Industrial and Digital Revolutions have been good for us.  I can't relate to those whose livelihood is in jeopardy because of new technology that is transforming their line of work.  But the positive effects of our new "flat world," as Thomas Friedman describes it, are many.  During the Industrial Revolution, those who wanted factory jobs had to go to the factories.  They had to take what they could, leave the rest, and move to the city.  With the Internet, the factories have moved to the people.  Someone whose opportunities were extremely limited simply because of his or her geographical location and uncontrollable circumstances is now able to gain valuable knowledge and use it to move forward and live better.  50 years from now, perhaps we will more clearly see the effects of the Digital Age and how it has really helped the world move toward global economic equality.

a modern-day mr. smith..?

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

How thankful we should be for freedom of speech.  Even here in America, freedom of speech has been suppressed even in the not-so-distant future.  In the film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, freedom of speech and of the press is all but crushed by a powerful political machine when a senator attempts to expose corruption in Congress.  Senator Smith decides to filibuster, hoping that it will give enough time for his words to reach the American public.  Unfortunately, the political "Taylor" machine controls all the major newspapers in Smith's home state, so all that gets printed are lies.  Newspapers with "Stop Smith" are being churned out by the thousands while kids who are trying to spread the truth are getting pushed around and their red wagons are being run over.

I admit it, I sometimes tire of the ways people use their first amendment rights; some of which, frankly, I doubt the founders would put up with.  However, I believe that the freedom to speak that our nation enjoys - and at times abuses - is light years ahead of what it replaced.

Who are the "Mr. Smiths" of the 21st century?  One self-proclaimed Mr. Smith is known as Wikileaks.  The goal of Wikileaks is "to bring important news and information to the public."  Their website has a list of ways they have exposed corruption in the form of:

 War, killings, torture and detention 
 Government, trade and corporate transparency 
 Suppression of free speech and a free press 
 Diplomacy, spying and (counter-)intelligence 
 Ecology, climate, nature and sciences 
 Corruption, finance, taxes, trading 
 Censorship technology and internet filtering 
 Cults and other religious organizations 
 Abuse, violence, violation

 Wikileaks claims to be all about spreading truth, but should all truth be spread?  What about classified truth? In Bradley Manning's case, was he only spreading truth when he leaked over 90,000 intelligence reports?  Openness is great, but it has its limits.  In some cases, perhaps secrets keep us safe.

three cheers for teamwork.

In my earlier post about The Race for the Double Helix, I wrote a bit about Watson and Crick's competitive approach to science.  Is there an alternate approach; something more "teamwork-based?"

Can our "race" mentality really be fixed?  According to Foldit, it can.  Fold.it is an online protein folding video game.  You can actually play a game - and a fairly entertaining one at that - and simultaneously help solve problems that have been baffling scientists for years.  Granted, there's a big learning curve, but there have been big results.  Apparently one of the pieces of the AIDS puzzle was found when Foldit gamers cracked a case in 3 weeks that scientists had been working on for 15 years.  If you want to learn more about it you can go here or here.

The Foldit story is proof that competition isn't the only thing that motivates scientists.  Foldit's success is based on several ideas, three of which are:

1. People are smarter when they work together.  The fact that we all reason differently can be one of our greatest advantages.

2. People work better when they are having fun.  People will keep doing something if they enjoy it.

3. People are often driven by something more than just selfish motives.  We're more benevolent than we think.

Ctrl+Z.

I saw someone sitting on a bench as I walked across campus; he was staring at a tree and transcribing what he saw onto a large sketchpad...  He's an artist.  I admire his dedication; his bare hands must be freezing, and who knows how long he's been out there.  And it's all for the sake of putting a tree on paper.

Let's say he's drawing in pen and makes a big mistake, or the pen bursts and spurts ink all over the drawing.  What he do?  Ctrl+Z, right?  Wrong.

What happens to us when we start to believe that nothing we do is necessarily permanent, that everything can be undone with the push of a button?  The "cut and paste" mentality of virtual reality doesn't always hold true for real life.  Knowing (or at least believing) that what I put on the internet doesn't have to be permanent might cause me to have one of two attitudes, or a combination of both:

1. "I can ridicule and demoralize people on the internet...  I can always delete it later."

"Four things come not back - the spoken word, the sped arrow, the past life and the neglected opportunity."

One needn't look far to see the actions of people who don't understand or don't believe this adage - especially the part about the spoken word and the sped arrow - and many of these people are proving it in cyberspace.  Take a look at the string of comments below almost any article, and you'll most likely see people taking jabs at each other and saying things that they might not have the guts to say in person.  I really believe that the way people behave on online forums has a negative effect on how they behave in real life.

2. "I can publish something now, even though it's incomplete... I can always change it later."

Is the assumption that I can go back and "tweak" whatever I've created always necessarily a bad thing?  Maybe not.  In Digital Civilization, we are encouraged to publish blog posts even if they're not polished or even complete (that explains his blog posts, you might be thinking).  Knowing that my publication will be there to alter later if needed, I can put it out there now and see what happens.  Although I'm still learning how to do that, I suppose it can definitely be a good thing.

So...  I'm going to post this now and tweak it later.  After all, I can do that.

the race for the double helix.

I'm slowly learning about what "open science" really is.  The website OpenScience.org defines it like this:

Open science is the idea that scientific knowledge of all kinds should be openly shared as early as is practical in the discovery process.

This definition is based on "sharing" - what's mine is yours, right?  While it sounds great, I don't know if it can work.  The concept is flawed at best.  In the competitive society and economy in which we live, there are many things that just can't be shared.  I doubt, for example, that we would expect any company to share R&D information with its rivals; Coke wouldn't share a new formula with Pepsi, and Apple would definitely not share a new idea with anyone.  What selfish people, right?  I suppose they have the right to be selfish.

But science should be different, many people argue.  And in spite of my lack of knowledge on the subject, I think I agree; however, people are competitive.  I was reminded of that today as I watched a movie called "The Race For The Double Helix," which is about Watson and Crick's discovery of the structure of DNA.  At first glance, it was great open science - they used, after all, information that had been collected by researchers in several laboratories, including that of Rosalind Franklin.

But was it really open science?

It seemed to me to be competitive, secretive, selfish science.  Of course, it was a movie, and I'll need to find time to inform myself a bit better on the actual events.  But it was no doubt a race.  The film paints a stark contrast between Watson & Crick and Rosalind Franklin.

• Watson & Crick - They wanted to make history.  They talked a lot about winning the Nobel Prize.  There was another scientist also working on a DNA structure model, and their goal was to beat him to it.  In a world where everyone "shares," they would have collaborated.  But they didn't!  They fought it out!
• Rosalind Franklin - She didn't understand why the other scientists saw the race for the double helix as just that, a race or some kind of game.  She was a champion of open science, believing that all scientists "should stand on each other's shoulders." 

Francis Crick's character at one point says, "Problems don't belong to people."  I would agree, especially when it involves making peoples' lives better.  But if people in other fields have the right to keep their findings secret, do scientists have that same right?

cocaine and google's new privacy policy.

Every time I log on to Gmail, Google has been asking me to take a look at its new and improved privacy policy.  Unfortunately, there are a lot of ignorant people who just click "I Agree" instead of actually reading the "Privacy Policy" and "Terms of Use."  And I am one of them.

But an uncanny coincidence sparked my interest.  The ads on my Gmail page are eerily relevant to my recent online activity.  I thought, "Maybe this privacy policy will tell me more."  It's written in clear and simple language, and although I won't say I've read the whole thing, I'm in the process.

As far as I can tell, the policy doesn't mean that much will change.  Apparently, Google has already been collecting my information, including device, search, and location information.  It's just that now they've decided to tell me about it.  Here's the link if you want to know more.

So...  Google, Facebook, and other sites collect our information, allegedly to make our internet experience even better.  Should we be worried?

I guess it depends on who you ask.  Unauthorized use of private information is becoming a bigger and bigger issue in this country.  Take United States v. Jones, for example.  A few years ago, police received a warrant to place a GPS tracker on the car of Antoine Jones, who was suspected of involvement in narcotics.  Police then used the device to track his movements over the next month, leading to the seizure of almost 100 kilograms in cocaine.  Last month, the Supreme Court decided that such an action was in violation of the fourth amendment.  One of the questions raised by such a case is this: Should I really expect my sensitive information to remain that way once it's on the Internet?  Justice Sotomayor said:

"… it may be necessary to reconsider the premise that an individual has no reasonable expectation of privacy in information voluntarily disclosed to third parties… This approach is ill-suited to the digital age, in which people reveal a great deal of information about themselves to third parties in the course of carrying out mundane tasks. People disclose the phone numbers that they dial or text to their cellular providers; the URLs that they visit and the e-mail addresses with which they correspond to their Internet service providers; and the books, groceries, and medications they purchase to online retailers… I for one doubt that people would accept without complaint the warrantless disclosure to the Government of a list of every Web site they had visited in the last week, or month, or year."

Google's new policy says that it promises not to share your information, unless it is deemed necessary in order to "meet any applicable law, regulation, legal process, or enforceable governmental request."

What is that supposed to mean?

for the birds.

As I started my research on crowdsourcing, the only examples that I could think of were Threadless.com and Wikipedia.  Crowdsourcing seemed to me to be somewhat of a novelty or a concept only valid for entertainment and amusement.  Not so.

Take ornithology, for example (that's the study of birds).  Ornithology was transformed by the internet age.  As Jeff Howe says, 

"Before the birth of the Internet, bird-watching was the province of an enthusiastic, small cadre of devotees.  But in recent years bird-watching has undergone a rapid growth in popularity.  By 2006, nearly 50 million Americans were engaged in some form of "wildlife watching".  

That's a lot of people watching birds!  What is the product of such an upswing in avian aficionados?  It's not just greater harmony with the outdoors.  This new generation of bird-watchers has made huge contributions to what we now know about birds.  In fact, according to Chris Wood, a researcher at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology,

"In many cases amateur birders are more competent at gathering, correctly identifying, and recording numbers of birds than professional ornithologists.  This basic form of data collection is precisely what birders have always specialized in."

That thought draws my attention to the plight of the professional birders, the ones who have done their homework and committed to full-time observation.  This is the human version of disruptive innovation.  What do you do if you're trying to make a living studying birds, and other people do it just as well, or apparently better, for free?

I have a feeling that this isn't a problem unique to the bird world.

 

twitter 24/7.

So...  I decided to get a Twitter account to see what they have to offer.  I haven't used it much, but I did do some exploring to get more acquainted with it.  Anyway, when I logged off, I read this on the screen:

"You've signed out of Twitter.  Now go mobile."
And I thought to myself...

"Wait...but I just got off Twitter.  Why would I want to get back on Twitter on my phone?"

And it was as if Twitter replied, "Oh I know.  But I want you to get back on."

"On my phone?"

"Yes, on your phone."

Aside the world in which we live, we also kinda live in a sort of pseudo-world, and many companies like Twitter want me to spend as much time in that alternate universe as possible.

Why..?

the experiment.

Why do people question the facts?  What even makes a fact a fact?

Aristotle came up with some good stuff, as I mentioned in an earlier post.  His contributions to society as we know it are no doubt immeasurable.  We owe a lot to thinkers like him, who provide us with valuable information.  Of course, thinkers are human, and humans are human.  Sometimes we get it wrong.

Aristotle's theory that objects of greater weight fall at a greater speed was believed to be true for over a thousand years.  But was it really believed?  I thought this youtube clip, albeit a tad dramitized, illustrates the importance of questioning supposed fact:

Maybe some people did have a hunch that Aristotle was mistaken on some points, but didn't feel it was their place to propose a change.  Maybe they felt inadequate.  Maybe they were afraid.  At any rate, we should all be seekers and defenders of truth.

After all, "what good is knowing the truth, if you're not willing to defend it?"

[more on this later]

an open-access dilemma.

I've been reading about Galileo and his contributions to not only science as we know it, but also how information is valued and shared.  Dr. Burton's article entitled Galileo opened the heavens with Open Access was very informative.  In it, he argues that one of Galileo's greatest contributions, if not his greatest contribution, was his method of freely sharing his findings.  The article makes a strong case for internet openness:

By limiting the speed and spread of knowledge made possible online (for the righteous cause of review), they merely update Galileo's house arrest.

I completely agree.  If everyone who ever discovered something great just kept it to himself/herself, would we be living in the same kind of world?  Absolutely not.  How glad I am that some of the world's most brilliant people weren't selfish with their ideas!

The other side of the coin is this: What happens when people are too generous?  What happens when everyone shares information without some way of ranking that information?  We would have to wade through a sea of faulty information just to arrive at something reliable.  The idea of "everything open" definitely favors both those who consume and those who create, but if too many create, how will we know what to consume?  Although publishing companies and the like are made to be "the bad guys," if it weren't for them, how would I know if I'm receiving quality stuff?  How would I know where to go to find information worth consuming?

the four causes.

Aristotle was a remarkable fellow.  I was reading a little bit about his "four causes"...

1. Material cause - the elements out of which an object is created.
2. Efficient cause - the means by which it is created.
3. Formal cause - the expression of what it is.
4. Final cause - the end for which it is.

An example would be a bicycle.  Its causes are:

1. Metal, rubber, etc.
2. Created by someone who knows how to make bicycles.  (a bikesmith..?)
3. It's a bike.  Look at the picture.
4. It was made so that someone could get to school faster or have fun riding down a mountain, and so that the bikesmith could make money.

Thanks to the research of many brilliant people, we know much of our material, efficient, and formal causes.  The part that we can't quite figure out -- or at least agree on -- is our final cause.  To what end have we been made?  To those of us who have learned of God's plan and purposes for us, that seems like a given.  But I invite all of you to look again.  You may not know the details, but if you know what your final cause is, the reason for your existence, be thankful.  And be happy.

After all... "men are, that they might have joy."

openness and participation in science.

Last week I watched the film Lorenzo's Oil, in which a boy develops a disease called adrenoleukodystrophy.  The disease is rare, and the boy's parents are told that there is no hope.  They take matters into their own hands, informing themselves and eventually, finding a cure.  It was a remarkable film and many times as I watched it, the phrase "open science" came to my mind.  I had read that phrase for, admittedly, the first time in Digital Civilization class, and I found an article that defines Open Science (the complete article is found at http://www.openscience.org/blog/?p=269).  The author says that the four fundamental goals are:

• Transparency in experimental methodology, observation, and collection of data.
• Public availability and reusability of scientific data.
• Public accessibility and transparency of scientific communication.
• Using web-based tools to facilitate scientific collaboration.

That sounds like openness, right?  It also sounds like information and participation, to be sure.  While I don't profess to know a great deal about the scientific process, I'm glad to see that science is taking the same route as open-source software; as one comment states, "Open-source software...is popular not so much because it is open/free but mostly because it is better than closed-source."  Open is better.

In Lorenzo's Oil, the scientists are made to be the bad guys who have secrets they're not willing to divulge.  The film was undoubtedly one-sided because it was much more engaging that way, and I understand that scientists play by the rules for the benefit of everyone.  However, it was fascinating to see the story of people without expertise who participated and achieved great results because of their tenacity.

undercover dogs.

We've probably all learned at least a little about Henry Ford's implementation of the assembly line and the huge impact it had on the automotive industry and on the process of manufacturing in general.  The whole idea behind the assembly line is that each worker involved has a specific task that he/she does repeatedly, thus increasing production speed.  It definitely worked for Henry; it was so successful that the biggest setback was that the paint didn't dry quickly enough!

"On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog."

That was almost a century ago.  Is there now something even better?

In his book Crowdsourcing, Jeff Howe explains that the internet has allowed us as humans to get rid of the assumption that those who have experience or formal and specialized education are the only ones qualified to participate in a given field.  The cartoon to the right explains it wonderfully.  Howe states, 

"With crowdsourcing, nobody knows you don't hold a degree in organic chemistry or that you've never shot photographs professionally or that you've never taken a design class in your life.  Crowdsourcing has the capacity to form sort of perfect meritocracy.  Gone are pedigree, race, gender, age and qualification.  What remains is the quality of the work itself.  In stripping away all considerations outside quality, crowdsourcing operates under the most optimistic of assumptions: that each one of us possesses a far broader, more complex range of talents than we can currently express within current economic structures.  In this sense crowdsourcing is the antithesis of Fordism, the assembly-line mentality that dominated the industrial age."

Even more efficient than giving people a specific, monotonous task is giving people the chance to do what they love and are good at!  This concept is revolutionizing how humans interact with each other and even redefining "work" as we know it.

crowdsourcing with galileo.

Galileo knew that Earth was not the center of the universe, but that idea didn't get a lot of "likes" or "+1's" if you will.  He also did something important with telescopes.

Crowdsourcing is letting anyone who wants to help you solve a problem you have.

That's about as much as I admittedly know about Galileo and crowdsourcing.  Take that Wikipedia!

As for the 17th century, I can't produce much information on that topic either without using a lifeline...  But I do know it has something to do with the Mayflower, William Shakespeare, and my good buddy Galileo Galilei.  I believe it represents a good chunk of the Renaissance as well.

Now that I've used a lifeline, I can also tell you that in the 17th century, the Long War was fought and torture was outlawed in England.  So that's nice.

civilization: from princes to frogs.

How digitally civilized am I?  I suppose I would first have to correctly identify what it means to be "civilized".  The term usually carries a positive connotation; however, in the words of Syrus, "We were born princes and the civilizing process makes us frogs."  Now that's something to think about.  Technology and innovation is terrific and arguably makes us more "civilized", but we should limit it before it limits us.  I'm looking forward to learning more on this subject, so my blogs can be even more civilized... later on.

That said, I consider myself fairly tech-savvy, whatever that means.  But I suppose most everyone in the Digital Civilization class (or is it a circle...?) is pretty digitally civilized, even if they don't consider themselves to be.  When I returned from my LDS mission in Peru about two months ago, I realized that I had gone without many gadgets, for lack of a better word.  And I hadn't missed it.  But technology is none the less creeping back into my daily life, and it's probably here to stay.  I'm not complaining.  I just hope it doesn't turn me into an amphibian.