Pedagogy of the Crowd:Collaborative Critique in Cyberspace

Alex MuellerEnglish Department

Mob Mentality or Collective Intelligence?

Crowds imply mobs. Crowds imply amateur opinion, cajoling, and yelling.  But crowds also now connect with activities like “crowd sourcing,” an open call for collaboration among a large group of informed participants interested in exploring, creating, or solving.   And crowds also change things.

Excerpt from Jen Boyle and Martin Foys, "Editor's Vision Statement," Postmedieval–Crowd Review.

The Problem of Transparency

[Users] get used to manipulating a system whose core assumptions they do not see and which may or may not be “true.”

Sherry Turkle, Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995), 70.

http://postmedievalcrowdreview.wordpress.com/papers/christie/

Fan

Fiction

ELL Fan Fiction: Grace’s “Heart Song”

“PLEASE WELCOME . . OUR VERY OWN!! . . . CHERRY BLOSSOM!!!!” The crowds went wild, when the lights went out and then they heard a voice . .

.“Aitai na Aenai na . . . Setsunai na . . . Kono kimochi . . .” Then one by one light went on . . and they saw a shower of Cherry Blossoms . .

the audience gasp . . then they heard a voice again . . .“Ienai no.... Iitai no... Chansu.. nogashite bakari” Then a little spotlight focus on a girl . . going down, up from the sky. . wearing

a pink dress with wings on the back, and a cherry blossoms at her hair . . she is sitting on a gold swing

“Datte . . . . Datte . . . tsubasa hiroge futari de . . . Sora wo marason Yume wo yunizon shitai”

“WE LOVE YOU CHERRY!!!!” The singer smiles at them, then when her feet touches the stage, she smiles

and continues to sing the slow melody . . without music . . . “Hora Catch You Catch You Catch Me Catch Me Matte . . . ”

Believing and Doubting• Believing: Simply ask readers to believe everything

you have written – and then tell you what that makes them notice. Even if they disagree strongly with what you have written, their job is to pretend to agree. In this way they will act as your ally: they can give you more reasons or evidence for what you have written; they can think of different and better ways of saying or thinking about what you have written.

• Doubting: Now ask readers to pretend that everything is false, to find as many reasons as they can why you are wrong in what you say (or why your story doesn't make sense.)

Hyperdialogue between Writer and Reviewer

"I'm not sure that all the blame should be placed on the professor because the students didn't introduce themselves the first day of classes.”

"I don't agree. I think that what happens on the first day of a class does rest in the teacher's hands. What can't be controlled is how the students will respond. I think, and this is just my opinion, that if a teacher makes it a point to do some sort of activity that will result in students sharing a little bit about themselves, it sets the tone for what is to come and it forces students to realize that they will be learning from each other, not just the teacher."

Do we agree with Thoreau?

The mass never comes up to the standard of its best member, but on the contrary degrades itself to a level with the lowest.

Henry Thoreau, in an address to the Concord Lyceum (April, 1838).

Or should we trust crowd sourcing?

Wikipedia offers potential participants the ability to do as much writing or editing as they like, but also as little. . . By making the size of the smallest contribution very small, and by making the threshold for making that change small as well, Wikipedia maximizes contributions across an enormous range of participation.

Clay Shirky, Cognitive Surplus (New York: Penguin Press, 2010), 200.