Davidson Reading Assignment

The main purpose of this passage was to highlight and differentiate crowdsourced thinking from conventional thought. Consequently the key-words in the passage are “crowd sourcing”, “expertise”, “formal education”, and “hierarchy”. Davidson hails crowdsourcing as the learning technique of the twenty first century while criticising expertise and specialization as an antiquated and outmoded . From the get go, Davidson distinguishes crowdsourcing as something novel. She further expands upon the idea saying that “crowdsourcing is suspicious of expertise” and that expertise can limit the scope of one's thinking. Davidson is flipping the reputation that specialization has in society. Often times, people are taught that expertise and specialization open doors and provide better perspective, however, Davidson argues that this extensive knowledge in one specific area of study blinds us to the rest of the world. Instead of  encouraging collaboration, common practice says that the masses should listen to a few esteemed specialists to learn and gain knowledge. The passage then closes by stating that even experts can learn and gain from a culture where knowledge is pooled, shared and worked on collaboratively.

The purpose of this passage is to highlight the thought process behind the iPod experiment. Duke was criticised for abandoning the traditional classroom setting where knowledge is passed down from the teacher to the student. However, Davidson challenges the very fundamentals of classroom norms and utilizes this passage to argue why collaboration among students can be just as effective as traditional settings in teaching students new material. As a result, this passage affirms the relevance and the benefit of the iPod experiment at duke.