tech:

taffy

Engaging Online Crowds Important For Teaching Innovation, Finds Study

crowdsourcing_classroom

Online crowds can be an important tool for teaching the ins and outs of innovation, educators at Carnegie Mellon University and Northwestern University say, even when the quality of the feedback provided by online sources doesn’t always match the quantity.

In a pilot study that invited the crowd into their classrooms, Carnegie Mellon and Northwestern instructors found that input from social media and other crowdsourcing sites, helped the students identify human needs for products or services, generate large quantities of ideas, and ease some aspects of testing those ideas.

Steven Dow (Assistant professor, Human-Computer Interaction Institute, Carnegie Mellon): Finding ways to incorporate online crowds into coursework is critical for teaching the process of innovation.

Educating students about innovation practices can be difficult in the classroom, where students typically lack authentic interaction with the real world, say the researchers. Social networks and other online crowds can provide input that students can’t get otherwise.

Even in project courses, feedback is limited to a handful of individuals, at most. “At the same time, tapping the power of online communities has itself become part of the innovation process,” says Elizabeth Gerber, the Breed Junior Professor of Design, at Northwestern University. 

Mr. Dow and Ms. Gerber have received a National Science Foundation grant to study the use of crowd technologies in the classroom.  In the pilot study, they explored the use of crowds with 50 students enrolled in three innovation classes offered by Carnegie Mellon and Northwestern.

Students worked in groups of 3-4 on projects. They found online forums, such as Reddit, were very helpful in discovering unmet needs. A group working on public transit, for instance, found lots of people talk about transit on social media. An attempt to generate ideas through Amazon Mechanical Turk, which pays workers small fees for performing micro-tasks, produced little of use.  

In the final class assignment, to help students learn how to pitch ideas, the teams created a crowdfunding campaign through Kickstarter or Indiegogo.

You may also be interested in:

[Image courtesy: Carnegie Mellon University]

Just in

Apple sued in a landmark iPhone monopoly lawsuit — CNN

The US Justice Department and more than a dozen states filed a blockbuster antitrust lawsuit against Apple on Thursday, accusing the giant company of illegally monopolizing the smartphone market, writes Brian Fung, Hannah Rabinowitz and Evan Perez.

Google is bringing satellite messaging to Android 15 — The Verge

Google’s second developer preview for Android 15 has arrived, bringing long-awaited support for satellite connectivity alongside several improvements to contactless payments, multi-language recognition, volume consistency, and interaction with PDFs via apps, writes Jess Weatherbed. 

Reddit CEO Steve Huffman is paid more than the heads of Meta, Pinterest, and Snap — combined — QZ

Reddit co-founder and CEO Steve Huffman has been blasted by Redditors and in media reports over his recently-revealed, super-sized pay package of $193 million in 2023, writes Laura Bratton. 

British AI pioneer Mustafa Suleyman joins Microsoft — BBC

Microsoft has announced British Artificial Intelligence pioneer Mustafa Suleyman will lead its newly-formed division, Microsoft AI, according to the BBC report. 

UnitedHealth Group has paid more than $2 billion to providers following cyberattack — CNBC

UnitedHealth Group said Monday that it’s paid out more than $2 billion to help health-care providers who have been affected by the cyberattack on subsidiary Change Healthcare, writes Ashley Capoot.