We
are doing this post a bit differently. We present a short interview with Vikas
Joshi, the primary author of this blog, and Maheshkumar Kharade, a technology
expert. In this post, we start by understanding the opportunities inherent in
crowdsourced learning content.
Q: How
is the nature of learning content changing with time?
[Vikas Joshi] Nowadays crowdsourcing is playing an increasing
role in the creation of learning content. When people have a question,
they simply post it on a social networking site, and elicit responses. Sites
like Quora organize questions and answers into topics, and make them
searchable. People are increasingly open to participating in online platforms
such as Wikipedia, that deliver crowd-sourced content. Increasingly,
organizations are seen using internal portals that support crowdsourcing among
employees. Learning content, therefore, comes not only from some pre-defined
curriculum, but it evolves as people ask questions and contribute answers.
Q: Can
this lead to new ways of evaluating learning?
[Vikas Joshi] Absolutely. Now we are not limited to evaluating
learning outcomes—we can also evaluate the learning process. There is an
opportunity to evaluate people based on how they are contributing to
crowd-sourced content. There is also an opportunity to observe how people are
learning, the kind of questions they are asking and how engaged they are in the
community of learners. Such fine-grained evaluation can create opportunities
for better remediation, leading to better outcomes.
Q: Doesn’t
that make the job of evaluation more complex?
[Vikas Joshi] Undoubtedly. The key issue is the following.
If you evaluate only behaviors, you will get right behaviors, but you won’t
know if the student has really understood the subject matter. You will keep
wondering if the student is simply parroting the right answer. If you
observe the thought process instead, you get a better view into the student’s
learning. This is hard work, but it may be worth the effort. Maybe peers can
play a role in making this easier in an online community.
Next
week we will explore the technology challenges in making this possible.
