5.4 Crowdsourcing
Lesson and notes for 5.4 Crowdsourcing
5.4 Crowdsourcing
Popcorn Hack 1
Q: What are the different types of crowdsourcing and how do they help with innovation?
✅ Simple Answer: Crowdfunding – People donate small amounts of money to support an idea (e.g., Kickstarter).
Crowd Creation – People help make content like designs or articles (e.g., Wikipedia).
Crowd Voting – People vote on ideas or choices (e.g., Reddit).
Crowd Wisdom – Many people share knowledge to solve problems (e.g., Stack Overflow).
These types help bring in new ideas, save money, and involve the public in innovation.
Popcorn Hack 2
Q: What is data crowdsourcing, and how does it help open-source development? Give 3+ examples.
✅ Simple Answer: Data crowdsourcing is when many people help collect or label data online. It helps open-source projects by giving free data that anyone can use.
Examples:
Wikipedia – People write and edit articles together.
Google reCAPTCHA – People help read blurry text while proving they’re human.
Zooniverse – People help scientists by labeling animals, stars, etc.
Kaggle – Offers public datasets shared by users for projects.
Popcorn Hack 3
Q: How does distributed computing help with crowdsourcing? Give 3+ examples.
✅ Simple Answer: Distributed computing means many computers work together on a task. It helps crowdsourcing by using people’s devices to get things done faster.
Examples:
SETI@home – Uses people’s computers to search for alien signals.
Waze – Drivers share traffic info to improve routes.
Folding@home – People help scientists study diseases with their computers.
It allows big problems to be solved with help from everyday people.
Homework
Crowdsourcing is important today because it allows people from all over the world to work together on projects, share ideas, and solve problems. There are different types of crowdsourcing, like crowdfunding (raising money from many people), crowd creation (making content together), and crowd wisdom (sharing knowledge to find solutions). Distributed computing makes crowdsourcing even better by using many computers to handle big tasks, like SETI@home searching for alien signals or Folding@home helping study diseases. Data crowdsourcing has also boosted open-source development by providing free, shared data for projects like Wikipedia and Kaggle.
In the future, crowdsourcing could drive even more innovation by connecting more people and devices to solve global challenges together.