#thoughtexchange

[mikasintuitions]

Hey friends, family, social media audience. 2020 is going to bring some awemazingness! Are you ready for it? Well I am getting ready here. Starting Feb. YouTube - content Vegan and whole plant based meals. Construction 🚧 starts February 1st. I am converting garage space into a healing space. 🕯 Coming soon! Yoga classes Reiki healing Healing touch therapy Crystal healing Holistic counseling Holistic nutrition I am looking for volunteers 💪to help clear out, insulate, paint, cleaning, just to name a few. My plan includes the environment as well as my carbon footprint, therefore, I plan to do as much repurpose and upcycling as possible. If you have the following to donate or can lend a tool please let me know, I can pick up! Paint Insulation Paint brushes Building materials Buckets Cabinets Shelves Storage containers (various sizes) Soil Lava rocks Wood Pallets Fabric Orphaned or displaced plants Office furniture File cabinets Various decor Water cooler Chairs Ceiling fan Various Lighting/ lamination Compost toilet Sink Counter top In return for your volunteer time I will match your free session time. You may not be interested yet this may be the very thing someone on your timeline is looking for.. please like subscribe and share! Love & Light Mika #manifesting #mikamagic #mikasmoment #assertiveintuitions #yoga #2020 #fromnothing #crystalhealing #reiki #energyhealing #positiveflow #vegan #wholeplantbaseddiet #mindbodysoul #thesecret #thoughtexchange #bethechange #upcycle #recycle #reuse #repurpose #enviromental #donate #spiritualhealing #peermentor #healingtouchcomingsoon #glendale #arizona #holistichealing #holistic (at Glendale, Arizona) https://www.instagram.com/p/B7hGZRTgnLM/?igshid=1guo09ywlkdrs

[joankho]

How can we use social media for crowdsourcing?

What is crowdsourcing?

Crowdsourcing is the practice of enlisting the help of a 'crowd' or group to achieve a common goal, most commonly innovation, problem-solving, or efficiency (What is crowdsourcing 2021). It is driven by new technologies such as social media and web 2.0. Crowdsourcing can occur at many different levels and in a variety of industries. Individuals can now contribute ideas, time, expertise, or funds to a project or cause more easily than ever before, thanks to our growing connectivity. This collective mobilization is referred to as crowdsourcing. It is the process of tapping into individuals or groups of people, paid or unpaid, who are linked together by a common interest to bring forth powerful increased results through their aggregated actions or activities. The Internet and social media have brought organizations closer to their stakeholders, laying the groundwork for unprecedented collaboration and value creation.

People use social media for crowdsourcing

In today's age of social media, many people use social media to crowdsource especially in business. Many large corporate companies facing an idea shortage will use crowdsourcing to get ideas. They hold national or worldwide contests with the help of the entire web or social media to call for participation and attach rewards so that people are attracted to the rewards and the business will benefit from the crowdsourced ideas to solve their shortage of inspiration. 

Some companies or organizations usually use these five tips to Crowdsource Ideas. The first is to provide an incentive to participate ( How to crowdsource ideas for your organization 2022 ). Posting entry links to social media as social media is the fastest place to spread the word today, motivates people to submit their best ideas. A nice prize or even profit sharing is a great incentive for people to participate and move their best ideas forward. The second step is to make it easy. The implementation of a crowdsourcing program can be difficult. Taking part in one should not be. People will become frustrated, abandon the task, and never return if there is friction in the submission process. To make the user experience as simple as possible, use an app designed for crowdsourcing ideas. Thirdly, don’t limit the project to a specific group. Encourage people from all walks of life, especially those outside the business sector, to participate, accepting everyone’s ideas and following them to be as creative and honest as possible. Fourth, there’s the challenge of evaluating ideas quickly and fairly. Consider using crowdsourcing to rank ideas. Allowing participants to see and vote for other ideas will help to filter out the best ones fairly. Finally, there is transparency but reserved veto power. Communicating the results to participants and keeping them updated on the next steps is an excellent way to close the loop and demonstrate that their participation is valued.

Example

Coca-Cola is a good example that using crowdsourcing to promote its product. Their company employees have been struggling with their advertising campaign for some time ( Moth 2013). Then the company decided to turn its attention to the online community by crowdsourcing some of its creative design work to social media. A crowdsourcing advertising contest for Coca-Cola’s advertising campaign. The contest selected entries from an initial pool of about 3,600 millions and one entry from Asia ended up being the grand prize winner among the 10 finalists. The winning campaign was much more effective than the one Coca-Cola commissioned from other agencies. It also increased Coca-Cola’s production by eight times.

Conclusion

Using social media for crowdsourcing can achieve results faster and more effectively.

Kindly click the link below to see the presentation slide👇

https://prezi.com/p/ihu67qyjd-vx/?present=1

References

How to crowdsource ideas for your organization 2022, ThoughtExchange,  viewed 13 November 2022, <https://thoughtexchange.com/blog/crowdsourcing-ideas-within-your-organization/>.

Moth, D 2013, ‘Eight brands that crowdsourced marketing and product ideas’, Econsultancy, viewed 13 November 2022, <https://econsultancy.com/eight-brands-that-crowdsourced-marketing-and-product-ideas/>.

What is crowdsourcing 2021, Crowdsourcing Week, viewed 13 November 2022, <https://crowdsourcingweek.com/what-is-crowdsourcing/>.

[epacer]

Reporter’s Notebook

San Diego Unified superintendent finalists will be revealed next week

The San Diego Unified School Board will announce up to three finalists for its superintendent job at its board meeting Tuesday, officials leading the superintendent search said.

Officials said last week that they will not disclose how many people have applied for the top job in the district of 97,000 students, or from which states those applicants applied. The window to apply for the job closed last month.

A board-appointed advisory committee overseeing the search also would not say how it has vetted those applications or what criteria and questions it used to narrow down the applicants to a group of semi-finalists this week. The committee also won’t say how many semi-finalists it chose.

Committee representatives said they presented the San Diego Unified School Board with “up to” 10 semi-finalists last week, out of which the board is expected to choose “up to” three finalists this week, said Christopher Rice-Wilson, associate director of Alliance San Diego and chair of the search advisory committee.

The committee can’t say much about its vetting process because it’s a human resources matter, Rice-Wilson said. Other committee members said they had to sign nondisclosure agreements.

“It’s an HR process and we must be fair to all applicants,” Rice-Wilson said during a press conference call Tuesday. “We should not talk about any of that information.”

Rice-Wilson said the applicants were diverse in race, age, geography and in other ways, and they were “very qualified.”

“We had the diversity we were searching for,” he said.

On Jan. 10 the search committee is planning for the public to meet the finalists, the committee said. Officials say they plan an early morning Zoom session between the finalists and local civic leaders, including Mayor Todd Gloria and the heads of San Diego colleges, corporations and nonprofits.

Then the finalists will participate in community forums at three locations, including at San Diego Unified headquarters. There will be Q&A sessions and focus groups, and the public will have opportunities to give feedback, according to the district.

The school board expects to hire a superintendent later in January, Rice-Wilson said.

It has been 10 months since the school board first announced it would search for a new superintendent to take the place of Cindy Marten.

Marten, a former teacher and principal, was superintendent for eight years before leaving the district in May to become the U.S. deputy secretary of education. Area Superintendent Lamont Jackson, whom some have suggested as a permanent replacement, has been interim superintendent.

Over the past few months a board-appointed superintendent search advisory committee, which began with four dozen members, has been overseeing the search process.

The district contracted with the Washington, D.C.-based National Center on Education and the Economy for $350,000 to conduct community forums and gather input on what qualities community members want to see in the next superintendent.

The process, though secretive, has been more public than in 2013, when the board chose Marten in a closed-door meeting hours after the prior superintendent told the board he was retiring.

This time the search advisory committee gathered input from about 1,000 community members, 34 in-person and online meetings, and an online feedback platform called ThoughtExchange.

In submitted comments, community members said they’re concerned that not all students get equitable access to such district resources as gifted and advanced learning programs, special education services, enrichment programs, quality teachers or targeted help for students learning English.

When asked what qualities they want in a superintendent, some emphasized classroom teaching and education experience while others wanted experience running organizations with large budgets.

Some described what they see as a culture of complacency among district leadership and said they want someone willing to acknowledge problems in the district, have tough conversations and hold people accountable.

Several said they want the new superintendent to be more transparent, to communicate better with parents, school staff and other stakeholders, and to take stakeholder input more seriously. *Reposted article from the UT by Kristen Taketa, December 12, 2021

[gshahinur]

Some districts are ending the school year early over challenges with distance learning

https://www. nbcnews. com/news/us-news/some-districts-are-ending-school-year-early-over-challenges-distance-n1196416

 At the onset of remote learning in March, the Bibb County School District, more than an hour south of Atlanta, sought feedback from teachers, students and parents on what challenges, if any, they were facing.

 The district used the crowdsourcing tool ThoughtExchange to hear from teachers and administrators and the app Let's Talk to solicit responses from parents and students, Superintendent Curtis Jones Jr. said. Between the two tools, more than 10,000 thoughts were shared that were used for evaluation by the district.

 "The No. 1 thought was: We were stressed," Jones said in a phone interview Thursday.

 After consulting with the Bibb County Board of Education, the district, like others in parts of Georgia, as well as in Washington, D.C., and Nebraska, responded by announcing it planned to end the academic year early. School is out for the more than 21,000 students in the school district Friday — three weeks early. -------------------

[inventivaindia]

Voyager invests in $20M round for ‘crowdsourcing intelligence platform’ Thoughtexchange

Voyager invests in $20M round for ‘crowdsourcing intelligence platform’ Thoughtexchange

New funding: Thoughtexchange announced a $20 million (CAD) Series B investment round led by Information Venture Partners with participation from Yaletown Partners and Seattle-based Voyager Capital, which invested for the first time. With current exchange rates, the round was $15 million in U.S. dollars.

Company background: The 140-person startup, based in the small town of Rossland, B.C. just…

[letechnologeek]

Voyager investit dans une ronde de financement d’un montant de 20 millions de dollars pour la «plate-forme de renseignement participatif» Thoughtexchange – Newstrotteur

[jasonramsey]

Tweeted

Great leadership and learning from colleagues across the country. This morning’s topics: How to build consensus, trust, and support of the district’s mission and vision even when some are upset or angry. #ThoughtExchange pic.twitter.com/MzardKBu9E

— Dr. Steve P. Noble (@StevePNoble) July 19, 2019

[zipgrowth]

How to Make District-Wide Innovation Personal—and Collaborative

In some corners of education, personalization is no longer just a buzzword. It’s a bad word.

There are many reasons, including a lack of clarity around definitions, a lack of efficacy—because of confusion around the term—and, at some schools, a lack of rigor.

Another reason for the concern is that as educators increasingly use digital tools to personalize learning for students, some have struggled to ensure that the environments they create are not isolating. Parents and educators rightly fear the image of rows of students on computers, never talking to another human being.

The real magic of blended learning occurs when teachers use technology to boost human interaction, in both frequency and impact.

And it turns out that when a district sets out to personalize learning in its schools, the classroom isn’t the only place where people matter. To realize the promise of personalization, it’s people across the entirety of a school community—the parents, the administrators and the school board, for instance—that ultimately matter.

Learning models eat education software for breakfast.

A new case study by Entangled Solutions illustrates how that is unfolding at Arcadia Unified School District in California, which serves 9,500 students across its 11 schools. Since the 2017–18 school year, it has worked with AltSchool, an education startup that supports schools in building learner-centered environments.

As the following five takeaways show, keeping people front, center and involved is key to scaling personalized learning effectively across any school community. (As AltSchool itself had to learn, building and deepening these relationships takes more than gadgets and software.)

1. Build a culture of agency and risk-taking

Because education policy and regulations historically have focused on inputs—mandating the resources and processes schools use, like the amount of money for teachers, the minimum length of a contract with a curriculum provider, and the like—educators typically aren’t incentivized to exercise agency or take risks. No risk-taking means no innovation.

Arcadia took care not only to define values— collaboration, critical thinking, creativity, empathy and learning from failure—that would cut across those historical restraints, but also to implement new processes that would signal to its people that it was serious about those values.

The mantra “learn from failure” turned out to be particularly important, although challenging to implement.

“One of our summer projects was to create a fail wall for everyone to see,” said Greg Gazanian, Arcadia’s chief strategy and innovation officer, in the case study. “Our educators were great students: They were good in school, they had the right answers, they became teachers. So to get to a point where a teacher is vulnerable in a classroom in front of kids, we had to highlight ways you can fail and talk about it in a positive way.”

2. Engage the community early and often

Engaging the community in a sustained way is a vital step for innovating in a district, but also tricky because parents often are wary of what change will mean for their children.

I’ve seen many sparkling district innovation efforts improve outcomes, only to get rolled back a couple of years later when small factions of the community grow concerned about the changes unfolding. This is almost always because the district failed to communicate early or often enough with parents, students, teachers and school leaders.

In contrast, Arcadia has engaged its community in a multi-year effort to not just explain what it is doing, but also give community members a seat at the table to help define its goals. For example, district leadership made sure to bring its union in on discussions with AltSchool to develop stronger solutions and avoid misunderstandings. The district even used a specific tool, thoughtexchange, to listen to its parents in an open-ended way on an ongoing basis.

3. Seek a partnership rather than a product

Learning models eat education software for breakfast. And as a school rethinks its classroom designs and instructional approaches, how its teachers and students interact with each other and with the curriculum often is more important than the actual software they use.

All too often when districts innovate, they forget to attend to the human dimensions of learning and change.

Arcadia’s experiences with vendors over the years taught it a similar lesson. Some providers were too rigid and couldn’t accommodate the range of ways that district leaders wanted to create learning opportunities for students. Others offered sophisticated platforms but lacked the substantive knowledge to adapt them to varied educational settings.

In selecting AltSchool as a partner to help transform its schools, Arcadia’s leadership was motivated not just by the features of the platform, but also by company’s commitment to supporting Arcadia’s teachers with training and support. AltSchool kicked off the partnership with a customized 2-day workshop that offered teachers significant choice in where they focused, and AltSchool has changed at least 21 features in its software in response to feedback from the district, according to Arcadia’s assistant superintendent of educational services, Jeff Wilson. For Arcadia, it was the people dimension that mattered most to the success of the partnership.

4. Plan big, but start small

This may sound like common sense, but all too often districts mistakenly do one of two things.

They roll out a new initiative across an entire district in the name of equity before doing any piloting. The complexity of the innovation then overwhelms the ability to manage it and the effort collapses. Or,

They pilot constantly without a clear plan to expand and scale what works and sunset what doesn’t. As a result, “pilot” becomes a tarnished word in many districts.

To avoid these missteps, Arcadia has been intentional about who pilots the AltSchool platform first and the sequence of teachers with which it will grow its innovation efforts over time. The district started the pilot with 10 teachers in two middle schools to work through the kinks before it scaled. This year, 120 teachers chose to implement AltSchool—twice what the district had expected initially.

5. Set clear goals you can measure

Before innovating, districts must create a rallying cry—a true reason for innovating—and a set of measurable goals consistent with that cry. Arcadia is focusing on student achievement.

But to see if its implementation is on track, it is keeping an eye on a set of intermediary goals around four items:

Workflow. Is it freeing up time for teachers to be responsive to student needs?

Collaboration. Is it allowing educators and students to connect in novel ways that they would not have before?

Creativity. Are educators able to leverage the platform to build new, engaging types of lessons plans?

Engagement. Are students and parents more immersed in their learning with an eye toward educational growth?

All too often when districts innovate, they forget to attend to the human dimensions of learning and change. If educators want to seize the power of personalization to allow all children to fulfill their potential, they will need to focus on the people. That means not just teachers in the classroom, but investing in bringing along the entire school community in every stage of a district’s plans.

How to Make District-Wide Innovation Personal—and Collaborative published first on https://medium.com/@GetNewDLBusiness

[alpineacn]

Alpine Union School District Community Forums Scheduled to Guide the Future of District

Alpine Union School District Community Forums Scheduled to Guide the Future of District

  Alpine Union School District Community Forums

  In the spirit of continued improvement, the Alpine Union School District (AUSD) launched a Thoughtexchange in September where we asked our community to share their thoughts and ideas about the future of our District.

  The response to our Thoughtexchange was tremendous. More than 500 ideas were submitted. The level of engagement demonstrated that…

[aslightlyisolateddog]

More Takahashi, Line-Out 1998

The artist creates landscapes from found objects.

[epacer]

Could your local school be better? Now is the time to speak up

Do you wish your school had afternoon tutoring? Could it offer more opportunities for parents to get involved?

This is the time to raise those issues as school districts seek feedback from parents, teachers, students and community members about the way they plan their programs and spend their money.

“We only have so many dollars, so we have to triage which priorities we focus on,” Oceanside spokeswoman Lisa Contreras said.

Districts are collecting input through online surveys and in-person workshops designed to sort out what their schools are doing well, and what they could do better. It’s part of the Local Control and Accountability Plan, through which schools sort out local needs and spending priorities.

In 2013, Gov. Jerry Brown oversaw passage of the Local Control Funding Formula, a law that removed many state education mandates, freeing up local districts to focus on the unique needs of their students. It established base funding for all school districts, and dedicated extra resources to schools with higher numbers of English-language learners, foster children and students from low-income families.

The law requires schools to develop Local Control Accountability Plans, three-year documents that describe their goals, actions and spending plans. And they must seek suggestions from all those affected, through surveys, meetings and workshops. Those surveys and meeting notices can be found on most school and district websites. A list of all districts and links to their LCAP plans are available through the San Diego County Office of Education.

“A lot of them do community forums, where anybody can come,” said Nancy Sedgwick, LCAP director for the San Diego County Office of Education. “Some of the elementary schools do it through a coffee with the principal, where anybody can come and discuss the LCAP. Some do “Thoughtexchange,” a software program that does that.”

In Oceanside, the effort involves community forums and separate meetings for parents, students and staff to seek input on their plans. The district also posts online surveys where people can submit suggestions to improve the schools.

“We’re trying to make it more engaging for them by getting input, so we can do things better,” Contreras said. “It could be improved transportation, to better playgrounds, to more AVID classes, to more ESL (English as a second language) classes for parents.”

In previous years, Oceanside schools responded to those recommendations by adding intervention teachers for English learners to lower class sizes for reading and learning instruction, restructuring its special education department and services, introducing an extended school year and expanding its career technical education pathways.

Escondido Union High School District is conducting parent surveys now, and will schedule meetings, as well. For the first time this year, the two student members of the school board decided to hold forums to gather input from their peers, including English learners, foster children, special education students and club leaders.

“They spoke, student to student, and it was truly profound,” said Janet Hwang, interim director of assessment and accountability. “They were able to articulate, so effectively, what were the strengths and areas of improvement.”

At the Sweetwater Union High School District in Chula Vista, officials hold feedback sessions at the “State of the District” speech, Sedgwick said. Audience members, including parents, business owners, along with local city officials and state legislators, break into small groups, and students lead the discussions about spending priorities, she said.

“I’m seeing much more transparent, creative, inclusive ways to get people involved, in whatever fun ways they can think about,” she said. “So it’s kind of exciting to see where it’s going.”

The LCAP process has its critics. A report by Canadian education scholars on California’s Local Control Funding Formula raised concerns that LCAP was a rote exercise in information gathering, with little impact on school accountability.

Sedwick agreed that some of the early efforts to seek school feedback in 2013 were lackluster, but said that as districts and their students, families and communities became familiar with the process, they recognized its potential to tailor education systems to local needs.

“This really allows districts to think outside the box more,” she said. “You have to look at the whole kid and look at the whole program. I think we’re on the right path, and compared to the way things used to be, it allows districts to do what they want to do, which is help their students.” *Reposted article from the UT by Deborah Sullivan Brennan of February 10, 2018

[alpineacn]

Alpine Union School District – Reorganization for the Future & A High School

Alpine Union School District – Reorganization for the Future & A High School

*Submitted By George Barnett – January 16, 2019

I attended the January 9, 2019 School Board meeting, and these are my personal thoughts…..

Based on extensive public input and surveying via the ThoughtExchange process, the Superintendent’s Advisory Task Force has formed three Subcommittees to define forward strategic proposals for improving education in Alpine; the High School Subcommittee, the…

[alpineacn]

Share Your Thoughts About the Future of Alpine Union School District!

Share Your Thoughts About the Future of Alpine Union School District!

October 2018 – AUSD is excited to share that today we launched an online tool called Thoughtexchange that gives you the ability to provide input and ideas.  We will be using this site as part of our process to improve our schools and identify the priorities of our community. The site will provide us the ability to capture the thoughts and ideas about what our community believes are the most…

[aslightlyisolateddog]

Tomoko Takahashi - Learning to Drive

[aslightlyisolateddog]

Tim Noble and Sue Webster

[aslightlyisolateddog]

Land Mark #1, 2001.