Crowdsourcing ICTs and Education

The World Bank has recently recognized the value in crowdsourcing for development. Last year the World Bank Disaster Managementused crowdsourcing in Latin America and the Caribbean, partnering with Yahoo, Google, and NASA, among others. Recently they have applied crowdsourcing to the educational field, in response to systemic problems at the local and regional levels. Crowdsourcing could be used to raise low scores by sending out requests for instructional success stories or to connect teachers to share educational strategies and solutions. One program that has already been implemented is the Open Innovation Portal, started by the US Department of Education. Open Innovation uses crowdsourcing to bring teachers together to share their knowledge on problems plaguing school systems such as dropout rates and difficult children. The program has seen instant results. Just four months after the start of the program, over 4,000 people signed up and shared many innovative ideas that may receive donor funds in order to be more successfully implemented or merely used as effective methods by other participants in the program. This is just one example of crowdsourcing being used here in the U.S. to promote educational solutions. This demonstrates one of the nearly endless ways that crowdsourcing may be utilized as it becomes a more popular strategy in ICT4D.

Wildcard’s Wild Assumptions Revisited

For those of you who followed SinceNam last summer, you know that WildCard and I got into a long friendly debate about the upcoming NFL season for the New England Patriots.  WildCard’s main contention was that Belichick was a mad genius for signing both Fat Albert Haynesworth and Brochocincbro.  The signings were going to change the dynamics of the Patriots and were going to be the catalyst that leads them to another Superbowl.  My contention was that the Patriots do the same things every single fucking year,  sign some big name “veterans” in the off-season who end up doing shit on the field.  Well, I think now is a good time to do some reflecting.  Haynesworth- dropped.  Ocho- Irrelevant (14 receptions all year on a pass heavy team, seriously I’m sure that Jaguar receivers can get 14 catches from Brady).  I’m not saying that the Patriots are not a good team right now.  Only a handful of teams in the NFL are 11-3; however, Haynesworth and Ochocinco can now join the long list of Patriots perennial irrelevant signings.  Case closed.

Eminem is Unquestionably the Greatest Rapper Ever

This post is inspired by a debate I had last night. Let me start by acknowledging that this is a very subjective topic and is strongly based in personal opinion. Everyone is going to have a different favorite rapper, but in terms of the overall greatest rapper there is only one answer. Based on the available evidence there is no question that Eminem is the king of rap. Granted there aren’t many concrete stats to base a decision on, but the stats that we do have point conclusively to Eminem.

Georgetown vs. the Whole Country of China…Who ya Got?

http://videos.sportsgrid.com/embed/player/?r=733122357632964.9&content=F8M5112NKR7S7H2V&widget_type_cid=svp&read_more=1

(sorry for the link. The video is not on youtube so I couldn’t figure out how to embed it)

So the Georgetown basketball team is in China traveling around playing a bunch of professional teams out there. In there second game the refs were apparently calling a ridiculous game with a 57 to 15 free throw disparity in favor of the Chinese team and then the shit hit the fan. A Chinese player fouls a Georgetown player and chaos ensues (complete with curb stomping and thrown chairs). First off, there is a legitimate chance that the Georgetown basketball team doesn’t make it home. Do they really expect to continue playing games in a country we are already politically on edge with after being involved in a brawl? The Big East might have to find a new perennial underachiever quality academic institution to replace the Hoyas.

More importantly, in the last couple of days LeBron got dunked on by an Asian and the Chinese fought in a brawl that would make Ron Artest blush. It sounds like the Asians have finally figured out basketball…well we’re screwed. It looks like it’s only a matter of time before they take over the NBA. Between a baseball league dominated by Central America and Asia, a hockey league dominated by Canada and the Eastern Bloc, a basketball league soon to be dominated by Asia, and oh yeah a failing economy it seems like America is going through some rough times. But hey, at least the NFL lockout is over.

Album Review: Watch the Throne

So as everyone knows probably the most anticipated hip hop collaboration album since Nam came out last week and I would be slacking off as a blogger if I didn’t come out with my review eventually. I have been meaning to write this review since I first listened to the album last Sunday night when it was released, but with an event like this I wanted to take my time in order to really form concrete opinions and not rush to a quick judgement. From the moment Watch the Throne was announced following the success of Dark Fantasy last winter, anticipation has been steadily building into a frenzy over what Kanye and Jay Z might pull out of their hats, or perhaps crowns is the better word in this case. Watch the Throne is easily the most hyped album that I can remember in the last decade, and I knew this hype would lead to impossible expectations for the duo to live up to. Because of this I wanted to give it a few listens all the way through so that I could remove myself from the kneejerk reactions and judge the album based on its quality, not my own assumptions of what the album should sound like. I finally have a solid opinion on WTT and without further ado here is WildCard’s take on Watch the Throne.

LeBron James Gets Dunked on Again…This Time by an Asian

Just when it was getting old to make fun of LeBron for being LeBron (LeBron: adj. being extremely gifted and talented but extremely arrogant and naive, resulting in shrinking and fading like a 100% red cotton shirt in the hot wash during the most important moments of a professional career) he comes out and gets dunked on again. Hey you gotta give it to LeBron, he knows how to keep himself in the spotlight for good or bad (recently bad has been winning in a landslide bigger than Lyndon B. Johnson in the 1964 presidential election).

Anyway onto the Kenny’s Pictures breakdown of the video. No joke I first thought this was some type of funny Nike commercial. Nobody on that court looks like they belong on any basketball court (even in Asia) much less on a court playing with LeBron James. Some of the players look like they’re no older than 15 years old and I’m pretty sure there is a girl on the red team. I’m sure LeBron got paid a shit ton by Nike to show up at this promo and planned on just fucking around and kicking everybody’s ass. Little did he know that he would end up being the star of an episode of When Keeping in Real Goes Wrong. The asian kid picks LeBron’s pocket better than a Russian gypsy and nothing surprises me in this video more than the kid’s ability to dunk.

Granted I know LeBron obviously wasn’t really trying to get back on defense or anything and he only took one weak swipe at the ball but still it was just enough to be slightly embarrassing and give us reason to hate on LeBron again. Then LeBron decides he has to redeem himself so he proceeds to travel, double dribble, carry and every other violation that he would classify as a “crab dribble”. Finally to top it off the Asian DeShawn Stevenson pops a 3 in LeBron’s eye.

Now let’s just hope LeBron doesn’t make Nike confiscate this video and put a hit out on me for posting it…the things I risk for your entertainment.

P.S. The smoke spewing out of the backboard after a basket has potential to be the greatest addition to basketball since the three-point line.

Kevin Durant Goes HAM at Rucker Park

Apparently KD is on a mission to boost his street cred this summer. First there was the discovery of mysterious tattoos all over the parts of his body under his jersey, now here he is absolutely setting fire to the famous Rucker Park in NYC the same way I’ve been lighting up this blog with witty and insightful commentary the past week. The video is pretty sweet, but at the same time I’m not sure how impressive this is. On the one hand I would think any NBA player, especially one of the top 3 players in the League, should be able to go off on a bunch of streetballers and hoodrats at Rucker. But then again on the other hand, Rucker is legendary everywhere in basketball circles for the fierce competition displayed and no doubt its a much different style of play than NBA ball where if you breathe on somebody too hard its a foul. Also just seeing the shots he’s taking, just pulling up launching absolute bombs and causing a torrential downpour. So in the end I say I’m still impressed, but what do the readers think?

PS It’s a good thing the guy at :50 told everybody that KD could hit shots. Otherwise we would’ve had no idea.

Yams of the Week

Its been wayyyyyy too long since I’ve found any good new music to post on here. With everyone sitting and waiting for all of the big August releases like Watch the Throne, C4, and hell even the R.E.D. Album is supposed to finally see the light of day (don’t hold your breath on that one) there’s been a bit of a drought in hip hop. However in the past few days we’ve finally had some noteworthy releases, starting with the song that I’m almost positive will be the anthem for the next couple months.

Drake-Headlines

Blackout!

The great Andre 3000 once said:

There’s a war going on and half the battle is guns
How dare I throw it on the floor
When people are poor
So I write like Edgar Allen to restore

 

So while the war of NFL fandom rages on here, one that could easily be the longest war Since ‘Nam itself, I will heed the words above me and go on to write some fire blogs like Edgar Al would have back in the day.

I know that I just posted one of Dom Mazzeti’s vids the other day. But this is without a doubt his best video and I’m so fucking pissed at him for it because he completely ripped me and the rest of the Since Nam crew off with this one. I’m pretty sure he plagiarized and slightly embellished any one of our good old Four Loko nights or pretty much any blackout night for that matter. Screaming at people, drunk facebook, running around bad neighborhoods yelling the N word, having seizures, euthanizing old people, pretty sure that qualifies as a standard night. And while I don’t think I’ve ever murdered a panda it’s entirely possible I just don’t remember. And he didn’t even mention some finer moments: passing out in assorted places around campus, Peeping Tom, waking up in a drunken stupor in the middle of the night and pissing into my Polo shirt drawer (that’s a recent one).

“Im Sorry he died. Im sorry they all died. Im sorry about a lot of things I did. But you know what, it was a good night.”  Couldn’t have said it better myself.

Poll Time!

For those of you that had the time/IQ to keep up with me and PB’s thrilling debate regarding the merits of Bill Belichick’s Holiness, who do you think won? If you didn’t check it out already just click one post below this, its a good read and even gets a little heated between myself and my cuddly counterpart. If nothing else its a great way to kill time at work/school, much better than reading fucking Grantland (sorry Simmons, your new site sucks). Anyways I already know who was the victor based off of my talent for wordplay as well as my charming good looks, but its always nice to get some reassurance for a nice ego boost. So go ahead and vote below: