Guest speaker Scott McLeod, Educational Leadership Professor from the University of Kentucky, spoke on campus on Monday, Sept. 10 to faculty staff and students about developments in the digital world.

McLeod said technology has seemingly led to crowdsourcing amateurs winning over professionals in many cases.

“We all now have a voice,” McLeod said. “We are living through the greatest expansion of human expression of all history right now.”

McLeod provided over 40 various websites that are considerably obscure but impressive examples of crowdsourcing that help provide solutions to problems, both complex and simple, everyday problems.

“They are providing a platform for the crowd to come together to complete a task.” McLeod said.

Travellers, instead of spending hundreds of dollars on a hotel stay, can go to airbnb.com where they can find local homes with extra space for guests to stay for considerably cheaper, and local residents with extra guest space can post their ads for travellers to see, McLeod said.

Travellers going out of town and in need of a ride can visit Pickuppal.com, where they can find local drivers willing to carpool, and drivers can post their carpooling availability, McLeod said.

Seeclickfix.com is a website where individuals can report neighborhood issues, such as potholes, broken sidewalks, faulty streetlights, dangerous turns, etc. and see them quickly get fixed, McLeod said.

Patientslikeme.com provides medical patients a community of other patients like themselves , who are able to share their experiences and provide information about their conditions or problems, which not only allows individuals to find valuable information but also provides moral support, McLeod said.

“Contributions of the crowd, even when very small, aggregated together, have a great value for all of us.It sounds crazy, but it’s exploding.”

These are only a few of the websites that McLeod provided, and a powerpoint containing information about the other websites from McLeod’s presentation can be found at dangerouslyirrelevant.org/workshops.

Convergence ran from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. in CU1,2 and 3.

To contact Paris Burris, email onlineeditor@occc.edu.