The 1% Rule?
| Figures worth consideration in a Guardian Technology article today from Charles Arthur - What is the 1% Rule?. To quote: "It's an emerging rule of thumb that suggests that if you get a group of 100 people online then one will create content, 10 will "interact" with it (commenting or offering improvements) and the other 89 will just view it." Other figures worth a thought: Youtube - 100 million downloads to 65,000 uploads Wikipedia - 50% of all article edits are done by just 0.7% of users, and more than 70% of all articles have been written by just 1.8% of all users I wonder what the implications are for the Web 2.0 phenomenon? Will the figures change over time as Web 2.0 expands? Or is there a fixed social ratio working here that applies across the board and will simply never shift? Perhaps one of the tasks of educators today and in the future is to break this ratio and create an 'upload society', a new generation who see their role as more than mere viewers of others' efforts. Or are the digital natives already there? The bald figures would suggest not. |
© John Connell
The views expressed in this weblog are entirely my own and are not intended to reflect the views of any other individuals or organizations. All sources will be fully acknowledged.
Comments on "The 1% Rule?"
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Andy Watson said ... (July 20, 2006 11:56 PM) :
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Gordon McKinlay said ... (July 21, 2006 3:32 PM) :
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John Connell said ... (July 21, 2006 3:51 PM) :
post a commentVery interesting reference. I think one of the short-term tasks is to create an uploading/commenting/getting involved in some way ethos amongst teachers. If they don't see the value of contributing, they're unlikley to convince kids to be anything more than consumers. Anyone who's ever tried to get teachers to share resources will have heard all the excuses about why they don't want to share their own materials - 'not really finished yet', 'not useful to anyone else', etc - but will also have seen that these same teachers are happy to take anything going, however unfinished or irrelevant it appears.
Creating this sharing ethos will be a major task for the SSDN mentors.
I'm with you on this one. I have been working with on-line communities for a number of years. When I was a trainer with Higehr STill we created a community for some of the new subject areas. It was interesting to be able, as the moderator, to watch the acttivity. A huge number of "lurkers". I think the trick, which we need SSDN to be able to encourage, is to move teachers from lurkers to contributors. If we can use the tools to encourage teachers that it is safe to say something then will grow in confidence and perhaps may even get beyond commenting to creating.
As note elsewhere we need to focus on the "C" in ICT. The "C" being for communication, collaboration or creativity. All of these "C"s matter and if we can encourage more of any of these areas then we shall have done something worthwhile.
Hi, Gordon. It's that fourth 'C' you mentioned too in passing that is critical - confidence! There are still a lot of people with a long way to go to feeling comfortable with making their online presence and active one.
For many, though, it's also about attitudes to the very concept of an online community - few kids will have any problems with the idea, since they (rightly) see their online presence merely as a natural extension to their 'offline' lives. We need to find the means to change the attitudes of teachers to the basic idea of online creativity, online community, online collaboration - to use the other 'C's you raise.