New Literacies in a Participatory Culture

What is a participatory culture?

Participation culture is one where members believe their contributions matter, and they can find a group of people with the same interests.  Participation culture is very social, as members feel connected with one another.  Many times people find inspiration in others, support, and even mentorship.  Media created is done so not to make money, but to share and learn from each others.  One example of this is YouTube, or Reddit.  Online communities such as these, are having an impact on political issues, and provide new perspectives.  People are sharing their thoughts, opinions, worries about various issues in the world at little to no cost, with large audiences. 

There are different types of participatory culture, as noted in "Confronting the Challengesof Participatory Culture:Media Education for the21st Century".  These include:  

• Affiliations
• Expressions
• Collaborative-problem solving
• Circulations

With participation culture becoming such a huge part of our world, it is important that we are teaching the required skills with students.  By not doing so, students will still be part of the participation culture, but with little to no guidance.  As Henry Jenkins pointed out in his video,  high school students without new literacies were more connected and excited about projects outside of school. Without addressing these in the classroom, we are letting students down.  Everything taught in education is still important in their lives, but they will share and discuss in different formats than past generations. 

How can you embrace the best of participatory cultures into everyday practices of your classroom/schooling? 

We can embrace participatory cultures into daily classroom routines by letting students interact digitally.  Students can discuss their opinions or understandings via YouTube videos, written blogs, editing a Wikipedia page, or otherwise interacting digitally.  We can use this for networking with experts in a field, seeing videos, and having students create or challenge other opinions.  There is a lot of potential for participation with STEM fields, projects, and researching people who are out there impacting fields in "affinity spaces".  

Deweyan Experience

The Deweyan experience is when material experienced "runs its course to fulfillment."  The way that it ends and the way that it connects to what was previously taught is noteworthy in what "an" experience is.  His version of an experience starts within a student, rather than just the student engaged in what was asked of them to engage in.  This reminds me a lot of project based learning, where the direction of learning is fueled by the student with the teacher facilitating rather than lecturing.  

Emerging technology can create "an" experience because it allows learners to virtually engage in actual fields and apply skills that without technology is not possible.  It allows learners to connect what they learn and then see it in action.  It also enables a deeper understanding of content when they are able to engage in this way. In some ways, it changes the culture in a classroom to be more team based.