Thursday, March 20, 2008

Week 5: Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture

http://www.alicechristie.org/classes/530/jenkins.PDF

According to this article, a participatory culture is a culture with relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement, strong support for creating and sharing one's creations, and some type of informal mentorship whereby what is known by the most experienced is passed along to novices. Some examples of the forms of participatory culture include, online communities like MySpace and Facebook. Working together in teams would include reality gaming and Wikipedia.

The problem with this participatory culture is access to these types of forms. With unequal access to these opportunities that could help prepare students may hurt the youth of tomorrow. With many schools uneducated about these opportunities only hurt the students and their learning. Many of these forms, such as MySpace and Facebook could really help a student's education because it's something that they already know. According to a 2005 study conducted by the Pew Internet and American Life project, more than one-half of all American teens--and 57 percent of teens who use the Internet--could be considered media creators. Now that says something about how technology based tools can benefit students.

So how do we as educators ensure that every child has access to the skills and experiences needed to become a full participant in the social, cultural, economic, and political future of our society? Some students are acquiring some of these skills through their own participation in the learning communities. Some teachers are incorporating these into their curriculum and classroom instruction. There are also some after-school programs that are incorporating them. In order to ensure every child has access is a major challenge. The first thing that needs to happen is educating educators. Most online community forms are looked down upon in a negative way because of the way of today's youth. If educators were taught the proper ways to use these forms, then students could benefit greatly.

According to this article, one way that educating youth through participatory culture is negotiation--the ability to travle across diverse communities, discerning and respecting multiple perspectives, and grasping and following alternative sets of norms. To accomplish this task, educators can foster negotiation skills when they bring together groups from diverse backgrounds and provide them with resources and processes that insure careful listening and deeper understanding.

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