Confronting the Challenges of the Participatory Culture

When I read the first part of this article I thought there were some good ideas in it, but when I went to articulate them, I couldn’t do it. The article seemed very repetitive and abstruse.

I have found that, as this article stated, most computer professional development does emphasize the technology and how to use it rather than how technology can transform education. I am usually left wondering how to use the technology and if the projects suggested are any better than projects that do not use the new technologies.

The main point of the article seemed to be that education should change to allow students to use computers and technology in a participatory culture that has the following features: low barriers to creative expression; strong support for creating and sharing one’s work with others; an informal mentor program that allows more experienced students to help those less experienced; students believe that their contributions are important and students feel connected in some way to others. The authors make the point that computer games, simulations and communications allow for this type of culture in a non-threatening, engaging atmosphere. Students see these activities as fun, not work, although they are developing many skills necessary for their futures.

Three main problems exist for education using computers in this manner. First, all students need equal access to computers both in school and out. Because this is basically impossible, there will always be a gap between the haves and the have-nots. Second, students have to be able to reflect on their experiences and differentiate between what is real and reliable and what is not. In games and simulations, students often assume that there are no biases and that activities reflect the real world, which is usually not the case. Third, the social constraints that are present in a classroom are not necessarily present on-line and so there are few constraints to behavior on-line. Some way needs to be found to help students understand ethical behavior.

The authors emphasize the importance of students learning to read and write before they become part of a participatory culture. The skills they will need to be part of that culture are social skills. Communication through technological media will not replace the need to read and write. However, using technology to communicate will provide students with more feedback and more engaging literacy experiences than they are currently having in classrooms today and will help them become better readers and writers.

I’m glad that the authors are not advocating that we throw out all traditional means of learning to read and write. I do think that we are entering an age where some conventional writing skills – using correct grammar, spelling, conventions and so on are going to become less important to communication.

There are eleven core media literacy skills discussed in the article and page 36 got us through four of them: play as a means of problem-solving with emphasis on engagement over fun; performance in the sense that a student takes on a different identity, often in games; appropriation where a student uses existing media content in new ways; multi-tasking which involves focusing on more than one thing at a time to process information and produce results.

These core skills all seem to be mostly based on use of games and simulations. Will students develop a work ethic if everything they do is completely engaging and fun? Will we develop a workforce that will only produce if the work is engaging?