CETconnect.org

In my last blog entry, I introduced “participatory culture” and what it means in terms of education and 21st Century skills. Now we’ll take a closer look at why the educational community has a place in the digital media picture.

According to a recent paper on digital media and learning, there are four forms of participatory culture:
1. affiliations, or formal or informal memberships in online communities, such as MySpace;
2. expressions, or developing new creative forms to express content, such as mash-ups;
3. collaborative problem-solving, or cooperative efforts, whether formal or informal, to complete tasks and develop new knowledge, such as Wikipedia; and
4. circulations, or platforms that shape the flow of media, such as this blog.

A recent study from the Pew Internet and American Life project tells us that more than one-half of all teens have created media content and approximately one-third who have access to the Internet have used it to share their content. But this comes from their own initiative, their own desire to express themselves and connect with others with similar interests or needs. While many of them may have been introduced to the technology at school, their intrinsic motivation and the availability of the technology at home makes their participation possible.

Now, you may ask why do schools need to stick their fingers into this pie? A rapidly growing percentage of teens are experimenting and learning this on their own; however, would you agree that teens instant messaging one another are learning all of the language arts skills that they need to succeed in this world? Would you agree that teens Googling for the latest entertainment news are learning the research skills they need to perform in a professional career? And what about those students on the other side of the digital divide? How do they learn those skills on their own when there is no computer in their home?

So, now that we’ve established why schools are part of the solution, how do we squeeze one more important content area into an environment dictated by No Child Left Behind?

We’ll take up that matter next time. –Diane