Participatory Culture

Henry Jenkins said that participatory culture has been around since the mid 19^th century at first I surprised by because I thought participatory culture was available only through the internet.  Clearly I was wrong!  The example he gave of the sewing a quilt in terms of participatory culture; not everyone is an expert but together can make something great. 

Mimi said how the kids that are “geeking out” are the one identifying with more creative ways to use the internet for YouTube, remixing, etc.  Parents/adults on the other hand are afraid to “friend” their own children on Facebook.  It seems like adults are one step or more behind kids that “geeking out”, they aren’t comfortable trying something new because maybe they would do something wrong.  Kids are willing to do something wrong because that may lead to something better than originally planned.

Kids are the ones that to me are leading the charge of Participatory Culture.  Participatory Culture can be defined as various people from varying backgrounds, cultures working together to build something greater.  My definition is similar to Henry Jenkins example of the quilt.  There are no experts in Participatory Culture but together something great can be built.

When thinking about guiding students to expand their online skills and interests we have to think about how we as adults do it.  Facebook, Twitter, YouTube were started by a group of adults/young adults but what they have developed into is thanks to our students.  Their word of mouth, their thoughts about what else these programs can do goes beyond posting a status or remixing a video.  They are creating this new world of a larger “participatory culture”.  The way we can best guide our students to expand online skills and interests that they have developed in their personal lives in order to create individuals who become productive, contributing members of a larger “participatory culture” is to have them show what they know not just tell and to trust the process.   People don’t like to be wrong but sometimes being wrong can lead to something “right”, let students know not everything has to be a success!  We as adults know that sometimes in order to succeed we need to struggle, share that with students.   Participatory Culture has no age limit, teachers and students can struggle and succeed together!

This work by Anne Marie Lanning is licensed under a
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