Thoughts on Jenkins’ Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century:
I am decidedly not a “millennial”, and this new participatory culture often mystifies me. I learn, play, and socialize in traditional, non-digital forums. And, I’ll admit, I tend to be one of those people who worry about “youth today,” wondering if all those hours kids are spending on Facebook is good for them.
But reading this paper made me start to understand this new culture better – and to realize that perhaps young people are learning important life skills from their digital excesses – skills such as creative expression, collaboration, and networking. The most important idea I drew from this reading is that if digital technologies are teaching kids all this outside of school, what will happen when schools finally get around to harnessing these technologies for teaching?
I believe there is a huge potential for interactive, social, collaborative, multi-media learning interfaces: imagine a classroom where students can learn together with students from across the globe? The possibilities go way beyond Blackboard. This article made me begin to hope that maybe all that youthful Face-booking is in fact building a brave new digital world of learning. And as an information professional, albeit an old timer, I want to start to get involved in, and try to facilitate, this new culture of participatory learning.