What is
Participatory Culture?
A study from the Pew Internet & American Life project, that focuses
on the involvement of teens to produce and share content media in Internet,
showed that more than one-half of all teens have created media content, and
one-third of teens have shared the content they produced.
Jenkins defines the culture that has low barriers to artistic expression
and strongly supports the sharing of anyone’s creation, as participatory
culture. In the participatory culture each member believes that their
contributions are valuable and social connection is important. Forms of
participatory culture include affiliations, expressions, collaborative problem
solving and circulations.
Henry Jenkins, Katie Clinton, Ravi
Purushotma, Alice J. Robison, and Margaret Weigel, 2009. Confronting the
Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur
Foundation Reports on Digital Media and Learning, June 5, 2009.
New Media Literacy
Skills
The development of digital media has shifted learners toward digital
literacy and has a massive impact in participatory culture as well. The
following diagram demonstrates what the impact of new media is in the
participatory culture, and what are some of the prerequisites for learners to
get involved. Blogs, Youtube, Wikipedia, Flickr, Virtual life are some of
platforms where learners can participate, create, share and access digital
files. Even though the participants don’t know each other they can interact and
collaborate with each other in distance. The online collaboration enhances
social skills and also informs users about new trends in technology or in any
other aspect of life. The following diagram shows the impact of digital media
in participatory culture.
Henry Jenkins, Katie Clinton, Ravi Purushotma, Alice J. Robison, and
Margaret Weigel, 2009. Confronting the
Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century,
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Reports on Digital Media and
Learning, June 5, 2009.
Challenges of Participatory Cultures
According to Bill Ivey and Steven J. Tepper those who have the education,
skills, financial resources, and time required to navigate through cultural
choices will gain access to new cultural opportunities. Instead of, those individuals who have fewer
resources will rely on the cultural fare offered by media. Therefore technology
and economic change will influence the cultural division among people. The
question that comes naturally is what are consequences for democracy, civility,
community, and quality of life? Is it possible for US to prosper if the cultural
inequality is so evident? Ivey and Tepper concerns are if all students will benefit
from learning in ways that allow them to contribute in public, community, and
economic life. The challenge is how to engage students in after-school
programs, and give the youngest children a head start and allow more mature
younger students the chance to develop and grow as collaborative participants
and ethical communicators.
Henry Jenkins, Katie Clinton, Ravi Purushotma, Alice J. Robison, and
Margaret Weigel, 2009. Confronting the
Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century,
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Reports on Digital Media and
Learning, June 5, 2009.
James Gee defines informal learning cultures as affinity spaces and he
explores why people learn more, participate more actively, and engage more with
popular culture than they do with textbooks.
According to Gee affinity spaces offer different opportunities for
learning because:
a. There are several endeavors that bridge differences such as age,
class, race, gender, and educational level.
b. Individuals can participate in various groups based on their skills
and interests.
c. Peer to peer teaching encourages participants to learn new knowledge
or improve existing skills.
d. Each individual feels as an expert while tapping the expertise of
others.
Affinity spaces are different from formal educational systems because:
a. Gaining knowledge from popular culture is experimental instead of
formal education is conservative.
b. Informal learning from popular culture is innovative and formal
learning is more static.
c. Informal learning communities are ad hoc and l formal educational
communities are bureaucratic.
The learning platform I'm considering is Moodle and the affinity spaces
are more present in discussion forums and collaborative projects.
Henry Jenkins, Katie Clinton, Ravi Purushotma, Alice J. Robison, and
Margaret Weigel, 2009. Confronting the
Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century,
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Reports on Digital Media and
Learning, June 5, 2009.
Critical Media Literacy
New Media Consortium defines 21st literacy as the set of abilities and
skills where aural, visual, and digital literacy overlaps. The ability to
visualize, recognize, manipulate and transform digital media is the skill that
individuals should possess.
The new literacies require social skills that are improved through
collaboration and networking and are built, to distribute them pervasively, and
to easily adapt them to new forms.
The new literacies almost all involve social skills developed through
collaboration and networking and are built on the traditional literacy taught
in the classroom. Traditional literacy is a must for all students before they
are engaged into new participatory culture.
New media literacy cannot be perceived as technical skills and in
education system new media literacy cannot just be covered by installing computer
labs. New media literacies is a social skill and the best way to interact with
larger communities.
Henry Jenkins, Katie Clinton, Ravi Purushotma, Alice J. Robison, and
Margaret Weigel, 2009. Confronting the
Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century,
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Reports on Digital Media and
Learning, June 5, 2009.
Digital Learning and Participatory Culture Role into Moodle LMS
Olgert Nazarko
Empire State College
Abstract
The expanse of technology has emerged the shift toward digital learning.
Learners are more oriented toward e-learning and especially
learning management systems. Moodle as an open-source platform is designed to
engage learners in digital literacy and emphasize the participatory culture and
its benefits.
Digital Learning and
Participatory Culture
Reading from an electronic device
was out of imagination 25 years ago, a printed book as the way to go. In the
last ten years the technology is changing so rapidly that sometimes is hard to
keep up. In the beginning of the technology boom, desktop and laptop was used as
a commodity to read, but in nowadays smartphones are becoming day to day
necessity to read and get information quickly and whenever we are. Kindle
devices are used to access e-books and replace in a way the printed copy of a
book for most of the youth generation.
A printed book is the way to go and
not the internet on wireless devices is the right path to knowledge, I think
this is what most of teenagers are getting as an advice from their parent every
day. This is an ongoing debate in every household between parents and their
children.
According to Wolf reading is not a natural act, because there are not
reading genes in human DNA [1]. Reading is more a cultural activity and has
evolved since its inception. Our generation can totally confirm this fact since
the deployment of technology.
Because of dramatic social and technological change we should be prepared to
foster new types of literacy. Prof. Kellner at UCLA propose that we should take
in consideration printed literacy, combined with media literacy, computer and
information literacy [2]. According to
National
Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL) literacy is defined as task-based
and skills-based. The task-based literacy focuses on what an adult can or
cannot perform in the everyday literacy task. The skills-based literacy focuses
on the knowledge and skills an adult must possess in order to perform these
tasks [3]. The media has changed tremendously and literacy has been flexible
and transformed itself during these years. A big list of tools and number of
high technologies are what people can refer to media landscape of our days.
According to Henry Jenkins there are not tools, but is our relationship and
logic that are directing our media, and to understand this relationship we have
to develop skills that will lead us to understand our contemporary media
landscape [4]. The contemporary media is innovative and follow the rhythm of
technology and cultural changes. The printed era is approached by our digital
time and things are changing rapidly. The internet has connected people and has
brought out more changes in our culture.
A study from the Pew Internet & American Life project, that focuses
on the involvement of teens to produce and share content media in Internet,
showed that more than one-half of all teens have created media content, and
one-third of teens have shared the content they produced.
Jenkins defines the culture that has low barriers to artistic expression
and strongly supports the sharing of anyone’s creation, as participatory
culture [5]. In the participatory culture each member believes that their
contributions are valuable and social connection is important. Forms of
participatory culture include affiliations, expressions, collaborative problem
solving and circulations.
The development of digital media has shifted learners
toward digital literacy and has a massive impact in participatory culture as
well. The following diagram demonstrates what the impact of new media is in the
participatory culture, and what are some of the prerequisites for learners to get
involved. Blogs, Youtube, Wikipedia,
Flickr, Virtual life are some of platforms where learners can participate,
create, share and access digital files. Even though the participants don’t know
each other they can interact and collaborate with each other in distance. The
online collaboration enhances social skills and also informs users about new
trends in technology or in any other aspect of life.
Figure 1: The impact of digital media in participatory culture
Open
Source and E-Learning
Especially
in Europe, when it first started open source technology refers to software’s
source code that is freely available to programmers who wishes to modify, and
improve the code [6]. Some of the most recognized open source projects are
Linux kernel, Apache, Mozilla, and OpenOffice. Most of the open source products are released under General
Public License (GPL) that is intended to guarantee freedom to share and change
free software and make sure the software is free for all its users [7].
E-learning
is the delivery of all education activities such as instructing, teaching and
learning through Internet. It was the initiative of the higher education
institutions to promote the development of enterprise open source applications such as course
management systems and electronic portfolios. These institutions are aiming
toward open source products; because they can freely audit their system. This
shift toward open source course management systems CMS is because the system
becomes transparent and more flexible.
What
is Moodle?
Modular
Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment (Moodle) is a free, open source
Learning Management System (LMS). Martin Dougiamas an employee of Curtin University
is the creator of Moodle platform [8]. The goal of Moodle platform is to
promote effective learning by facilitating instructors and learners with an
interactive environment.
Moodle
as an open-source product, allows developers to customize the system to
individual needs. Moodle communicates easily with social media applications
such as Facebook, YouTube, Wikipedia, etc. Facebook and Twitter can be integrated
with Moodle platform, and comments and announcements can be posted easily
through Moodle to Facebook page, allowing educators to announce and engage
learners in Moodle through social media. The design of Moodle is based on
socio-constructivist pedagogy [8]. It provides an environment when learners
contribute to their learning and allows collaborative interaction among
participants. Also Moodle supports an inquiry and discovery based approach to
online learning [9].
Moodle
has several features that enhance the productivity for instructors such as flexible
grading system, communication options, and performance assessment modules.
Learners in nowadays are classified as digital natives and
immigrant. According to Prensky digital natives are learners who have spent
their entire live surrounded by and using all tools of the digital age. Digital
immigrants are users who are not born into the digital world but later in life
they have been introduced to digital world [10]. The category of Moodle users
can be classified as follows:
a. The
majority of the learners are digital natives and they receive information
really fast and are multi-task when it comes to technology.
b. Faculty
based on their age-group might be digital natives and immigrants.
Every
product is designed to target a specific audience; therefore e-learning
environments can contribute to facilitate the process of the today’s audience
that is classified as digital natives and immigrant learners.
Some of the advantages of using an open source platform such as
Moodle LMS include:
·
No LMS license and subscription costs
·
Customize easily LMS’ features
·
Freedom from vendor lock-in
·
The support of collaborators to identify and fix
bugs through the system
Classification
of Moodle Features
Moodle as LMS platform has several features that will
facilitate the learning process and will engage learners and educators in
virtual classroom. The goal is to classify how these features fall under four
categories of participatory culture such as affiliations, expressions,
collaborative problem-solving and circulations [5].
·
Affiliations include memberships formal and informal, in online communities and can include
message boards.
·
Expressions
produce new creative forms, such as digital files.
·
Collaborative problem-solving involves learners working together in teams, to complete assignments
and develop new knowledge.
·
Circulations shape the flow of media such as
blogging.
I have considered eleven Moodle features such as
following [11]:
1. Course
reports include all grades for many kinds of activities and activity
reports for each student; therefore it falls under affiliation form of
participatory culture.
2. Assignment
module is the place when the students can upload their assignments in
any file format. It can be an individual or a group assignment; therefore it
falls under expressions and collaborative problem-solving forms of
participatory culture.
3. Chat
module allows smooth, synchronous text interaction that can happen
between a group of students that are part of a team collaborating to submit an
assignment; therefore it falls under affiliations and collaborative
problem-solving forms of participatory culture.
4. Forum
module is available to students and used for asynchronous communication
to post announcement or ask questions; therefore it falls under affiliations,
expressions and collaborative problem-solving forms of participatory culture.
5. Glossary
module allows participants to create and maintain a list of definitions,
such as a dictionary; therefore it falls under collaborative problem-solving
form of participatory culture.
6. Lesson
module is a single activity where several pages are presented to the
student, based upon a student's request; therefore it falls under circulations
form of participatory culture.
7. Quiz
module includes many types of standard questions formats and have a
limited time window outside of which they are not available; therefore it falls
under affiliations and collaborative problem-solving forms of participatory
culture.
8. Resource
module displays many types of media content files by a single link on
the course page; therefore it falls under affiliations, collaborative
problem-solving, and circulations forms of participatory culture.
9. Survey
module includes built-in surveys that have been proven as instruments for
analyzing online classes; therefore it falls under affiliations and
circulations forms of participatory culture.
10. Wiki
module includes several web pages that anyone can add to or edit;
therefore it falls under collaborative problem-solving and circulations forms
of participatory culture.
11. Workshop
module allows peer assessment of documents, and the teacher can manage
and grade the assessment; therefore it falls under affiliations form of
participatory culture.
Forms Participatory Culture
|
Affiliations
|
Expressions
|
Collaborative
Problem-solving
|
Circulations
|
Moodle
Features
|
|
|
|
|
Course reports
|
x
|
|
|
|
Assignment
|
|
x
|
x
|
|
Chat
|
x
|
|
x
|
|
Forum
|
x
|
x
|
x
|
x
|
Glossary
|
|
|
x
|
|
Lesson
|
|
|
|
x
|
Quiz
|
x
|
|
x
|
|
Resource
|
x
|
|
x
|
x
|
Survey
|
x
|
|
|
x
|
Wiki
|
|
|
x
|
x
|
Workshop
|
x
|
|
|
|
Table 1: The classification of Moodle’s features as forms of
participatory culture
Conclusion
Digital media direct learners toward digital literacy and
categorize learners into two groups such as digital natives and immigrants.
Digital media engage students into participatory culture and enhance their
social skills into classroom communication. Blended learning in nowadays is a
necessity because of fast pace that life has and the evolvement of digital
media. Moodle as an open source is a suitable LMS for classroom activities. The
features of Moodle platform fall under the four forms of participatory culture
presented by Jenkins. We can conclude the digital media enhance digital
literacy and participatory culture in the blended classroom environment.
References:
1. Maryanne Wolf, 2008.
Proust and the squid: The story and science of
the reading brain. New York: Harper Perennial, p.222.
2. Kellner, Douglas, 2000.
New
Technologies/New Literacies: reconstructing education for the new millennium,
Teaching Education, Vol. 11, No. 3, 2000.
3. Institute of Education Sciences, 2007.
National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL) 2003 and National Adult
Literacy Survey (NALS) 1992 Public-Use Data Files.
5.
Henry Jenkins, Katie Clinton,
Ravi Purushotma, Alice J. Robison, and Margaret Weigel, 2009. Confronting the Challenges of Participatory
Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century, The John D. and Catherine T.
MacArthur Foundation Reports on Digital Media and Learning, June 5, 2009.
6. Alex Koohang and Keith
Harman, Open Source: A Metaphor for E-Learning, Informing Science Journal,
Volume 8, 2005.
7. GNU General Public License v. 2.0, accessed on December 5, 2013 from:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html#SEC3
8.
Shulamit
Kotzer, Yossi Elran,
Learning
and teaching with Moodle-based E-learning environments, combining learning skills and
content in the
fields
of Math and Science & Technology, Proceedings of the 1st Moodle
Research Conference (MRC2012), pp. 122-131, 2012.
9. Shaunda L. Wood, Technology for Teaching and Learning: Moodle as a Tool
for Higher Education, International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher
Education, 2010, Volume 22, Number 3, 299-307.
10. Marc Prensky, Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants, NCB University Press,
Vol. 9 No. 5, October 2001.
11. Moodle Features, accessed from:
http://docs.moodle.org/19/en/Features
