Jenkins

This article was pretty thorough in discussing more or less what the course is based on. It talked about the phenomenon of participatory cultures, focusing on the ones that are created by the internet and digital media. In these participatory cultures, the participants hold a great deal of choice and power in not only how they choose to interact but in how they shape the culture itself. Youth tend to be the largest group in participatory cultures, more than half of the younger generations being apart of participatory cultures in some way. Yet, even though the majority of youth are involved in these circles and learn and interact within them, they are not addressed in an educational setting. As educators it is part of our job to be attentive to what impacts the lives of our students, not only to relate to them but in order to be more informed on what they are doing. learning, and how. Participatory cultures are there, and youth are heavily apart of them. The question, then, is how do educators address this aspect of life? If our job is to prepare students for the world, participatory cultures are certainly a growing part of that world, in what ways do we prepare them in regards to these growing communities? To start, it may help to be more familiar with them ourselves. Jenkins provides also a set of skills that youth can learn from these modes. These and other skills, though, might not be cognitively acknowledged by youth without the proper guidance and context to provide a lens through which to see the skills and their value. That is where education comes in. By working with participatory cultures and their various interfaces, educators will enhance the likelihood of students taking away world-skills from these experiences while also being more engaged by an interface that they use daily outside of school.

One thing I questioned int he article was the lack of awareness that was put upon the youth, or students. An example was given or a teacher trying to use the historically based game Civilization to teach a concept tied to history. Instead the students took from the experience the understanding that what took place in the game was factual history, which is not the case. The point is that students do not usually abstract for themselves the concepts that can be taken from participatory cultures. I disagree to some extent. I think more youth than are given credit for are able to realize that a game is not the same as fact or reality, that a person online is not the same as a person in the real world, that theatrical violence is not the same as real violence, even if they are unable to articulate as to why this is. That why is where attention should be focused, but I think youth can usually discern reality differences without help.