Participatory literacy… What is it?

Objectives

On completion of this activity, you will be able to:

define key concepts pertaining to participatory literacy
understand how participatory culture, medias and networks can be implemented in the classroom
select resources for the classroom and design participatory literacy tasks for your students

Definition

Dudeney, Hockly and Pegrum (2014: 31) define participatory literacy as “the ability to contribute to the collective intelligence of digital networks, and to leverage the collective intelligence of those networks in the service of personal and/or collective goals”.

So what is Participatory Literacy?

In a networked environment, what matters is ‘consuming to understand, producing to be relevant’ (Danah Boyd, 2010, Streams of content, limited attention: The flow of information through social media, EDUCAUSE Review). Participation is a genuine part of the deal as users are becoming ‘prosumers’ (producers and consumers). Millions of students already create web content but, as Alan November (Empowering Students with Technology, 2nd edn, 2010, Thousand Oaks) notes: ‘This is a major teachable moment’.

Because creating and sharing content can have more than one dimension, we might support our students to focus their attention towards public and civic topics, where they can make contributions which extend from the local level (documenting neighbourhood problems) to the international level (participating in global political debates) (P.G. Lange, Learning about civic engagement, in J.K. Parker, Teaching Tech-Savvy Kids: Bringing digital media into the classroom, grades 5-12, 2010, Thousand Oaks).

As teachers we might bear in mind that there may be dangers, and students might fall into the ‘slacktivism’ pit (easy, one-click online activism which involves, for example, simply ‘liking’ a Facebook page, retweeting a news item, or sending an email), which could replace more challenging and more effective real-world activism (e.g. E. Mozorov, The Net Delusion: The dark side of internet freedom, 2011, New York: Public Affairs).

In spite of the potential of networks to be used for harmful ends, the danger of activism collapsing into useless ‘slacktivism’, and the limitations introduced by governmental and corporate censorship and surveillance, online networking still holds some of the greatest promise for developing common solutions to shared planetary problems (D. Eagleman, Why the Net Matters: How the internet will save civilization, 2010, Edinburgh: Canongate; H. Rheingold, Net Smart: How to thrive online, 2012, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press; R. Wright, ‘Building one big brain’, 2010, The New York Times).

Useful links

- Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture, Henry Jenkins

- Henry Jenkins: The influence of participatory culture on education, Pull: How Technology is Changing the Conversation

Activities for the classroom

During your mobility programme: Networking during your Erasmus Programme

Pre-mobility programme: University life in the target language country

What’s next?

Source/attribution: Digilanguages. Author: Alexandre Jacquot

ObjectivesOn completion of this activity, you will be able to:<li>define key concepts pertaining to participatory literacy</li><li>understand how participatory culture, medias and networks can be implemented in the classroom</li><li>select resources for the classroom and design participatory literacy tasks for your students</li>
Definition<a href=”/bibliography/” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer” data-mce-href=”/bibliography/”>Dudeney, Hockly and Pegrum (2014: 31)</a> define participatory literacy as “the ability to contribute to the collective intelligence of digital networks, and to leverage the collective intelligence of those networks in the service of personal and/or collective goals”.So what is Participatory Literacy?In a networked environment, what matters is ‘consuming to understand, producing to be relevant’ (Danah Boyd, 2010, Streams of content, limited attention: The flow of information through social media, EDUCAUSE Review). Participation is a genuine part of the deal as users are becoming ‘prosumers’ (producers and consumers). Millions of students already create web content but, as Alan November (Empowering Students with Technology, 2nd edn, 2010, Thousand Oaks) notes: ‘This is a major teachable moment’. Because creating and sharing content can have more than one dimension, we might support our students to focus their attention towards public and civic topics, where they can make contributions which extend from the local level (documenting neighbourhood problems) to the international level (participating in global political debates) (P.G. Lange, Learning about civic engagement, in J.K. Parker, Teaching Tech-Savvy Kids: Bringing digital media into the classroom, grades 5-12, 2010, Thousand Oaks).As teachers we might bear in mind that there may be dangers, and students might fall into the ‘slacktivism’ pit (easy, one-click online activism which involves, for example, simply ‘liking’ a Facebook page, retweeting a news item, or sending an email), which could replace more challenging and more effective real-world activism (e.g. E. Mozorov, The Net Delusion: The dark side of internet freedom, 2011, New York: Public Affairs).In spite of the potential of networks to be used for harmful ends, the danger of activism collapsing into useless ‘slacktivism’, and the limitations introduced by governmental and corporate censorship and surveillance, online networking still holds some of the greatest promise for developing common solutions to shared planetary problems (D. Eagleman, Why the Net Matters: How the internet will save civilization, 2010, Edinburgh: Canongate; H. Rheingold, Net Smart: How to thrive online, 2012, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press; <a href=”http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/06/the-web-we-weave/?_r=0″ target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer” data-mce-href=”http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/06/the-web-we-weave/?_r=0″>R. Wright, ‘Building one big brain’, 2010, The New York Times</a>). . Useful links<li style=”list-style-type: none;” data-mce-style=”list-style-type: none;”><ul><li style=”font-weight: 400;” data-mce-style=”font-weight: 400;”><a href=”https://www.dropbox.com/s/co9mdasoh8r1ew7/8435.pdf?dl=0″ target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer” data-mce-href=”https://www.dropbox.com/s/co9mdasoh8r1ew7/8435.pdf?dl=0″>Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture</a>, Henry Jenkins</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li style=”font-weight: 400;” data-mce-style=”font-weight: 400;”><a href=”https://youtu.be/HYbSD_GdkjU” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer” data-mce-href=”https://youtu.be/HYbSD_GdkjU”>Henry Jenkins: The influence of participatory culture on education</a>, Pull: How Technology is Changing the Conversation</li>
Activities for the classroomDuring your mobility programme: <a href=”/networking-during-your-erasmus-programme/” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer” data-mce-href=”/networking-during-your-erasmus-programme/”>Networking during your Erasmus Programme</a>Pre-mobility programme: <a href=”/university-life-in-the-target-language-country-videos-and-activities/” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer” data-mce-href=”/university-life-in-the-target-language-country-videos-and-activities/”>University life in the target language country</a>What’s next?<li><a href=”/network-literacy-what-is-it/” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer” data-mce-href=”/network-literacy-what-is-it/”>Network Literacy</a></li><li><a href=”/personal-literacy-what-is-it/” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer” data-mce-href=”/personal-literacy-what-is-it/”>Personal Literacy</a></li><li><a href=”/intercultural-literacy-what-is-it/#/roles?_k=f3dfea” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer” data-mce-href=”/intercultural-literacy-what-is-it/#/roles?_k=f3dfea”>Cultural and Intercultural Literacy</a></li>
Source/attribution: Digilanguages. Author: Alexandre Jacquot

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