Participatory Culture/Media Education

One idea I agree with from the article Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century is that "Youth must expand their required competencies, not push aside old skills to make room for the new."    It is important for students to learn about and use technologies but it shouldn't take place of learning basic skills.  As stated in the articles in order for a student to engage in the participatory culture they must be able to read and write.  They can't get on a blog if they can't spell or read what others write. Now there are devices to help read words to students but they still have to understand and respond in writing to post.  They may also have to read directions or prompts when playing games, this takes reading skills and comprehension skills. 


One thing I agree but have reservations about is affinity spaces.  I agree that given students a choice makes them more motivated and engaged, but when online they can choose anything they want to talk about, research, create.  This is not always possible or reasonable in the educational setting. There are going to be topics that students aren't interested in or have a difficult time understanding and learning but they can't just exit the room as if they were in a chat room. So of course they will be more actively engaged, participate more in the popular culture than a textbook because they are CHOOSING to participate.  From the minute they go to school that free choice is gone, they have to come to school.  As a teacher you can give them choices in activities, reading, projects, how to learning but they have to learn and that is where some students wish they could choose to exit the room.  I think that informal and formal education can be mixed to have a good educational plan. 

Students need to learn about technologies and need to be able to use them but that shouldn't mean to get rid of the "old" skills or learning/teaching styles.  Being a primary teacher it is harder to relate to this topic because my students can't blog or go on social networks to share ideas and collaborate, they have a hard enough time working in a group in class face to face. So it is my responsibility to introduce the technologies we use and teach them the basic skills to later on be that tech suave student that will be able to improve and contribute to their community and society.