Symphysis
Kinnari Thakker's Personal BlogArchive for Media and Education
notes: Produsage
Shift: Production to Produsage
1. {Produce + Use}
2. the collaborative and continuous building and extending of existing content in pursuit of further improvement.
Digital divide between those who are already tuned into the produsage process (software designers, niche knowledge enthusiasts), and others who are not motivated or do not have the skills.
Need to involve educational organizations to teach skills required to participate in the produsage process.
Produsage in education: It calls upon new literacies and skills that need one to parse out the palimpsest. Educating children as well as teachers of the benefits and shortcomings of collaborative environments and resources of information.
important points:
- 1. skills of analysis and management of online information
2.read resources as well as understand their origins and modes of production
3. ability to read critically, understand methods and contexts of productions
4. ability to assess and compare the quality of different information and knowledge resources
5. to develop the creativity, experience and the cultural awareness necessary to — take the universe of existing information and resources and convert them into insights, symbols, or representations that are personally or collaboratively meaningful
6. ability to make their own voices heard and to represent their own views and ideas, within the wider community of producers
7. 5 C’s – creative, collaborative, critical, combinatory and communicative
Relevance:
Economic
Social
Individual
Our workplaces have become more collaborative, our political processes have become more decentered, we are living more and more within knowledge cultures based on collective intelligence – How can schools not teach what it means to live and work ins uch communities?
Autonomous learning is still the focus, seeing information from others is still cheating. Our networked culture is that way though – and this needs to be included in schools. “Copying is cool.” (check discussions under Bombaat Dhamaka)
references:
Produsage: Towards a Broader Framework for User-Led Content Creation, Dr Axel Bruns
Beyond Difference: Reconfiguring Education for the User-Led Age, Dr Axel Bruns
www.produsage.org
Books: Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and Beyond: From Production to Produsage
Why is a Ning community, a learning community?
How do i define community: networks of interpersonal ties that provide sociability, support, information, a sense of belonging and social identity.
Why social networking tools, like Ning: because they do all of that, and more.
What is a LEARNING community: the way i have worked with and observed learning communities, i would say, it is something which evolves from within a group to around their particular needs and purposes that they value as meaningful.
What is my biggest challenge: designing something for someone else to use, with the desired outcome of community participation to support (and even reform) the process of learning.
Recently, while working within the complexities that is project vision, i have come to realize that the meaning of the word LEARNING in a school, is very different for different people. And since one has to coexist with these views, and also not dilute ones own, I see myself constantly expressing the meaning of the word: learning, in different forms. Parents relate to Standards and Attainment targets – they want to know what has to be done, and what it will achieve for their child.
I found a few articulations of learning outcomes: Social Media Classroom – Expected Learning Outcomes; 21st century Learning Skills; (These learning outcomes are of course, with regard to social media and education)
Here are some notes on some of my experienced learning outcomes from the field – (failures and successes both) Will keep adding to the daigram. But this is where it stands – as of August 2009
Context – Two ning sites, one for language studies and the other for social, earth and life sciences.
Number of participants (aditi facilitators, learners, friends ) – 70
pmi.jpg
Should the Digital Immigrant educators learn the new?
Today’s teachers have to learn to communicate in the language and style of their students.
Marc Prensky in his article, Digital Natives Digital Immigrants
I’ve spent the last few months developing a couple of social networking community on Ning, similar to the one I worked on last year, for my Srishti Diploma project – But these communities are different in many ways. Firstly, it is based at Aditi Mallya International School, a “fancy” school by Bangalore standards, and attracts a well-to-do Bangalore crowd who can afford one of our programme requirements = one laptop per child. Second, these children are very familiar with the trends of the internet, (again, very different from the children I worked with last year) — these differences change fundamentally the design, direction, working and content of the sites. But this isn’t even where the real design problems were experienced .
What I have struggled the most to achieve, (and cannot say I am anywhere near achieving it) is the involvement of the teachers within these new tools. Within a week of setting up the Ning sites, there were more than 500 images, 200 videos, more than a hundred groups, and blogs being posted by the kids. In the three months of the smooth operating ning networks, the percentage of teacher participation = 4% (including comments on posts)
Marc Prensky calls the first generations to grow up with new technologies – Digital Natives – they represent those who have spent their entire lives surrounded by and using computers, videogames, digital music players, video cams, cell phones, and all the other toys and tools of the digital age. Those who were not born into the digital world but have, at some later point in our lives, become fascinated by and adopted many of its aspects are, Digital Immigrants.
I think these two words are interesting as it bring all sorts of questions like; will the immigrants always be compared to the natives? Can the immigrants ever really effectively “teach” the natives, since they would always speak a different language… Is there a need for the two to accept each other? Then, should the natives learn the old ways, or should the immigrants learn the new?
Unfortunately, no matter how much the Immigrants may wish it, it is highly unlikely the Digital Natives will go backwards. In the first place, it may be impossible – their brains may already be different. It also flies in the face of everything we know about cultural migration. Kids born into any new culture learn the new language easily, and forcefully resist using the old. Smart adult immigrants accept that they don‟t know about their new world and take advantage of their kids to help them learn and integrate. Not-so-smart (or not-so-flexible) immigrants spend most of their time grousing about how good things were in the “old country.” Mark Prensky
Thoughts on education, research, technology & Hillary
Someone asked me yesterday, “So, what exactly do you expect to change if you integrate web and technology in a classroom?” and “Isnt it completely pointless to work with these methods with urban-poor kids who cannot sustain this access to technology?”
So then i ask, as advantaged members of society who have access to schools that innovate new methods and processes; should we become sentinels of these innovations and not reach out to people who can also be a part of it, engage with it, and benefit?
Through the 6 months of research we (Project Vision) did as a part of a Microsoft Research Expo last year – which we presented at Microsoft Labs, Seattle – we found out a few things; briefly, there is a desire to be connected to the new tech boom – children are going to cyber cafes and connecting to the internet for communication and games, there is a desire to possess gadgets – multimedia phones are becoming increasingly common.
Project Vision also identifies a need to; develop empowerment, entrepreneurial thinking, self initiated leadership, relevant education – if these children need to break out of the squalor of the slums, they would need something MORE than what they get currently from a school — they would need to perceive the RELEVANCE of an education to their experienced realities, and a reason to ATTEND the schools and be ENGAGED in them.
Thomas Edison was convinced that film would transform education and make the teacher obsolete. New technologies offer that promise and more. When Hillary Clinton came to India last month, she spoke about creating opportunities, “education is the equalizer and the gateway to opportunity” she said, and it is upto us to narrow this gap between a childs god-given talent and his access to this opportunity. She said that the education of the future will focus on cooperation and collaboration as compared to competition – and this will be emphasized through the use of adequate technology, she gave the example of mobile phones. India needs to start thinking creatively about how it will include and engage its children in its education program.
Technology allows for teacher-centric models to shift to learner-centric, and community-driven. With these shifts, and new methods; a learner, whether advantaged or disadvantaged, can always be connected to a larger community and its living resources — and with the skills and thinking that he has developed he can sustain it, build on it, and flourish.
Social Networking, just a phase?
Social networking began in India with the popularity of Orkut, and teachers complained as teenagers hooked onto these sites to “flirt with their classmates and to talk about meaningless things like movies and actors”. There were several news articles where a member would reveal personal details about themselves and then be harassed, stalked, teased, etc. Social Networking sites were perceived as a place where hackers could easily win peoples trust and take advantage of them. It was viewed as something which was meaningless, just for fun, a passing phase that teens will grow out of…
What if this passing phase was to extend till school, through into college, and further into a career? Today the uses of social networks extend into diverse fields. In Srishti it is sometimes a course requirement to keep a blog, or build a network, or be a part of a network built around a subject. Recently students from Srishti (with others) organized a city-wide movement and demonstration as a response to the attack on women at a pub in Mangalore by the notorious Shri Ram Sene. The movement was initiated and coordinated through the groups application on Facebook and through blogs.
From being a “time-pass” obsession for teenagers addicted to the internet (like how many of us continue to be…) its use and possibilities have expanded laterally as the concept is explored in new, creative, and artistic ways. So then, maybe its just a really long phase!
My diploma project tried to explore some newer concepts and use of social networks and communities. Children using a network (created using NING) were empowered to publish not just their best work, but the many drafts it takes to get there. These received feedback from other members not necessarily involved in the group/activity directly. It also explored the concept of the network as an archive and possibly a bank of material and resources. The children created banks of images/sounds/videos which could be played directly, or downloaded to reuse. The children also explored the idea of creating, managing and distributing roles in groups. Material relevant to that group was then tagged accordingly. Its funny how some children are encouraged to get onto social networks and groups in school, while others, are frowned upon when they spend too much time browsing through them.
Could these networks have a boundary? Is there a point till where they could be pushed, used, reused and would eventually fall off the interest radars of people?
