Have you ever seen a video on social media and thought to yourself, “that’s such a great idea, I should record a video like that!” or seen a trendy video and thought “Wow! I definitely need to hop on that trend!”? Well that right there is the idea of participation culture. You can see videos from across the world, from people you know nothing about and be inspired to do the same things they are doing. It’s not always based on trend but for the most part, I find that people like to create content based on other popular videos that they’ve seen.
In class this week, we discussed what it means to be a part of participation culture, our teacher shared popular memes and viral videos. What was telling though was the class reactions, there wasn’t a single person in the class who didn’t recognize at least one variations of all the things she shared. That is the perfect example of participation culture, we all come from different places, have different backgrounds, and are of different generations, yet we all had these memories of popular participation culture examples!
This is an interesting concept because it has become so normalized around the globe. We live in a day and an age where you can post your entire life on the internet for people to see and make a living off it. On the flip side though, you can use these things to enhance your career, so how would I do that as a teacher?
Participation culture has made it entirely possible to network with teachers all over the world, one teacher posts their classroom setup on TikTok for example with a popular tag such as #teachertok, then next thing you know there are hundreds of posts with the same idea and hashtag and BAM! You’ve created a network of teachers who for the most part support one another and inspire each other. It’s truly an amazing thing. I love the idea of using technology and participation culture as a tool within your school environment.
It is great for the teachers, but we can’t forget how this concept affects the students as well, especially older students who are more than likely on social media themselves. This concept can enhance the learning of students because they will be able participate in ways that may not have been able to in previous years! I feel like they also have a plethora of tools at their fingertips, on the contrary this can also be slightly dangerous because they also have all the tools to do the work for them so it really is a challenge to try to find the balance as a teacher. So, I want to know what you guys think, what is an appropriate amount of technology within the classroom?