Wesch’s Ideas and Our Changed World

The concept of participating in trends, memes and all things on the internet is now very known and a large percentage of the population has some sort of participation online whether they are actually posting or just watching and interacting. In the video Wesch says that “It’s a form of empowerment and that everyone who has a webcam has a stronger voice and presence”. I think this shows how easy it is to share perspectives and joy in the world through online sources. In class we also talked about participatory culture and how we all share similar experiences through media. One of the main things brought up were the northern lights pictures that everyone was posting. It’s an idea that instead of just consuming media we are now participating, it’s no longer a one direction thing. Many things shared on the internet end up with just an original form and eventually get remade in all sorts of different ways and go international for the whole world to create their own concept of what was shared which is actually really crazy how fast things spread. In the video he also says that “It’s not just about information, it’s about linking people in ways we’ve never been linked before” which is so true you can interact with people all around the world in so many ways. He also talks about how you can post something anywhere and it can go viral with no producers or any sort of extra cost to make a video, he had a video blow up and was #1 ranked for the Superbowl and he ended up having many people blog about his video and was put all over the world in a matter of months. Knowing now there are so many average people whose lives completely change from going viral even just one time is crazy to think about. There are a lot more opportunities now to share ideas and content with the whole world in just one post. Today Youtube and Tik Tok are very large platforms where many people have become content creators which is cool to think they used to live a normal life and suddenly now they are known by so many people for the media they share online. 

Since there has been a continuous rise of digital content especially within youth it is slowly reshaping how our knowledge is shared with one another which also means that our schools have started with new ways of teaching. In schools now there is a lot more encouragement through giving students a voice online whether it be through a group project or just sharing insights with others. Another really big change is online learning, using online sources have become a lot more implemented and will continue to become more and more in classrooms in the future. We now have recorded lectures, zoom calls to participate in, as well as instructional videos to watch at home and online discussion for students to have the opportunity to share ideas without having fears of speaking out loud in front of others.

In the future of education we might have more focus on building skills for preparing students to think more about the content they encounter and create and also how to put themselves connected in our digital world. We have already started doing some in-person and online learning tools which will most likely continue to develop and we will probably even see a time where in schools it will be more flexible for students to work at their own place through online learning while still having face to face interactions.

With the way the world is so involved digitally now I think it will be crucial for schools to focus on skills for online learning and participation but I don’t necessarily think it’s best for kids. In my personal opinion I think there should be less technology used to provide more hands-on learning but unfortunately technology has become pretty much a need for everyone. We don’t go a day without it so realistically it is slowly becoming our reality which is why its so important to educate students in classrooms on media and our digital world.