Heidi Jaeckle's EDT619 blog

A participatory culture is one where each member is contributing through creating and sharing their own creations with members of a community. In this supportive community, members feel that what they do matters and they care about what others think of their contributions. There is a passing down of information and skill from most experienced to less experienced members. There are different forms of participatory culture such as affiliations, expressions, collaborative problem-solving, and circulations. The "Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century" paper suggests that we should think about new media literacies as social skills, not necessarily personal expression of individualized skill. One of the best things associated with the participatory culture is the idea of belonging and contributing something meaningful to a group. In a classroom, encouraging group collaboration and participation can help with group cohesion and stu...

The central tenet of education from a Deweyan perspective is help students participate in “worthwhile experiences”. An ordinary experience is activity that happens over time without “ever developing”. These ordinary experiences occur without “coherence, development, or flow”. Conversely, an experience is the united sequencing of events that happens with flow and culminates with an ending that related to the preceding events. The distinguishing features of an experience versus ordinary experiences are the interconnectedness of the all the parts relating to the ending of the event and the anticipation that is evoked. He describes an experience as having a dramatic nature incorporating anticipation with a definite ending referred to as consummation.  The students become involved in the drama of the experience by interacting with the environment.  Dewey suggested that teaching should create anticipation in students through ideas, emotional connection, and that these ide...