Henry Jenkins on Media and Learning
Henry Jenkins identifies the influence of media on learning as the creation of a participatory culture. According to Jenkins, a
participatory culture is one with relatively low barriers to artistic
expression and civic engagement, strong support for making
and sharing creations, and some type of informal mentor-ship
whereby experienced participants in the culture pass along knowledge to
novices.
Forms of participatory culture include:
Forms of participatory culture include:
- Affiliations such as Friendster, Facebook, MySpace, message boards, metagaming, or game clans.
- Expressions producing new creative forms, such as digital sampling, skinning and modding, fan videos, fan fiction, zines, or mash-ups.
- Collaborative problem solving such as Wikipedia
- Circulations shaping the flow of media, such as podcasting or blogging.
Jenkins argues even if as educators we are not prepared to embrace new technology, we must at least value learning that happens outside of school in the culture of connected technology. Jenkins calls it the do no harm approach. Additionally, educators need to minimize fear of technology by embracing the idea of collective knowledge. When that happens, traditional teacher student roles in the classroom shift toward equalized co-learning. Jenkins asserts that technology functions to move both teachers and students from autonomous learning to social learning.