The Importance of New Literacies in and era of Participatory Culture

 What is participatory Culture?

This modern practice is characterized by a range of elements that define participatory culture:

1. Relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement
2. Strong support for creating and sharing content with others
3. Some type of informal mentorship whereby what is known by the most experienced is passed along to novices
4. Members who believe that their contributions matter
5. Members who feel some degree of social connection with one another a care what what other people think about what they've created

People are stepping away from just being consumers and are becoming contributors and producers when we are talking about creating media. I sub taught recently in a 5th grade classroom where the children had to write a paper about what they wanted to be when they grew up. So many individuals and teams had the dream of being YouTube stars or influencers and why not right...time to take an active roll in what is put out into the world! This was never a dream when I was a kids but with new literacies available and a push on collaborative participation these kids dare to reach for the stars. 

Participatory Culure in my Pre-K classroom is PLAY! Play is a crucial part of peer cultures' everyday life. Play produces pleasure, a sense of freedom and co-construction of shared meanings through the use of rules and rhythms. For children learning is a natural side of playing (Samuelsson & Carlsson, 2008; Singer, 2015).
We are teaching the children how to play, how to share, how to share idea and how to solve problems that arise. We teach the children to work together and attempt to problem solve on their own rather than involving a teacher at every issue. This is the basis or foundation of participatory culture. In my classroom each child has a job to do which teach them how to be a part of our classroom community. We are a school family and while we are together we are kind and collaborative. 

Just for fun here is a storybot video about technology that would be ideal for children in the 3-5 age range. 

https://youtu.be/ax6bUF_8txM?feature=shared