Open, networked and participatory communities

Recently, open, networked and participatory communities are playing a huge role in our learning environment. Now is when you frown and think what the hell is she talking about. Don't worry. It is so easy. 

According to Henry Jenkins, Director of the Comparative Media Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Participatory culture are characterized by " relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement, strong support for creating and sharing one's creations, and some type of information mentorship whereby what is known by the most experienced is passed along to novices". A participatory culture "is also one in which members believe that their contributions matter, and feel some degree of social connectedness with one another (at least they care what other people think about what they have created)". In other words: group of people that work together, share creations and support each other. 

Open thinking is another concept that we all should know if we want to talk about learning environments. According to Dr. Alec Courus, open thinking is the tendency of an individual, group or institution to give preference to the adoption of open technologies or formats in regards to software, publishing, content and practice. Open thinkers critique, question and seek to reject technologies or formats that compromise the power of adopters, especially in the freedom to use, reuse, edit and share creative works and tools. Basically, open thinking is a group of people that prefers open technology, which is when you are allow to improve on previous technologies freely without limitations. 

How do we capture the spirit of open, networked, and participatory communities in our learning environments?  

Learning environments are everywhere. And of course social media is, nowadays, one of the most important environments to learn. Social media is an open thinking created by a participatory culture. We all are connected to share whatever we want just because… it’s an open network!

Students use e-mail to communicate with their professors in case of doubts. Through skype we can see our loved ones that are far away from us. Through facebook, we express ourselves and we are open to receive comments. Through this blog, you can read my thoughts about anything and comment whatever you want. Finally, we all have blogs because of…technology! We are sharing our opinions and as we read other posts from other people, we learn new points of view.

We capture the spirit of open, networked and participatory communities in our learning environments by sharing and using technology!