Participatory Culture in the Classroom

Participatory Culture is an environment that allows for the easy sharing of artistic expression and civic engagement. Members of the community are encouraged to participate and share their work and ideas. A sense of belonging is shared among members. This style of learning can greatly benefit our students, as this what many of them encounter outside of the classroom. Types of these participatory cultures include

Affiliations: members of a community centered on media (Facebook, MySpace, etc.)

Expressions: producing of new creative materials (fanfiction, mash-ups, etc.)

Collaborative Problem Solving: working together in teams to complete tasks (Wikipedia, alternative reality gaming etc.)

Circulations: Shaping the flow of media (podcasts, blogs)


Embracing participatory culture in the elementary classroom leads to the fostering of a higher level dynamic literacy within our students. Though these processes students develop skills such as multitasking, collective intelligence, negotiation, and networking, amongst others.

I believe a very easy way to incorporate participatory culture into the elementary classroom is to start with a class blog where students can post responses and comment on others. There could be an area for students to share free-writes or other creative projects they are passionate about. This could be a great introduction to how to be a responsible digital citizen. Your class could come up with a social contract for their conduct on the blog and consequences for inappropriate behavior. It is important for us as elementary teachers to take responsibility for introducing the right and wrong ways to use technology as we know our students have access to it and they might not have another good role model to look to. We must do what we can to keep them safe.