Participatory Culture related to Public Pedagogy has come along ways since the beginning of the Internet. It transitioned from book like learning to an interactive learning experience across multiple discourse web communities. Many of us grew up with the notion that learning a skill or trade usually involved finding someone in your area to take classes with or reading up on books that could be quite old. Now, with the click of a button hundreds of websites with forums, videos, and interactive classes all easily available for your consumption.
With the start of the Internet and search engines there were few websites geared for online learning or teaching. Most of it was reading a how to page written by amateur web developers which made it slightly difficult to process. This was a time when man discourse communities were starting for various practices. Predominantly the tech industry such Video, Programming, Flash and so on. Around mid 2000’s things started to pick up for online education. This is when I would consider the period that internet users were starting to understand they were no longer just consuming media, but creating it. So many amateurs and professionals alike hopped online to their favorite sites and started to share information. Which helped the spread ability of this learning atmosphere. An example from my point of view. Around this time I was in 6th grade and a friend and I were curious on how to make our own internet cartoon. So, after googling we found out the program used was called flash. We quickly found a demo of Flash in hopes of creating a cartoon that day. Sadly, we were in over our heads. My friend gave up, but when I went home I spent the next couple of days searching and scouring discourse networks for flash tutorials. These tutorials were mostly in written form, but a couple were also made within the flash program. Many amateurs at the time did not have the internet capability or computer power to upload and make screen recordings quickly. Which still made most learning a reading experience. I did ask questions on some forums with some luck, but the community was still highly educated adults not willing to dumb things down to a tween level.
After the advent of youtube there was a massive growth within almost every discourse web community. Now all these communities have gained more ways to circulate their media. Which leads to a higher educated amateur or soon to be amateur base within the skill. It was because of Youtube in my 8th grade year,2006, I started to learn after effects and Photoshop. It was around this time I started to think of the Internet as a serious learning tool for my interests and not just for school work. By this time there were certain youtube channels people from various discourse forums knew to go to for what ever content they were trying to learn. The learning aspect by this time had become a much more visual affair and with more people trying to learn this stuff they could directly ask the video makers on his or her youtube comments. In which many people did respond.
The culture of internet learning is evolving at a face pace with new standards to follow. No longer can you just write a book and that be sufficient enough. People are expecting videos with text and when they run into an issue they are hoping for more or less an immediate response from the video uploader or another more experienced member of the discourse community. While the more experienced or professional members of the community are collaborating with each other online to solve more complex issues. With a large internet community many people creating these videos are starting to take much more pride in there work. So they start developing better ways of teaching on their own. I believe by this time youth can “ benefit from educators being more open to forms of experimentation and social exploration that are not characteristic od educational institutions”. As said in Cohens article. My teachers are starting to have us use the Internet more for education and less of a research only focus.
Starting around 2008 and 2009 there was a need for a much more professional approach to online learning. Companies caught a hold of this and starting creating highly polished learning websites dedicated to certain skills. Such as LiveMocha.com for a Rosetta Stone like approach to language learning, but with the added bonus of being able to talk with people of the language your learning. Just like meeting one of these people for a cup of coffee. Instructables.com for an easy access website that anyone can post tutorials for anything to. So if you just want to learn something, but don’t know what you want to learn you can just travel through this site. For digital skills DigitalTutors.com has a array of highly polished and well thought out tutorials for many different creative programs. With the added addition of quizzes to help see if you are learning the material and a buzzing forum with members ready to tackle any of your questions.
This brings us to now. Now online education has truly had an explosion. Online degrees are huge. In which you can talk face to face with your professer no matter where he or she is. Many colleges, such as Stanford and MIT offer many courses online for free in hopes to promote higher education to many of the masses. Along with websites like Coursera, who amass many university professors to teach online only courses for free or a small fee for a certification. Many companies have also started to take much more innovate and interactive learning approach. Such as CodeAcademy.com where you learn many different programming languages through their web based editor. Which gives the user instant feed back on what the did wrong. If the program couldn’t correct your mistakes than you have a help area to get a quick response to your lesson and what you did wrong from fellow students and staff. I believe this type of new web learning should bring about a new term. One that when future students read they will know exactly what type of education they will receive. I propose the term Immersed Online Education or IOE for short. This term in 3 words effectively describe the type of education.. Immersed meaning the student is doing more than just reading. The student is actually immersed in the skill he is trying to learn. By having responsive feed back from the video or the reading. He also can get help almost immediately from expert members or staff who created the video. All these things help immerse students in what ever they are learning. Which is important in education. With out immersion it is very hard to gain a skill. Language being a prime example. It is also why internships are so highly encouraged. The immersion helps the student gain a better understanding. It puts their mind set in the skill developing a deeper understanding. The immediate help to the problem is also important, because it encourages the student to continue their studies. Unlike the early internet or before where if you couldn’t figure out you were in a rut until someone came to help you.
In conclusion, the advancements in web education have come so far since its earlier days that many people today have enrolled in a vast array of different online communities. This will help lead the future of self education for courses outside of traditional education. As a closing statement, there are many avenues online education does follow. Such as socializing in real life that I believe is important skill one needs to develop over time. This is why I think online education will not replace the traditional education setting, but only enhance ways in which educators might teach in these settings. The internet is much more free to experiment with educational ideas that the traditional setting will allow. So online educators will be the first one to push new boundary’s in education.
brentshafer 