I’m reading another book that I want to blog more about at some point, but I thought I’d throw out a snip that might start some discussion. (Watch…it won’t.) Axel Bruns just published Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and Beyond: From Production to Produsage, and while I just can’t get comfortable with that word he assigns to the concept of creating and consuming all at the same time, he frames a lot of his points just differently enough to make it pretty compelling reading. Like here:
…teachers are now no longer positioned as experts simply by virtue of their accredidation as experts, outside of the pordusage process itself; instead they come to be seen as experts because of their role as leaders of the produsage community. In other words, the argument that they should be respected by their students is made no longer on the basis of their role in the academic hierarchy, their positions and titles, but by their established track record as produsers themselves.
Again, for some reason, that word doesn’t work for me, but the concept that we might at some point begin to value and respect the ability to model the participatory literacies that these tools require as much if not more than the degree on the wall is worth considering, I think. What if we assessed teachers in large part on their abilities to create and consume content effectively as co-learners and co-creators with their students, and to share that work in transparent ways?
Bingo. Teachers should be eating their own dog food, to fiddle with a metaphor, modeling what they want their students to know and be able to do. I’ve always said that I’ll never do something TO a student that I wouldn’t do myself. So if we think that produsing (wow – that word is problematic) is an essential skill, we’d better make sure that we’re doing some. Regularly. In front of and with our students. Kevin Hodgson is a fine example of this kind of teaching/co-learning/co-creating.
http://dogtrax.edublogs.org
I’m uncomfortable with that word “expert” – I think because it carries with it, to me, the idea that an expert is someone who is finished learning. Probably my own baggage.
It is your own baggage. A learning community relies on expertise of varying degrees.
A concern I have about the blogosphere is that it celebrates and elevates newbies and diminishes the importance of prior knowledge, expertise and history.
Gary,
I don’t think that there’s not value in experience. Or history. Quite the contrary. I share your concern.
Celebrates and elevates newbies? I disagree. Right or wrong, I would suggest that the best it can do is to put newbies on an even playing field with the most outstanding experts. Without doing more research, I don’t know anything about the level of expertise of any of the people posting to this page other than what their words might suggest to me.
As for the original post, the title of Bruns’ book suggests *he* is a complete newbie! The title asks us to believe that blogs, wikipedia and Second Life are where it all began! I’d say he has much to learn!
However, he also points out that leadership and established track records are now necessary for teachers to earn respect. I agree completely! Teaching is about the only profession where there is a belief that a degree/title is sufficient grounds for respect.
With all due respect, if you place newbies on an “even playing field” with experts, doesn’t that elevate them?
Naturally. But “celebrates and elevates” suggests something even more than par.
I had trouble with Gary’s comment too. My blog post about it here – http://tinyurl.com/4uzo3h
Produsage?? Ah, raspberries! Apparently bloggers find the existing language so inadequate for describing their genius that they need to keep inventing new hybrid words.
Now, onto the merits of the argument…
I often ask teachers to identify their expertise. When they don’t understand the question, I often follow-up with the question, “What was the last thing you spent 100 or more hours doing?”
This is a critical question because if learning is socially constructed in a community of practice, not merely a community, there needs to be a presence of expertise.
Upon asking those questions, many educators look at me funny, while most identify, “teaching,” as their expertise.
OK, so although one would expect teachers to identify subject area expertise, we know that is often not the case.
So, let’s stipulate that “teaching” IS a legitimate area of expertise. What are its demonstrable features?
Sylvia Martinez has shaped my thinking a great deal by adding that “If your expertise IS teaching, kids gain no benefit from that expertise unless you make your practice transparent.”
In other words, there needs to be a self-awareness, reflective quality that you can articulate in order for students to benefit from this expertise.
I’d be a lot happier if teachers were experts in something else as well.
Dang- I am in strong agreement with everything you say here Gary. First, you nailed it with the CoP reference rather than just community. Situated learning is about knowing who has expertise -in which area – and benefiting from the collective wisdom in your situated community.
Also, I think what is lacking is transparency in education not only for our students but for other teachers. If more teachers would see their interactions as part of an apprenticeship model and thoughtfully talk about what they know/do and why/how they know/do it, then others could more readily gain ownership of the ideas, strategies and practice and in the end kids would benefit.
I find it interesting that the first thing that popped into my mind as i read your comment was not teaching. Maybe because i do not view myself as a teacher, but as i tell all those k12 people – we are all learners here.
The first topics that come to mind are brain research, video games & cultural bias. Those topics i find myself ‘chewing the cud’ over and over and……
There needs to be expertise in a community but it doesn’t need to reside in any one person. That is the traditional model of education.
It is a community not a community of practice because the later implies exclusivity. That would only include those on the top of the wrinkles, not those caught in the folds.
What people caught in the folds learn is a truer indication of community practice (not community of practice)learning than only skimming it off the top.
Working at a University that is strong on research and scholarship and looking to improve the connection between our research activity and teaching and learning, there is a growing stress on seeing academic staff as exemplifications of expert learners. Traditionally the dominant link between research and teaching seems to have been an emphasis on how the products of research become the content of what is taught. Now the emphasis is more on drawing students into the culture and practice of research/learning and making the expert learning practices of academic staff transparent to students. The idea of teachers as ‘produsers’ is very interesting. I haven’t come across it before and it looks as if it overlaps with the notion of teachers as expert learners. Pity it is such a clumsy term! Also I think it perhaps stresses the ‘product’ rather than the process of knowledge production.
If we let teachers off the hook by excusing them from developing expertise, who fills the void?
Who is excusing them of developing expertise? I think the call here is to also have an expertise in critically consuming and creating information. I don’t think anyone is suggesting we hire science teachers with social studies backgrounds simply because they know how to collaborate with others.
hi – I follow you on twitter and got here from a tweet. “Produsers” seems like such a marketing term. I guess what scares me is what happens if no one out there is encourage these “produsers” not to just follow the crowd, but to think independently on why and what they are producing.
And what happens to those who aren’t given the opportunity (due to social inequalities) to even participate?
So, why does the teacher need to be a leader in the produser community? What if the teacher can lead the students to participate, and appreciate the new things created, but can remain detached enough from the process so it makes sense as a learning activity? Especially when you think about how teacher goes through the same exercise with a different set of students each time there is a new class.
It does look like an interesting book though.
Perhaps we can avoid buying the book.
Thanks for the comment, Gina. If we sip the Kool Aid and believe that the most successful students will be able to participate using these technologies in safe, ethical and effective ways, I really believe we need teachers who can participate in the same ways. I want my own children to have expert guides to teach and model these literacies.
It seems we are messing with traditions here. In an unintentional case of group think, I wrote about educational traditions http://tinyurl.com/4skx66. That may make a few people uncomfortable, but that’s not always a bad thing. I think that Bud’s discomfort with the word expert is more than what he stated; it’s a sort of relativistic response. It’s very difficult to identify an expert when you’re not willing to acknowledge that expertise is possible. That can also be the source of the perplexed teachers Gary refers to. A we as a society diminish expertise and, as a result, authority, we are compelled to say there are no expertise. Expertise isn’t the culmination and end of knowledge, learning, and experience; it is the result of the constant pursuit of those things.
OK, What would you get rid of?
Grade levels. Cursive. Spelling lists. Photocopies of ditto machine handouts used as worksheet-based “teaching.†Teaching a book, a unit, a lesson because we always have. Schools that ostracize and drive out students with irrelevant, purposeless, and unengaging curriculum. Carnegie units. Time spent = learning policies, laws, funding mechanisms. Homework as a substitute for teaching. Letter grades, at least the lower threshold of F at 0. Tardies. Giving standardized tests where the data is returned 5-6 months later and is never used to inform/change instruction or improve learning. Tenure-type practices. Math classes that are only about the algorithms. Mandatory science fairs.
I have more if you wish, but I’d like to see some of your own and others.
funny – these address most of the accommodations my aspie child was granted.
Grade levels. Cursive. Spelling lists. Photocopies of ditto machine handouts used as worksheet-based “teaching.” Teaching a book, a unit, a lesson because we always have. Schools that ostracize and drive out students with irrelevant, purposeless, and unengaging curriculum. Carnegie units. Time spent = learning policies, laws, funding mechanisms. Homework as a substitute for teaching. Letter grades, at least the lower threshold of F at 0. Tardies. Giving standardized tests where the data is returned 5-6 months later and is never used to inform/change instruction or improve learning. Tenure-type practices. Math classes that are only about the algorithms. Mandatory science fairs.
I have more if you wish, but I’d like to see some of your own and others.
I think I just failed Web 2.0 by double replying ;-8
I certainly couldn’t read a book with that word on the cover. It is a deal-breaker.
Yeah…I really hate it too. But it’s actually not a bad read. Not on par with Shirky, however. Much more academic.
The concept of assessment on the ability to create and consume content…. makes me vaguely uneasy, as it reminds me of my days in college when the value of the professor was tied to his research. (Yes-his, not his/her)Some of my most memorable professors were the ones who were not highly valued as cutting edge researchers, but as compassionate, nurturing teachers. They moved me to learn more about the subject matter that they were teaching through their ability to connect with students and share their enthusiasm.
Are you truly advocating a publish or perish mentality? Can I not excite my students about blogs and wikis and collaboration without a high technorati rating?
I don’t blog. I hardly have time to teach 7 classes, plus do pd classes for my teachers and do help desk. I do my best to keep up with what is happening in the world of education. I share my wonder and enthusiasm with my students and show them the opportunities…unfortunately I don’t have the time to lead in this venture, simply open the doors and point.
Hey Maureen. Thanks for the comment. It is publish or perish, but not in the “traditional sense.” As I said above, I want my own kids’ teachers to be publishers and participants so they can guide them and teach them from just that stance of expertise we’ve been talking about.
@Maureen – if you open the doors and point ‘with’ your students then you a co-creator. So I think many of us are heading in the same direction without realizing it. Congratulations for keeping up with it all, even if you don’t write a blog. What Will has done is articulated the critical for us. I too wonder when we are going to acknowledge that good teachers have to be good co-learners, and must be able to model effective learning as a process of participation. Can we really claim to be good teachers unless we can operate in the digital environments in ways that will show our students how to gain deep knowledge and understanding in whatever field of study they happen to be working with the teacher on. Thanks for the ‘point’ to this book – I’m off to order it from Amazon right now.
How about taking all the teachers who are fonts of knowledge with their expertise and asking them to use it in a creative collaborative way to help our students be 21st century learners. Sometimes their egos get in the way of adapting their methods to actually engage students in the learning process. If their experience is all its cracked up to be then I imagine they would be up to the challenge.
When I started reading this that horrific “Those who can’t…teach” quote popped into my head. I *do* practice what I preach (practice quite literally, being a cellist/violinist teaching orchestra students), but I feel it’s not the same across the board.
As for using Web2.0 and creating content, I’m curious if my students see me as having an advantage because I learn/work-with this stuff, as opposed to a teacher that doesn’t have the time (or take the time) to try it out.
Not all teachers need produse… but all teachers should continue to lurn! If teachers model for their students that they are passionate lifelong lurners, they can’t help but teach powerful lessons every day…
Do teachers have to be producers of online content to be “expert” teachers? Do all adults–21st century citizens–have to be producers of online content to be “experts” in their fields? Doctors? Engineers? Nurses? Lawyers? Chemists? Dentists? Welders? Mechanics? Librarians?
Perhaps the question is not whether teachers HAVE to produce digital information but whether they SHOULD. Perhaps teachers should learn and experience the tools and strategies for consuming and producing information in the 21st Century. Having this understanding would help them facilitate students’ journies into Web 2.0
Ultimately, after learning and experimenting at least for a given time, both students and teachers must decide for themselves whether to choose the “pordusage” route as a lifelong learner.
Hey Lisa. Great questions. I think I’m leaning to answering “yes” to the teacher one. And I think if the answer is that they should produce digital content, then they should have to in order to be seen as master teachers in this environment. I think…
I continue to have the good fortune of learning from some produser students who help to remind me why life-long learning is so important. My learning leadership is constantly improved by their passion and willingness to engage in creative collaboration. I’m one of those newbies when it comes to Web 2.0 but I’m so excited about learning and becoming a produser! Much to learn from the many experts who respond o tWill’s inspiring and challenging posts!
It sounds to me like a call for a bit of ‘practice what you preach’ and that is quite different from ‘publish or perish’ — it’s the difference between theory and practice.
And if as an educator one isn’t practiced in one’s area but only able to direct others I don’t see that as expertise.
Several interesting threads running through this post and the comments – 32 comments in 18 hours suggests a level of interest in and of itself.
I loved Gary and Sheryl’s comments on community of practice…and see my teaching practice impacted by the connections I have made through blogging and twittering. Gary’s comments about elevating or even leveling the status of newbies is troubling in that it smacks of status quo in a very dynamic world. Tom Friedman may not have gotten it all right in THE FLAT WORLD, but he was right that the internet changed everything and leveled the business world. Is it not possible that this same interconnectiveness (did I just make a word up?) is impacting education too?
I made a much longer post to this at my own site, http://www.explodingbeakers.blogspot.com, but I think the produsage term needs to be conceptualized beyond simple Web 2.0 tools. Teachers need to be seen as experts not just in education, but in their subject fields, much in the way that music, arts, and phys. ed. teachers often manage to do.
Could we look at this technology rationally for a moment? I am learning a lot of it in a class for a library degree. I am also an English teacher with 23 years of teaching behind me. I’m a “produser” but not always a proud user of a lot of the technology.
I see great uses of some of the things I am learning and not much great use of others. Here are some reasons why.
As a public school teacher in a district that has few computers per students and no real “acceptable use policies” in place for some of the things we’re learning in our classes, I don’t want to spin my wheels uselessly. When the administrators of districts decide this is worth doing, it will become acceptable. That won’t happen if they are not produsers.
Also, I must side with the professor who questions whether we place too much value on expertise in this technology, rather than expertise in our subject matter.
That said, I find I can use the technology to give me more expert information in my subject area — and I have done so in the past several years, since the 1990s, in my efforts to “keep up”. It gets harder as one gets older, but I like it, so I will do it.
Unfortunately, there are those younger than I who don’t find it necessary or easy to do when we must use books that keep us tethered. I won’t elaborate on this at this time, but if you work in a school district that has purchased books to remedy the “Chidren Left Behind,” you understand. It’s tough for a lot of teachers to get away from just teaching to their books, and it may not be they’re ideas to do so. It may be mandated.
I actually think that even “pre-web 2.0” there is value for teachers in producing the same content they are asking students to.
You learn a lot about the merits of an assignment by trying it. I used to do a lot of the similar projects and assignments that I challenged my students to do, and still do with big projects we do in the library. I just want to get a feel for the challenges they might face so I can scaffold it better.
So I don’t think this basic concept is out of line, myself.
However, it’s obviously not possible for educators to reproduce every assignment themselves, and I’m not sure about the merits of assessing them “in large part” on this ability. But I do think it’s maybe an important criteria to add into teacher evaluations over time.
What our systems emphasize, we do. If our assessments either for our students or our staff stress a certain process or product, those are the things that we know the “system” places import on.
So my question would be are our systems supporting the ends we desire?
I agree with you all who say create, model, and assess in a variety of ways. Carol Foote makes good points.
My course work (online tech class for library degree)crosses into Web 2.0 work. I have scaffolded assignments and written with my students since I began teaching; it’s the way I was taught to teach, and it works.
I can’t always rely on the book rubrics. I make my own to fit what I create to teach. As long as my rubrics and assignments target state standards, I think I am doing well. I mix these assingments with the ones the books contain and try to strike a happy balance.
I definitely agree that teachers must be co-collaborators with students, and assessed on their ability to create content alongside their students.
However, I believe the paradigm of teacher = expert must shift. Here in NYC this is an easier transition, because we have experts in every field at our disposal. If a student wants to learn about the law, which is more beneficial: me learning basic judicial law, or having him find a lawyer/judge as a mentor?
Why must we continue to confine learning to classrooms? Why can’t students have a whole host of experts from which to draw upon?
Why do we need a new word? Humans have consumed and created all sorts of content throughout the history of mankind. Literate activities especially have always been about consuming-which we did when we read Will’s post-and creating-which we are doing as we further the conversation by adding our own words via commenting.