Educating our Students to Become "Produsers"

Before moving to Germany, I taught at Waialua High and Intermediate School on the North Shore of Oahu, Hawaii. Other than the subject standards, teachers were also to motivate and prepare students to be life-long learners. We had a set of General Learner Outcomes (GLOs) that we wanted every student to have by the time they graduated their senior year. 

1.) Self-Directed Learner

2.) Community Contributor

3.) Complex Thinker

4.) Effective Communicator

5.) Effective and Ethical User of Technology

I loved these and always tried to connect our lessons to AT LEAST one GLO, because I genuinely believe that this is what general K-12 education is supposed to teach. I taught math at WHIS; by the time students make it to 7th grade, most of the math they are learning will not be used by them when their time ends in grade school. However, this is what I tell them, "You are learning to learn, you are learning to persevere when things become hard, you are learning to ask for help when you need it, to help others when you can, and you can apply all of these lessons to your 'real-life'". 

So with my passion for life-long learning and GLOs I found it incredibly interesting that Bruns mentions some of the GLOs when describing "Educating Produsers".

Below is a section of Bruns' 2008 Article The Future is User-Led: The Path Towards Widespread Produsage.

"Much as they have played a crucial role in preparing citizens for their participation in the post-industrial economy by developing their technology and information literacy skills, then, educational institutions must now also take up the challenge of developing produsage skills. This requires a focus on what can be described as the C4C (Bruns et al, 2005): the capacities of graduates to be

• creative – gaining the ability to act as collaborative co-creators in flexible roles, participating as one amongst a number of creative produsers rather than as a self-sufficient creative producer;
• collaborative – being able to collaborate effectively and understand the implications and consequences of collaboration;
• critical – maintaining a critical stance both towards potential collaborators and their work as well as towards one's own creative and collaborative abilities and existing work portfolio;
• communicative – engaging in effective and successful communication between produsage participants, and of ideas generated in the exercise of one's capacities as a produser." (Brun 2008)

How awesome is that! 

Creative- Self Directed

Collaborative- Community Contributor

Critical- Complex Thinker

Communicative- Effective Communicator

And this is Web 2.0, so being an Effective and Ethical user of Technology applies!

I think it is great that we were educating our students to be these well-rounded learners that will be/are "produsers."

References:

Bruns, Axel. “FCJ-066 The Future Is User-Led: The Path towards Widespread
    Produsage.” The Fibreculture Journal 11 RSS, The Fibreculture Journal,
    eleven.fibreculturejournal.org/fcj-066-the-future-is-user-led-the-path-towards
    widespread-produsage/.

“Waialua High & Intermediate School - GLOs.” Waialua High & Intermediate School - GLOs,
    www.whis.k12.hi.us/student-life/glos.