Outcome or process? Student created content

“Tell me and I'll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I'll understand.”

Once again we come back to the ideas of the teacher /tutor role, and whether there are instructors or facilitators and the general design of the learning that is delivered. There can be no doubt that students creating content for themselves is a powerful thing, but I am not sure how far the readings really consider the educational content as ‘content’. Most talk about collaboration, involving students in processes, discussion and dialogue, but how much of this is then re-used in a different educational context? I guess that I use blogs to help my understanding and I certainly use UTube within my training, but there is a fine line to the definition of student created content. Often this is content that has been created outside of an educational context.

There seems to several definitions to me.

1. Student outcomes/actions as a result of activities that capitalise on student creativity within a learning environment
2. Open access to information and resources that are available on the web, but not part of an educational institution or context – probably more rightly termed  user generated content
3. Student created content that is then re used for new students, or peer reviewed resources

How do educators designing online courses capitalise on the growth of user-generated content? How do they encourage students to participate in creating educational content in addition to purely recreational content?

Just as other learning designs facilitate creativity and student content, so can online courses. As with the distinction made above, here in H807 we have both been taken to user generated materials, that may be blogs or newspaper articles as well as having to create our own content (e-tivities, wikis etc).

Depending on the learner, it’s about using the appropriate sources and introducing learners to ways in which they can be critical about them, to reflect and learn how to assess sources, and what is appropriate to use in different circumstances. Is it the content itself that is important, or the process of getting there? I have a suspicion that in the main, it’s the journey that is important. Certainly, most of the literature talks about the way that students learn as opposed to specific content. And of course, on must remember that a student needs to have the skills and knowledge to be able to create that content in the first place – the literacy.

Designing a course with some student-created content.

·         Making content relevant to learners lives

·         Give learners a choice and a sense of control

·         Use peers

·         Involve learners’s affective response

·         Use discussion

·         Encourage self reflection on learning

(wiki books)

What intrigues me most about this is that it is not about content as an outcome, but about content as the process, something that I often design into my learning activities.