Document Actions

Popular Culture and Informal Online Spaces of Learning

January 20th, 2014

Globally, people are interacting in online spaces en masse, and this is changing the way society learns and interacts. Furthermore, many people are participating in informal online learning spaces and developing skills and literacies relevant for the 21st century (like print, multimodal, technological, informational and language literacies, as well as interpersonal and social skills). Such spaces not only promote multiple literacies and skills, they can also teach new forms of interactions, new roles and identities. On top of this, informal online learning spaces are also redefining valid learning content. As participants turn the passive consumption of popular culture into a productive practice, they develop skills and literacies necessary for life in the 21st century. Using examples from online fan-websites on popular TV-series and video games, I will demonstrate how such informal online learning spaces affect learning. Will such new types of learning change the future of education, and possibly even business and politics?

Roger Dale Jones is a doctoral student and lecturer in the English Didactics Department at the Justus Liebig Universität in Gießen. Currently focusing on developing video game literacy in the English as a foreign language classroom, his research and teaching also encompasses storytelling across media, new media literacy, popular culture and online learning spaces. Prior to working and studying at JLU, Roger taught German in several American universities and holds an M.A. in German literature and culture from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.