Chair: Phil Cormack
Prosumption is the production of what one consumes. Coined by Toffler (1980), the concept names hybrid forms of market participation which have become increasingly prevalent with digital technologies (Ritzer & Jurgenson 2010). However, it can be argued that teachers have always been prosumers since the production of resources has been an integral aspect of professional practice. In the study reported in this paper, teachers' resource production, sharing and professional communication regarding resources were examined through an analysis of online resource sharing sites. On these sites, educators upload resources they have produced or gathered in order that professional peers can access them. Two kinds of sites were studied using quantitative and qualitative analysis: open platforms (Teacher Tube and TES) and individually hosted weblogs. While this may appear to be a new development, it will be argued that there are significant continuities with prior professional practices and identities; educators are orienting to the digital domain partly as a means of conserving practitioner artefacts produced offline. Teachers' craft orientation to their work has contributed to their characterisation as 'bricoleurs' (Hatton 1988). Digital technologies are expanding the potential for 'bricolage' (Levi-Strauss (1966); the 'means at hand' now includes texts, images, sound files and a myriad of software programs with which to work on these materials. I show examples of teachers combining and recombining artefacts from their own teaching program with those of cyber peers to assemble new resource packages. When educators share their resource collections online, an additional role - of curator - is taken up. In discussing these findings, I consider the figure of the teacher prosumer, and corresponding resource practices, in the light of current frameworks of professional competencies for teachers.
Hatton, E. J. (1988). Teachers' work as bricolage: Implications for teacher education. British Journal of Sociology of Education 9 (3):337-357.
Levi-Strauss, C. (1966). The Savage Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Ritzer, G., & Jurgenson, N. (2010). Production, consumption, prosumption: The nature of capitalism in the age of the digital 'prosumer'. Journal of Consumer Culture, 10(1), 13 - 36.
Toffler, A. (1980) The Third Wave New York: William Morrow.