Sustaining Students’ Identities within the Context of Participatory Culture. Designing, Implementing and Evaluating an Interactive Learning Activity

Abstract

Within the framework of theoretical developments in so-called participatory culture and the context of funds of identity, incorporated within what is known as the funds of knowledge approach, an innovative teaching methodology is implemented that allows students to actively participate in knowledge construction. The project translates into a proposal for educational contextualization and personalization, based on the students’ funds of identity; that is, those resources (people, artifacts, places, activities, institutions) they consider to be most relevant and significant to defining themselves. Once these have been identified through identity artifacts, such as collages or self-drawings, students link some of these funds of identity to curricular content of the subject and produce a video that shows the results of this academic work. The final product is shared on a YouTube channel containing the videos of all of the students in the class. The phases of the project are described and illustrated. We argue that the proposed teaching and learning project, which is cross-disciplinary in nature, allows for principles such as educational contextualization, funds of identity and participatory culture to be incorporated into what we call here the funds of identity 2.0 approach, putting it into educational practice