Content Cycle

Attending a 2nd grade classroom play I had to snap some pictures of my son’s classmates. They were doing something I had not yet seen.

These students were recording the various plays presented and immediately replaying and watching them; in one case before the play was over. Think about what these young students were doing. They had a desire to create content. They wanted to view this content immediately. Did they want to be a producer of this content, a consumer, or both? Students this age are beginning consumers of amateur productions online, if not at least aware of such content. To be a producer of content could be exciting, but is being the creator of the content more exciting than participating in the content itself?

I find creating content only to consume immediately is an immature view of the purpose of creating content.

On the other end of the spectrum, some historically face-to-face schools and districts try to produce online content and I note a different issue. Created content is viewed as completed and not considered for revision cycles. In fact, revision cycles for online content are not established either when the content writing is initiated or when the content is presented as completed.

I find creating content only to immediately abandon it an immature view of why the content is created also.

This rate of production and lack of established revision seem to skew toward throw-away content. And that is a problem for educators.Educators do not do something once and then abandon it. We reflect and refine our craft. Non-educators might think it is fine to use something once or to only take one pass at creating something. Often those people are selling something, because teachers reflect on ways to better deliver content almost immediately and make efforts to revise that content for delivery the following time.

Teachers need to be more empowered in the content cycling in education.