Week 2 Prompt

 

Week 2: How might the concept of produsage be applied in your life (personal and/or professional) as it stands today? Are you already a produser? If yes, what do you do? If no, why not?

The majority of my professional life I have been either a producer or a user of services or products. My experience with the concept of produsage has been limited to the creation of shared and mutually beneficial documents in a Wiki with either my colleagues or in the composition of materials for class purposes. However, I can see how I can begin to more frequently apply produsage by expansion of the tools used to participate collaboratively with others.

For example, in the development of on-demand learning features for a distance learning program, a wiki or shared Google docs may allow my colleagues to contribute to the creation of information that could benefit the group as a whole. The use of geo-mapping to label locations on campus could be a great shared resource with the larger community to promote workshops or events through websites, mobile apps or other forms of advertisement. Another needed service I think would be beneficial to my colleagues in an instructional environment is the collective development of learning objects in a shared repository for use in the online classroom. The development of textbooks with a more global audience is also a possibility; albeit probably not one publishing companies would like to see.

I am certain this only scratches the surface of possibilities of produsage applications. Further exploration will lead to more ideas. I think the big step will be initial implementation and exposure of the potential advantages. Once the bridge is crossed, the potential for collaborative efforts seem unlimited.