UGC is commercially hot with many major corporations on the net pouring major resources into supporting the concept. This has interesting implications for educators as User Generated Content (UGC) transforms the cultural imperative from "consume" to "create" with powerful social potential, but not without some relevant criticism. One salient aspect of that criticism is that "user" has a perception that is diminishing of such authorship that is in contrast to the risk-taking pioneership character of such work. The phrase "entrepreneurial generated content" might better capture the nature of such work for the 21st century, but will require some explaining of entrepreneur for this context. Building on that thought, the eCROP link on the left promotes the next step, adding EGQ, Entrepreneurial Generated Questions to build an Entrepreneurial Generated Problem Processing system.
Progress towards solutions needs sharing and collaboration tools. One form of sharing is publishing. The eCROP link on the left represents the original and now standard model for globally sharing web site composition, files created on local computers and uploaded to remote servers. In contrast the blog, wiki and page creator links are examples of 3 major and speedy systems for editing textual data files on the server itself without storing on the author's computer. Served based editing is spreading across all forms of media.
Problems need to be identified before they can be solved. Three approaches to collaborative question generation and response are the live RSS feeds on the left from Linkin, Yahoo Answers and Knowledge Problems but eCROP lists over 20 more Q&A sites.
Studying this international Internet development should prove of value to educators as UGC issues are at the core of issues educators face with the boredom and disengagement of the high number of H.S. dropouts with adequate grades, the less than 40% that go on to college and the less than 20% of H.S. freshman that make it thru college. Next steps for advancing this next frontier include the following questions:
- From what motivation does the EGC "need to create" emerge?
- If a creation is a "solution" then where are the web resources to generate the questions and the problems? See examples of question generating resources thru eCROP in left margin.
- What partnerships of activity and relationships build the power of sustained creative persistence?
- What have Geocities and MySpace done right or wrong in their designs to advance UGC?
- What tools shaped how will inspire further development of creative-inventive-reflective activities, web or otherwise?