A pyramid of digital engagement and learning

In Week 3 of my Open University online course Childhood in the Digital Age, I came across Steve Wheeler's pyramid of digital engagement. In this pyramid Wheeler claims that engagement online is very similar to engagement offline. At the bottom of the pyramid people start with passive activities such as watching, reading and lurking. He writes that children start to learn by watching and listening to absorb what’s going on, followed by internalisation of the process to the point where it can be used creatively to develop their own ideas. 

The image is of a pyramid in five differently coloured layers, each containing digital icons. The bottom level contains the eye symbol and is labelled Watching/Lurking/Reading. This wide base shows that children are fairly passive in the initial stages of digital engagement, they are mostly using technology for entertainment or absorbing content from blogs, videos, podcasts and are observing what others are doing online.  The next layer up contains the thumbs-up symbol and is labelled Sharing/Liking. The middle layer contains a speech bubble with quotation marks and is labelled Commenting/Discussing. At this point children are starting to engage in a meaningful way online, as they think, edit and communicate ideas.  They start to respond to others' content by commenting on blogs, status updates or reviews and actively contribute their ideas.  The next to top layer contains the compasses symbol often used in authoring programs and is labelled Creating/Inventing.  At this point children are writing and publishing their own content on blogs or other sites such as YouTube.  The top layer contains lines of text and is labelled Curating.  At this point Wheeler writes: "Asking them to curate the content of others and add value to it can be even more challenging, but in doing so, they will usually read more widely, and are then in a position to assimilate multiple perspectives."

This is the first time I have seen this pyramid, but I find it very useful as a way of thinking about students' use of technology for learning.  I'm thinking this pyramid may be new to many others too, so I wanted to share it.  Click on the image to view it as a larger size.