Prosumer is defined as a person who consumes and produces media. It is derived from "prosumption", a dot-com era business term meaning "production by consumers".

Dr Cope’s statement below clearly explains why our current society needs prosumers instead of consumers.

In this current era, there is an intersection been personal lives and work, for instance, work is done ‘on the go’ or often work is done on personal time, and sometimes employer-paid devices such as cell phones and laptops are used for personal use.

In terms of learning, we need to create meaningful development for learners who can learn anytime and anywhere.  Technologies are now available which can enable people to become life-long co-teachers as well as co-learners.

With new e-learning ecologies, learners are able to create their own pathways to success.  Learning has become to become more immersive and personally-meaningful (subjective experiences) to each learner.

A lot of focus is being now placed on soft skills development. Independent learning and independent thinking is being encouraged. We have to reinvent our relationship with technologies. For instance, thanks to forums, learners can interact with each other, comment and constructively criticise each other’s works.

Reference:

• Wikipedia ‘Prosumer’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosumer
• ‘Active Knowledge Making, Part 2D: Changing the Balance of Agency, video by Dr William Cope. e-Learning Ecologies: Innovative Approaches to Teaching and Learning for the Digital Age.
• ‘Prosumers Essential to Accelerating New Markets for Service Providers’ by William Gerhardt, Cisco IBSG 2010. Available at: http://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en_us/about/ac79/docs/pov/Prosumer_Alert_102810_FINAL.pdf
• Education Futures – Prosumers. https://educationfutures.com/blog/tag/prosumers/