Digital Pedagogy

Unplugging that which is plugged to use that which is plugged to help learners plug in...

Digital Pedagogy.

One cannot deny the presence of technology in the modern day classroom. It looms below the desks, it displays itself on the wall, it replaces paper. Digital pedagogy attempts to use this very technology to change the way students are taught and the way in which they learn. After reading the resource, I was interested to see the way in which the author responded to its use in a classroom.

Something which I found to be very interesting and true in the article was when the author said "you cannot even imagine the work you can do before you’ve invented or experienced the tools or the social dynamics they enable". I think something which technology provides us, is the opportunity to make firstly, the ideas which we have into a viable reality, and secondly, we actually have very little idea of the final product of our idea until we have used technology in our planning. We can see that there is so much information out there which can change our ideas completely, or can contribute to our ideas and make them better. This can happen to such an extent that the final product may look nothing like our originally conceived idea. From a teaching perspective, this is encouraging, as we encourage our learners to engage with information which they have and to formulate their own ideas and critical thinking. If this technology can have these effects of molding and shaping and improving ideas, then why could it be something which could have negative implications?

"For many teachers, especially early- or non-adopters, digital pedagogy is often presumed to be just something that uses electronic tools or computers. This is unsatisfying as it often limits the teaching to the extent of its tools." 

So one of the problems is that it is not being used correctly, it should be something which can be "manipulated correctly". Why could this be?

• teachers do not know how to use it effectively as a means of facilitation
• students are too heavily dependent on it to produce immediate answers

The second I am especially passionate about. There are many times where I have looked up the answers to questions on the internet instead of grappling through it on my own. I have used technology in the past, not as a tool, but as a crutch, and it has actually caused injury to my work in the long run. As the author speaks about the example of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (that book... ah what a pleasure to read), I am reminded of my experience with Chemistry. I became incredibly skilled at sifting through the little summaries of the website when I did a search to provide me with my answer that I did very little learning of the content and as a result, very little understanding. So this is an example of how technology can negatively impact on learning. It takes away the opportunity to "mine" through the work. It is a fundamental part of learning which is lost. We have two types of thinking modes: focused and diffuse modes. The way I understand it, the diffused mode is a relaxed way of thinking, when you are learning new concepts which your brain has not yet made connections for. By going through the equations and theory slowly, you are introducing your brain to the concepts and slowly revealing the connection points. When you use the focused mode you are thinking in a way which connects those points. So technology can hamper this process by removing the opportunity to create the connections... because it is used wrong. So what if it were used as a facilitator instead. What if the equations came alive and began to explain themselves instead of providing a quick and easy answer to the homework question.

I believe that this is what people who embrace technology as a tool are going for. Where you create a space where the digital world provides a platform for further critical analysis to be performed and then remove it as a necessity for further learning to take place, where you use it as a facilitator in furthering knowledge which you have instead of it being the root of your knowledge where without it, you would be lost. This is how pedagogy should change. 

So use technology wisely, not fleetingly.

As ever, watching the walking footprints.