Mind the Gap

In response to an assignment on digital pedagogy articles 1: http://www.digitalpedagogylab.com/hybridped/decoding-digital-pedagogy-pt-1-beyond-the-lms/ and 2: http://www.digitalpedagogylab.com/hybridped/decoding-digital-pedagogy-pt-2-unmapping-the-terrain/

I’m absolutely stoked about the times we’re in and is totally buying into this digital pedagogy and to further its effective use in schools. So much uproar and business and connectedness, but eish in that is so much differences that we need to bridge. And what better way than with this exciting field of discovery of digital pedagogy, which is the main scapegoat in this tale.

    I totally agree that digital pedagogy does not merely mean digitalizing your usual classroom work as part 1 argues. There is so much more to is. My meaning is still that learning should involve all the senses, and technology should only be there to enhance that experience. “Digital pedagogy is not a path through the woods. It’s a compass…”

 “Digital Pedagogy is a pedagogy of hacking, which Fyfe defines as “adapt[ing], manipulat[ing], and mak[ing] productive use out of a given technology or technological context or platform.” It also depends on collaboration.”

That underlined part of the sentence can definitely only be done by good facilitation and/or a controlled digital environment. I thus think we as teachers should be challenged to teach in such a way, but also us new generation teachers should be taught in such a way in order to have a framework of how to actually establish such a classroom environment, which we are not getting. (I know we should be the pioneers of such teaching).

   But my first concern: when I imagine myself in such a classroom where digital pedagogy is used and the teacher is a mere facilitator … it comes back to time for me… is there enough time for the learners to investigate topics on their own, struggling and disputing on their own, getting to the (hopefully right) answer and then getting feedback before their ‘maybe-wrong’ answer is stuck in their heads forever??

  It is really hard for me to imagine a school classroom environment like this, getting all the information across in time.

In my lecture halls I do prefer the lecturers having all the necessary knowledge and just throwing it at me, because ain’t nobody got time for researching every topic in each subject on my own and getting to the essentials on my own.

My second concern: collaboration and building community is great, and children may become each other’s teachers in such an environment, but being teenagers there is a lot of ‘power struggle’ going on in themselves and between each other, gaining popularity and such. So I’m just thinking that such a digital-group-interactive environment can again create space for the quick thinker or the brightest spark to thrive and teach the others, but the slower learners will yet again have less ‘power’, …which can again cause problems in this way of teaching.

We saw this in the hole in the wall (link ): some students easily understood the computer and the problems given to them and were able to help and explain the others. But from experience it is only a matter of time when that ‘power struggle type of jealousy’ creeps in. As harsh as it sound groups and or classes should probably be divided into ‘quick’ and ‘slow’ learners. Or even in different classes of learning methods. Or this digital pedagogy might only work in some school in certain environments, but not in others. SO stop putting so much emphasis in only this field of pedagogy…I’ll say.

Maybe I’m being a bit pessimistic here, but my point will be that digital pedagogy cannot be the only and the only new way and era of teaching and learning in any and every environment.

But yes, I know, we do indeed need to know HOW to use this digital stuff fully and most effectively in this current world.

After thought: Seeing my sister struggling to use Word effectively and sufficient in her engineering assignment is a huge pressing example to start to bridge this huge gap between no digital pedagogy in schools (and school assignments) to full-on digital tasks in universities and work places.