Digital Pedagogy - The Times They Are A-Changin’

“Come mothers and fathers throughout the land and don’t criticise what you can’t understand. Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command, your old road is rapidly agin’. Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend your hand, For the times they are a-changin'” - Bob Dylan

My previous blog dissected my understanding of digital pedagogy and everything I have come to learn over the past few weeks in the PGCE course at Stellenbosch University. Today I was confronted by two articles that gave me a deeper insight into the term "pedagogy". Of course to me, pedagogy was an unheard of term before i enrolled in the PGCE programme and has since been thrown around in almost every sentence of every lecture, such that I was convinced I was becoming a pedagogue and that all forms of teaching were considered pedagogy. And yet, @slamteacher suggests that one need not be a pedagogue to be an effective teacher.

Recently, online-based learning platforms have been popping up left, right and centre to suit the new technology-driven generation. I do believe a great deal of these digital learning platforms have shaped the mould for a possible future in easy-to-access education, but many have also allowed for lazy teaching methods. Yes, it is fair to say that providing students with information and later testing their knowledge on the topic is “teaching”. HOWEVER, in order to thoroughly relay material, you need to think creatively and use innovative methods to grab your students’ attention. This will stimulate your students’ interest, encouraging them to go beyond what’s taught in the lesson and assist them in remembering what they’ve learnt in the long run... because, let’s be honest, a lot of what we learnt in school (and even university in some cases) went in one ear and swiftly blew out the other.

The thing is, certain pedagogues and teachers have absolutely hit the nail on the head in their conversion to teaching with digital media, while others are failing miserably to deliver the goods using online aids. It seems the only way to make it work is to connect with digital pedagogy such that your digital tools assist you in building an interactive network, welcoming students to form part of the technological development. 

I believe technology holds a bright future for education. My main and only issue with online-based learning is that in this day and age, people are already engrossed in their mobile phones, tablets and laptops. When these instruments of communication are laid to rest many people reach for the television remote or open their “Netflix” tab, vegetating in front of the latest TV shows and movies (I don’t exclude myself entirely from this stereotype)...but I want to know (education aside) how we will ever be a generation that communicates comfortably without the safety of an interface separating us, if we continue along this path. Surely a happy medium between broadcasting with modern technology and discussions within the old-school classroom can be met?