Digital Pedagogy..Getting There

Digital pedagogy is very much still a shaky matter in terms of the fact that it is often confused with online teaching. Up until recently I, too, had a very clouded view of what being a pedagogue entailed. Pedagogy is not simply digitizing materials and then teaching in that way. A good point that is made by @slamteacher is that pedagogy is an entire scholarship on its own which is a study of learning and how it is fueled in many different ways. In other words, it is about losing your way and finding yourself again, all while exchanging instantaneously and improvising as you go along in order for learning to happen.

The LMS (Learning Management System) played a big role in the confusion that surrounds the whole idea of digital pedagogy and this is due to the fact that teaching online was the way to go and that it was easy at the same time and so because of this, somewhere along the way sentiments were lost. The LMS curbed learning in a way that there was no longer motivation for further innovation but instead more demotivation to innovate and just be complacent with learning as it is.

On the flip side, being digital also then means being critical because it can be either an advantage or disadvantage to you as @jessifer puts it. It’s not just one solid path that you follow which will eventually bring you to your destination but it’s more like a compass to help in the direction you’re going and so you need to figure out the way that works for the good while sometimes encountering the not so good, all while figuring out everything in between. Basically, it is all about making the digital work for you and the way you teach as opposed to trying to work with the digital.

All in all, digital pedagogy is about messing around more than it is a systematic process and I think that is where most of the confusion comes in because teaching as a discipline on its own is one that is very systematic with little to no room for messing around. Although this is not something that is completely new, there needs to be a new level of unlearning, playing and rediscovering to happen to create a change.

“For some, teaching begins with authority and expertise. For the digital pedagogue, teaching begins with inquiry.”