The Terminator IRL: When technologies dictate their use to us.

This week I'm responding to two articles: Decoding Digital Pedagogy: Beyond the LMS and Decoding Digital Pedagogy: (Un)Mapping the Terrain. Links fir the articles can be found at the end of this post.

I find it weird to think of myself as "becoming a pedagogue" - The word "pedagogy" have only been introduced to me a couple of weeks ago and already it has taken over pretty much everything I do. I see elements of it intertwined in ever day life and it even filters through in conversations with family and friends. 

One of the things in the article that struck me most, was the emphasis that was placed on the lengths to which a pedagogue will go, to inspire and guide learners towards learning. (References were made to hopscotch and blindfolding.) And I have to question if that is really the only way – to think so far out of the box that you become almost impractical?

On the other hand, I completely agree with the comments made on how technology have a nasty way of dictating how we use them. Teachers have become almost obsolete, hiding behind their PowerPoint presentations and YouTube videos. Learning Management Systems have made learners and teachers lazy in the sense that we don't pay attention to each other anymore. And just like in the Terminator franchise, we are allowing our world to become dominated and prescribed to us by the same technologies that were supposed to only make our lives easier and more convenient.

I do feel that technology have a well deserved place in the classroom and that it is a great tool to help visualize difficult concepts, give access to information and empower learners to explore on their own. BUT, I do not believe that it should become the be all and end all of education. Mostly because a computer does not have the ability to take the learner's context into account the way that a teacher does. Yes, computers (and Google) have taken over the authority of knowledge in our classrooms, but we as teachers still have the enormous task of taking that knowledge and breaking it down for the child sitting in front of us, in a manner that he/she will understand and appreciate and in a manner that is understanding, respectful and sensitive to the learner's particular context.

At the end of the day, we need to remember that our learners are not robots and can thus not be treated as such. They need inspiration, they need someone who is going to push their boundaries, and sometimes, they will need someone to put a blindfold on their eyes to bring them back to the basics. I guess I have answered my own question in a way – maybe it not thinking out of the box to the extreme, but perhaps questioning why the box exists and then deciding what to do with it.

Links for the articles:

http://www.digitalpedagogylab.com/hybridped/decoding-digital-pedagogy-pt-1-beyond-the-lms/

http://www.digitalpedagogylab.com/hybridped/decoding-digital-pedagogy-pt-2-unmapping-the-terrain/

Simply unplugged, or a case of serious load shedding?

For the past two weeks something have been seriously bugging me. In almost all of the classes in my post graduate teaching course, I got the feeling that reality have taken a backseat to the ideal theoretical image of what a school should be, what a good teacher should look like and what he/she should incorporate in his/her classroom.

Yes, I know that we should all aspire to be the best that we can be, but should we build this ideal "teacher persona" simply to be disappointed by the reality of the South African classroom? And should that persona be so dependent on the resources available to the teacher?

The article talks about how technology should not get in the way of good teaching, but should rather serve to enrich it. Beautiful ideal, but what happens when there is no technology to speak of, or only very basic technologies - and that in very limited quantities? What happens in a flipped classroom when there are no means to flip it effectively?

I should probably provide some context to make my meaning (and frustration) more clear:
I've taught at a school of moderate size in a very poor community. The learners (and by implication their parents) did not have enough money to buy books or pencils or have a sandwich for lunch. Resources at the school were extremely scarce and stationary were awarded on a strict quota system. These kids did not have smartphones or tablets. The school had 4 computers for use by the staff. About one quarter of the classes had access to an overhead projector. There were days when there were no chalk for use on the blackboards.

I've been asking myself all week: "How do I reconcile these two extremes? How do I bridge this gap? " And I still don't have an answer.

I do know that learning still took place at that school, despite not having all the facilities that the more affluent schools have. The success of that school boiled down to the teachers and their way of making the best of a bad situation, of being inventive and creative in their teaching methods, of finding new ways to overcome the challenges that were thrown at them everyday and in passing along that non-defeatist attitude to the learners. Is this then considered naked teaching? Or is it simply a case of extreme barriers to education? Unplugged, or did Eskom flip a switch?

I guess one could argue that their inventive methods could be regarded as digital humanities, or that the recycled garbage they sometimes used in math or science class could be seen as technology. I do know however that technological integration in the classroom in the traditional sense (e.g. computers, smartphones, projectors, interactive whiteboards etc.), is probably not a feasible ideal for that school.

The point I'm trying to make is that technology is great, and when it is used for enrichment or the promotion of understanding, it can be a powerful tool in the classroom. The essence of teaching, however, will always be the interaction between learner and teacher and learner and learner. Your worth as a teacher should not be dependent on your PowerPoint proficiency or your ability to fish out inspirational YouTube videos. Your students should be able to form opinions on their own and not be so eager to readily support whatever the media dictates to them.

I'm still trying to figure out how to answer my initial questions, but for now I'm going to climb of my soapbox and go consume some caffeine.