Not Every Teacher is a Pedagogue

Many people seem to confuse digital pedagogy with online learning, when this is actually not the case. Before reading the article “Decoding Digital Pedagogy” I would have also assumed that digital pedagogy means to use the internet while teaching. Some people might ask what the difference is between digital pedagogy and teaching online. The article suggests that not every teacher is a pedagogue and that pedagogy is different from the study of education. Paul Michael Morris states that at the core of the pedagogy lies timeliness, mindfulness and improvisation and that pedagogy is that key exchange that takes place in order for learning to happen.

It is understandable that people seem to think that digital and online are the same thing, however digital does not necessarily mean that technology is being used in the classroom. Digital can mean a series of data expressed as digits or employing signs or signals to express data. Pedagogy can be defined as a method or practice of teaching, yet as I stated above, not every teacher is a pedagogue. In order to be a pedagogue actual learning needs to take place. So I guess what Morris is saying is that not all learners actually learn something from their teachers. Some teachers are unable to engage with their class, and therefore they don’t actually teach them anything. I’ve experienced a couple of teachers who just read from the text book and tell the learners to highlight this or highlight that. They don’t take what is in the textbook and give examples that their learners can relate to, or they don’t find out what their learners’ prior knowledge is or ask questions to see what their learners know and understand.

I think a pedagogue is someone who engages with their learners and who breaks down information into small chunks and explains it in such a way that learners are able to grasp it. A pedagogue is not necessarily a teacher either, he/she can be any educated person who is able to pass their knowledge on to another.

Technology in the Classroom

With the rapid advancement of technology over the years, it has become normal and most of the time expected that teachers would use technology as a tool to teach their learners. When hearing the words, “Digital Pedagogy,” I immediately assumed it meant teaching by making use of computers or other forms of technology in the classroom. However once reading the article, “Digital Pedagogy Unplugged,” by Paul Fyfe, it became more clear to me that digital pedagogy does not necessarily have to be electronic.

The question that is posed in this article is; can there be a digital pedagogy without computers? Many teachers are under the assumption that digital pedagogy means the use of electronic tools or computers. The article suggests that this can be problematic because it limits the teaching to the extent of its tools. In many cases this is true, as teachers tend to read off a power point or an overhead projector and don’t actually engage creatively with the learners. A lot of the time the material that is on these power point presentations or on the overhead projector is provided to the learner anyway, which they can go and read for themselves.

The article speaks about “teaching naked” which simply means removing all computers and projectors from the classroom. In the article Fyfe poses the question, “What if instead we kept the "digital" in the non-electronic senses of that word: something to get your hands on, to deal with in dynamic units, to manipulate creatively?” This makes a lot more sense, in such a way that learners would benefit more from a classroom atmosphere that inspires creative thinking, where discussions are constantly encouraged, where learners are free to ask those “silly questions” and where learners engage with one another and with their teachers, challenging one another and ultimately resulting in learners actually learning and not just moving from one classroom to the next totally bored and having gained absolutely nothing of real substance.