Digital Pedagogy 5

Learning never stop, is not a destination, but a process or journey. Learning takes place almost everywhere, namely: home and community which is the most viable resource for indigenous learning, like medicinal plants, understanding natural resources and societal structures that made it possible for our four fathers to survive. Moreover, school where most indigenous knowledge is integrated in to academic literature. Technological changes that are occurring around the world have an impact upon education. In times of change, this technologies need to align with school curriculum for effective learning to take place. A learning environment consists of learners, teachers or instructor, teaching strategies and resources for providing knowledge. The figure below shows strategies for engagement.

In a classroom teachers should be available and accessible to their learners to give direction, provide information and instruct a lesson so that progress is made and that learners are learning. Educators should also create an environment of open communication where learners concerns and worries can be heard and be provided them with information they use to help them resolve their issues. It is a teacher's duty to provide learners with fundamental skill like reading and writing to enable them to interpret and analyze information and conduct research.  As teachers we need to show empathy and understand learners circumstances and provide them with tools to which to facilitate positive outcomes and give them encouragement. In school grounds anything can happen either to learners or teachers, therefore it important that school are safe and secure environment for all in it. And if learners are experiencing bullying and harassment, the teacher should intervene as he or she is responsible for the learner in a place of parents. This should also strengthen the school curriculum to enable learners to flourish when engaged to successful and meaningful learning.

Meaning learning entails that it should promote a robust school culture that promotes positive relationships with learners and teachers. Plan lesson according how students want to see it, in their own language or level of understanding by asking them.teaching strategies need to change so that students don't get use to the teacher's teaching style and to avoid losing their attention. Student should be given with sudden unexpected activities.

Is the classroom the only way of learning?

Classrooms are not the only way of learning, thus may not be conducive enough to all learners to stimulate critical thinking. What is critical thinking? Critical thinking is a self-guided, self-disciplined thinking which attempts to reason at the highest level of quality in a fair minded way and a metaphorical bridge between information and action. It is also noted that critical thinkers  realizes complexities in developing thinking skills and commit themselves to life-long practice towards self-improvements it is often manifested in the skillful manipulation in service of one’s own or one’s group interest. For instance, the independent school project allowed students to run the school themselves for them to discipline themselves. By letting learners choose subjects they comfortable with opens up a space for them to excel because they have interest in it and they enjoy doing it to satisfy their curiosity. 

The independent school project showed that people of different background helps to improve learning by applying different skills to unfold academic problems. Students or learners on their own learn to use their creativity to achieve outstanding results without being pressurized or memorize for a test or exam. The project also showed that students are more comfortable in asking their peers than teachers in a classroom. Therefore, teachers are only required to approve if the method of research was accurate. Moreover, learners are able to learn using different sources, teach by sharing their findings or information with friend or classmates, and create a working atmosphere by criticizing his or her peers, push others out of their comfort and produce best results.

Nonetheless, educational standards limit the conscious to which critical pedagogy aims by making classroom being the major source of learning. Learning takes place in two ways, namely informal and formal. Since we have different ways of learning "education must begin with the solution of the teacher-student contradiction" we need to from each other not information coming from one direction which mostly is from the teacher to students. Communication play an important role in sharing ideas with the international community through digital technology to create a positive support loop designed to “support individual learning and contribute to the learning of others". Due to inadequate and unfair distribution of resources it makes communication in and between different global digital communities difficult and problematic. As a result of the incompleteness of digital citizens, it will further excludes those who need it the most and it also leave out both problems with this communication model, as well as possibilities.  In trying to find solutions of the complexities and challenges of getting two digital communities with different “contextual considerations” to communicate, let alone educate one another through digital platforms. Educators have an upper hand to strive for genuine attempts toward inclusion.

Positives and Negatives of Social Media in the Classroom

Social media media have several tools that allows educators to connect with students. This tools includes: Share it, remind, twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Blogging. All these tool serves a specific purpose which would be discussed in details below.

Remind: educators use text (sms) to connect with students beyond classroom using mobile phones to communicate some important information they need to know either a task, project, timetable or a test. The teacher create a group on Remind without anyone having to access someone's contact details. The fact that contact number is not revealed this creates a secure environment for the students. Remind can be used to encourage students and for making jokes after an exhausting class. It also allows users to make attachments like PDF (journals and articles) for students to prepare for a lesson beforehand and to share interesting pictures from a field or related task that was done in class. It also enable educators to inform students about what is happening either at the school or other places. Thus, messages are short and into the point, making learners to enjoy reading them.

Twitter: has been useful in connecting and sharing information with other people. this tool can be used for variety of purposes like homework announcement, sharing of thoughts and ideas and also an easy way for learners to ask questions. It also allows students who cannot communicate for their voice to be heard through writing. This creates an opportunity for students to connect and follow people of their interest and to learn from them beyond classroom.

Instagram: allows students to share pictures and has different filters for altering the photos that you post. Since we have different ways of learning, some students can enjoy learning using pictures as a physical object that is easy to remember.

Share-it: enables students to share documents like music, word, pictures, if in case someone has miss a class can easily access the information from the shared files.

Blogging: this social media is very diverse, it stimulates cognitive learning by allowing learners to comment on someone's ideas. Blogging offers an opportunity to make connections with people from all over the world. Blogging is used in close connection with twitter to connect students outside the classroom. The twitter hashtag is designed to connect public to students through blogging which enables students and other educators to comment. When students see the notification that they have a comment, they curious. then they get to read the comment which stimulates continuous reading and communication.

The negatives of social media: Not all students have access to smart phones, computers and tap. Students can use social media to do wrong things like on line dating. Perpetrators also uses social media to commit fraud and to get their victims. If example, a learner send an email to a teacher and the email ends to a wrong person, this could put the learner in danger. Although there are faulty in the system, social media offers endless opportunity to those who have the resources to do so to acquire knowledge beyond classroom. The system however, should not completely replace traditional ways of doing things like sending letters to parents to enhance communication and connecting with students. Calling can be more useful to those not having smart phone to email and twit. Texting could be useful provided the language is easy to read for the student  and student can actually read and reply (ability to write).