Digital Pedagogy vs Online Teaching

Recently online teaching has become a very large field on the World Wide Web, but how does it relate to the digital pedagogy. Both use digital tools to convey information to the learners but pedagogy is not synonymous with teaching. Teaching is pedagogy in the sense that when a teacher explains content on a subject to a learner in a format that invokes a learning response/interest in them which allows the learners to retain the knowledge and employ it in their daily lives. Teaching online can be pedagogical but extensive investigation, practice and research need to be employed to develop study material that will facilitate learning, especially when the classroom atmosphere is not present. The lack of which would result in a program that students will become complacent and disinterested in. The Learning Management System (LMS), is a prime example of a poorly constructed online learning system according to Sean Michael Morris.

LMS is a software system used by educational institutes to manage record, distribute educational material for online courses, administration and assess student’s progress towards training goals. Proving very popular in the business context by providing a format that allows it to train employees in a fast and inexpensive manner (to increase productivity and grow the business).

Sean Michael Morris argued that the LMS is a premature system that didn’t challenge the internet and was made with the least innovative classroom practice, augmented by the perception that one can easily upload the materials (assignments, lecture notes, video and audio)onto a network and online learning will occur. This is not pedagogical, as it does not provide a meaningful or sustained learning environment. The lack of these two aspects and proper classroom interactions negatively impacts the development of learner to a state of meta-cognitive reflection (defined by Swartz and Perkins as “becoming aware of your thought processes in order to then control them when appropriate”).

 This is where the digital pedagogue surpasses the limitations of LMS in this regard, as it still provides an atmosphere for communication and dialog not attained by most online teaching methods (Jesse Stommel said “it’s a way of engaging the world not the world itself”). These exceptions to the format that allows online teaching as Sugata Mitra (a professional educator) demonstrated with the “granny cloud” program (so called by the learners) in India, where teachers use media to educate impoverished community school. Digital pedagogy is not something that can be copied pasted and instantly have the same effect; it is a momentary, meaningful exchange between teachers, teachers-students and between students in order for learning to happen.