The short essays in Learning
Through Digital Media (LTDM) have been particular helpful in providing
examples of theory put into classroom practice. During the third week of class,
we were asked to read both LTDM and Because Digital Writing Matters (BDWM). Reading these two books in pairs,
I found BDWM much more focused on the
theory behind the justification for digital writing. However, LTDM attempted to actually put the
theories into practice. Now as I am attempting to redesign my course, I find
myself referring to LTDM to begin to
bring digital media theories into practice.
Doing so I am finding is not such an easy task and I think
that Elizabeth Ellsworth’s explanation that “pedagogy is living” and changing
centers around the difficulty of bringing theory into the classroom.
Particularly this is because pedagogy only works in theory. In actuality,
Ellsworth claims, “pedagogy does not follow rules, nor does it rule…pedagogy is
a living form” (p. 305). It is this understanding that pedagogy is not fixed or
set, pedagogy depends upon interaction and growth and learning. This
understanding of pedagogy I believe to helpful in any course. However, I find
this explanation particularly helpful when designing an online course for
several reasons. One, for many teachers, online courses are somewhat of a new
venture. Many teachers have had limited, if any, experience teaching an online
course. Thus, in many ways online pedagogy is new and something that needs to
be developed and tended and nurtured. For these teachers, pedagogy needs to be
born and, to use Ellsworth, live. Additionally, tools used for online courses
often times continue to live well past the end of a course. Often times online
courses use blogs to facilitate student discussion, invention, and reflection.
Yet, these blogs never die. They exist in the online world very differently
than how classroom discussion exists. As such, teachers and students need to be
conscious of how pedagogy needs to have room to adapt and adjust to living
spaces. Student writing and thoughts that live in online spaces has the
potential to reach an audience beyond the class. Further, the spaces where such
writing and discussion occurs has the potential to change beyond the teacher or
students control. As such, incorporating a pedagogy based heavily on media and
online interactions will most likely need to be changed and altered in order to
continue to be an effective pedagogy. Understanding pedagogy as a living thing
then is an important encompassing concept grasp as I begin to redesign my
course. Specifically, Ellsworth’s point regarding pedagogy has assisted in my
understanding of how does and should function in courses, specifically online
courses.
Further, other essays in LTDM
have offered excellent examples of moving theory into practice as it relates
specifically to my intentions in my course redesign. Specifically, the essays
by Matthew Gold and Kenneth Rogers are two great examples of how to move theory
into actual practice. The essays by these two authors were particularly interesting
because they brought up the idea that using digital media in the classroom
impacts the practices and even the learning outcomes that occur. Both Gold and
Rogers appear to be echoing similar theories discussed by Gaver in “The
Affordances of Media Spaces for Collaboration”. Gold, Rogers and Gaver focus
upon what the classroom becomes when one moves it from a traditional classroom
with desks, chairs, and walls to a classroom with non-physical attributes,
online attributes. While Gaver believes that implementing digital media affords
spaces for collaboration, Gold views using digital media as a tool for creating
“social, networked, open-source classrooms” (p. 76). For Gold, by using blogs like BuddyPress the
classroom as a network becomes “more open, more porous, and more varied” where
the “classroom as a social network can help create engaging spaces for learning
in which students are connected to one another, to their professors and to the
wider world” (p. 76). This explanation of the online classroom supports my own
class redesign. My redesign attempts to break out of the traditional classroom
walls and to begin to make steps to connect with the outside world. As someone
who attempts to integrate elements of critical pedagogy in her classroom, it thus
becomes essential to take steps for my students to engage with a larger world.
Doing so I believe allows students to make better connections with such issues
rooted in the real world, not just the classroom.
Rogers, too, appears to support my understanding of using
digital media as a tool to better engage students in critical concepts stating
that “most productive occasions of successful pedagogy might begin in the
classroom but become truly generative when they are directly linked to a
student’s life experience in an altogether different social environment” (p.
232). To do so, Rogers then argues that teachers should use digital tools to
bridge “utility and applicability to more than one sphere of society” (p. 232).
For Rogers then using online tools can help bring these two worlds – the
classroom and other social environments – into greater proximity in the
courses. It is this argument for the incorporation of digital tools and online
courses that resonate with me. As a teacher of critical pedagogy I am always
attempting to extend course activities and assignments into real world
situations. These assignments attempt to encourage students then to challenge
themselves and write for a purpose and an audience beyond the classroom. As
such, I plan on implementing much of the suggestions and theoretical reasoning
that Gaver, Gold, and Rogers stress.
Finally, Mark Sample’s should be briefly discussed as an
excellent illustration as to why the online space is a prime location for a
writing class rooted in critical pedagogy. In the essay, Sample stresses three
principles that should always be the foreground for any teaching with
technology. These three principles are intentionality, reflection, and
accountability (p. 296). My own critical pedagogy course, even without being
online attempts to follow such principles and expects to see some visible
elements of this in my students writing. Yet, Sample argues that technological
tools allow such principles to exist in new ways. Teaching with these three
principles, Sample argues that students become not only better learners but
also more expert learners. And while Sample claims that one does not need
technology to teach intentionality, reflection and accountability, these
principles are something that should be found in any course. I anticipate then consciously
having these three principles in the back of my mind as I design my course and
being to draft revised project descriptions and interaction activities. These
principles are great in theory but can be a challenge to implement and even
more of a challenge to “see” in student writing. And then translating them to
an online course presents even more challenges. However, I anticipate that such
principles will be key in establishing course learning goals. With goals
established, the tools and interactions selected will then attempt to
incorporate these principles from theory into practice.
These specific essays found in LTDM I then anticipate using
in my reflective piece to help provide a brief rational as the choices and
decisions that I have made. As I have mentioned in other blog posts I am
interested in Gere’s (1994) idea of incorporating the “extracurriculum” and
breaking down classroom walls. The work primarily of Gaver, Gold and Rogers appear
to support this similar idea and yet do so with the inclusion of technology. As
I think about this course, I am now beginning to wonder if what I am trying to
do is even possible to do so without the use of technology. Many scholars in
the mid to late 90’s have critiqued the success of critical pedagogy and
resistance to it, and I wonder if some of that is because technology was not
applied in those instances. Thus, I wonder if adding a technological aspect to
critical pedagogy courses would counter such critiques and offer a new
perspective on the theory. Perhaps my class will help answer such a question…
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