Creativity is key

Creativity is key

After reading the article "Digital pedagogy unplugged" and trying to interpret the article to my understanding (with much effort........was a bit difficult)  one phrase popped into my mind that creativity is key when it comes to using digital pedagogy. (I may not be entirely sure if I truly understand what the article tried to portray), but from what I understand it tried to establish that digital pedagogy is only useful when it is being used as instructional technology which learners can actually learn something from and not lead them to boredom. An example would be a teacher making use of an projector and a laptop to present his or her lesson to the class.

However according to the article (from which I understand) digital pedagogy that is being used by teachers can be effective in instructional technology or it can lead to non-instructional technology. To clarify this is when a teacher makes use of technology such as a computer and a projector to present his or her lesson and the outcome is successful which means the class has learnt something it is successful instructional technology, but when a teacher makes use of the same technology , but the learners in his or her class has not learnt anything the outcome was unsuccessful and then it is classified as non-instructional technology. This means that it if a teacher makes use of "fancy" technology to present his or her lesson, it is not to say that the teacher is successful in presenting the lesson. The learners in his or her class may have learnt nothing form the lesson.

The title of the article "Digital pedagogy unplugged" also portrays that digital pedagogy does not only have to consist out of computers, projectors, televisions and radios, but that it could also consist of books, white boards, green boards and paper. Thus the effectiveness of digital pedagogy lies in the creativity that it is being used from. An example out of the article of such a case is when Brad Pasanak (which is a teacher and teaches British literacy from the 18th century) made use of highlighters to highlight the word 'pride' and 'prejudice' out of a book which his class was busy reading at the time and once he presented it to the class to do the same it enhanced the learning experience of his students in class.

Creativity is key is what comes to my mind after reading the article ( again I am not sure I interpreted the article right...........but worth a shot :-)  ). So when making use of digital pedagogy as a method to presenting a lesson it can either be effective or not and that could only be distinguished if you pursue creativity in your lesson to enhance the learning experience of your learners in class and avoid boredom of bashing your head to a projector screen and looking at a hundreds of bullet points.

So I end of by saying.........stop being lazy and become creative.