Digital White Board

This is a great way to inspire learners. Imagine the skill development opportunities that would be available for learners if they were to be given the chance to learn this skill at school.
The teachers would have a portal to share ideas of we would make Digital White board a nation wide project. There are so many possibilities with it.

KNOW YOUR FUNCTION

Dear Bloggers

I was inspired by Camilla Friend’s blog, and her insights on ‘Mindfulness’. After giving it a little thought and google searching, I decide to share what I found, and allow you to interpret it as you please. Don’t look at it from a biblical point of view, but from a Philosophical view.

Mindfulness

ˈmʌɪn(d)f(ʊ)lnəs/

noun

The quality or state of being conscious or aware of something.

"their mindfulness of the wider cinematic tradition"

a mental state achieved by focusing one's awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one's feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations, used as a therapeutic technique.

People sometimes characterize a particular preacher as a better teacher than a preacher. While different people may mean different things in describing someone as a preacher or teacher, many people today generally think of preaching as speaking forcefully, having a ready command of scripture, making application and using illustrations, and then exhorting people to follow biblical concepts. By teaching, many people today mean presenting a passage of scripture, commenting upon it, and making explanations to make the meaning of the biblical passage clear. Of course, some overlapping of preaching and teaching is generally acknowledged.

However, this characterization generally has more to do with modern notions or what constitutes preaching and teaching than with the way the Bible uses the terms for preaching and teaching. The primary meaning associated with the nature of preaching in the New Testament comes from the fact that the Greek word most frequently used to describe a preacher was that of a herald. A herald was one who announced a message, generally from the king or some other ruling authority, to those who had not heard it before. Preaching in New Testament times therefore related primarily to announcing good news. In the New Testament, the content of that good news centered around the themes of Jesus, Christ, the word, the gospel, and the kingdom.

On the other hand the nature of teaching in New Testament times was primarily to explain ideas and their implications, and to exhort people to live by declared values. Whereas the message preached was the message announced, the message taught was the message explained, clarified, and applied, with exhortation to live by it. Whereas the message preached (announced) was primarily for the purpose of conversion, the message taught (explained, clarified, applied, with exhortation) was primarily for the purpose of building faith, Christian conviction and character.

Essentially, preaching lays the foundation for teaching, just as an announcement lays the foundation for further comments. Both have the same message. Their points of emphasis differ. Whereas the content of preaching may be narrowly defined, the content of teaching is in broad terms. Whereas the Great Commission in Matthew requires that we “make disciples,” Mark declares that we are to “preach the gospel” (Matthew 28:19-20; Mark 16:15). Matthew builds upon this, however, to say that after disciples have been made, we are to be “teaching them all things whatsoever I have commanded you.” Paul’s work in Rome is described as “preaching the kingdom of God and teaching the things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 28:31). Paul himself used these concepts of preaching and teaching when he said, “Him we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus” (Colossians 1:28). The pattern is consistent – preaching (making announcement) precedes teaching (explanation, clarification, application, exhortation).

However, this distinction between preaching (as announcement to the unconverted) and teaching (as explanation, clarification, application, and exhortation to those already informed) even in New Testament times, was not always clear. Sometimes, people spoke interchangeably about the practice of teaching and preaching. Thus, whereas Matthew 4:23 declares that Jesus was “teaching in the synagogues;” Mark and Luke indicate that he was “preaching” (Mark 1:39, Luke 4:44). In Jerusalem, the same apostles who were “proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead” were at the same time “teaching the people” (Acts 4:2). Whereas the term preaching consistently refers to the message announced, the term teaching may have people as its object.

(http://www.thebible.net/biblicaltheism/0402biblicaldistinction.htm) → For more.

I made more sense of it all, when I did not just openly receive and accept this message and interpretation. I took the message, made it my own, and linked it to what I have been told is expected of me as a teacher.

I plan to come back to this message when I have a few years of experience as a teacher, behind my name, and reflect on it (hopefully).

Thank you for listening.

RADICAL THINKERS UNITE.

Traditional education is a good way of assimilating aliens into a society, but what I hear Frier saying is that these learner should be allowed to know the reasoning behind what is being taught, and the manner in which it correlates with their own culture capital, so that these learners may capitalise on education the same way the learners whom the curriculum was initially designed benefit from education. Moreover, Frier seems to aspire for a society whom is both educated and sensibly radical. I felt that the mention of ICT was an analogy/example of the reasoning behind the uprise of the critical pedagogy theory, an analogy which educators may understand.

I feel that this is a perfect to time to confess that the words DIGITAL and PEDAGOGY have a direct effect on my habitués. Looking at these words I switch into a zone where I can only see myself getting a headache and feeling sad because I do not entirely understand this concept. Moreover, this leads me to decide that People like me should help each other understand new terminology and concepts.

Concepts discussed will be: Critical pedagogy, and Information and Communications Technology (ICT).

Critical pedagogy is a theory designed by Freire which speaks about the oppression in education. Critical pedagogy is a philosophy of education and social movement that combines education with critical theories, "educational movement, guided by passion and principle, to help students develop consciousness of freedom, recognize authoritarian tendencies, and connect knowledge to power and the ability to take constructive action."

A Critical Digital Pedagogy demands that open and networked educational environments must not be merely repositories of content. They must be platforms for engaging students and teachers as full agents of their own learning.

Rouse explains ICT saying that, ICT (information and communications technology - or technologies) is an umbrella term that includes any communication device or application, encompassing: radio, television, cellular phones, computer and network hardware and software, satellite systems and so on, as well as the various services and applications associated with them, such as videoconferencing and distance learning.

Learner come from different backgrounds, education should function to expose the learner to as much of the relevant world around them as possible, then gear the student with tool to further their interests.

Social Media is your FRED Friends

         Social Media is your FRED Friends

Listen the sooner learners  get the “hang” of the real world, the better right? Yeah. So I choosing the ‘Hey let’s make our lessons public’ team, because essentially you will be doing the teaching community a favour, the less creative teacher could become inspired by your work... and I would expect that the more competitive teachers will show you something new once in a while.

Children on the other hand need to learn responsibility. Once young adults, people need to start focusing on learning career-goal oriented behavior, and one of the most vital skills people should learn is the manner in which to conduct themselves in society, or in a more inner social circle. 

With exposure to the science field, the learner will definitely understand more about the subject content they learn about in class. The learner will in time learn critical thinking skills and discernment. Much deceptive information related to science is in the internet, although ‘Google don’t tell lies’, some scientific material is very faulty. So the more learners are exposed to the flaws of some documents available on the online they will be able to develop discernment through exposure. The ability to ‘spot out’ or find reputable literature is a critical skill that Researchers need to possess.

Having said this, I also have a strong opinion about the promoting anti-social ‘tendencies’. School should be a place where learners develop interpersonal skill, team work and stress management skills. For instance rather than promoting tweeter as an individual task, make it a chance to make group discussions in class, or on the particular social media site. 

DECODING DIGITAL PEDAGOGY

Once I had finished reading the 2 passages I was a little blow away. Our first reading by Fyfe made me feel like I got the grip of digital pedagogy, now I feel like ‘I miss the train completely’.

Digital pedagogy in the mind of these authors seems to be without boundary, I felt that it was being treated like a concept that is yet to be fully unravelled. I can relate, in a way, to the authors’ enthusiasm, after years of being taught a single dull technique of how things should be done, discovering a new and exciting point-of-view (technique) is liberating.

Reading these passages I wonder whether it will be conducive in a classroom situation, a room filled with energetic adolescents. Assuming it is conducted in a subtle and well structured manner, it would be perfect.  We would first need to see if it will not challenge the culture of the school, or all schools (is it in par with the educational system).

“For some, teaching begins with authority and expertise. For the digital pedagogue, teaching begins with inquiry.”

 I mean, structures in place have purpose; hence they have stood fast for so many generations. Do I want disruption of a system that has not failed many generations of successful people? No, so basically what should be kept in mind is inclusivity. Let’s use digital pedagogy to cater for the diversity in our classrooms; so that more of our learner can achieve the goals set-out for the grade. Digital pedagogy should ignite learners’ ability to think for themselves, critical thinking, and self-motivation to learn and understand the text.

Goal orientated behaviour seems to be the way forward in my eyes. The kind of people we would like our learners to eventually become can be orchestrated through digital pedagogy. This being said, one can see that Pedagogy is a powerful tool, and should be used only to add significant contribution to the curriculum and not just for the sake of having it been performed.

I would also like to share my opinion on criticizing LMS-based teaching. With reference to online teaching, I am not disagreeing with the authors, but let us not forget that digital pedagogy needs us to unlearn many misconceptions (which may not be easy for all of us), thus LMS should be viewed (and used) as a foundation phase to teaching (in my opinion). Digital pedagogy should be seen a more advanced, more professional way of teaching.

Digital pedagogy unplugged

I would like to think of myself as a traditionalist, in the sense that I like to use techniques with which I have had an affirmative encounter. I really hope you find my essence in this blog.

After reading Fyfe’s article I could finally encapsulate the dynamics of pedagogy. People all around the world have different learning abilities and needs. I unfortunately am unable to speak on behalf of everyone, in our diverse nation (and world). What I can say is that we should first focus on our target market/group, mine being the life science and natural science class. As an educator I need to keep in mind my class’ best interests, and to accomplish this I need to understand teaching is not only about transferring information from one body to the next ( it entails much more then that). As an educator you might be the only role model the learner can link to the field of study, and possible future career. With that being said, we should be mindful to not mislead the learners, and drifting them into every technological advancement of teaching. School is about a lot more than just learning, finding yourself (knowing where you stand and who you are in society), and studying different opinions (of discovers/inventors/scientists).

 The spectrum of real world expectations need to be communicated to the learners, and integrated into the school system. Digital pedagogy is a tool that can be used alongside traditional pedagogy, to not only spark and inspire the young minds of our learners, but this will assist us to engraft into the learner an optimistic outlook with reference to research.

Moving away from the ‘classroom at school’, University offers so much more than just a piece of paper proving that you can think for yourself. If you think about it, university thought you good work ethics, made you more cultured (in my opinion), and made you a critical thinker (using digital pedagogy). If you engage properly with the text you will be able to familiarise yourself with much of the techniques described in the article (Because it was applied on us, during our undergraduate studies).

In conclusion, I say use the tools that you have been granted effectively. Everything in moderation, in the same breath I agree with digital pedagogy.

Below are two YOUTUBE video links I think you will enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DOw_rFpX6c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VREJV--VHSw