Digital Pedagogy Review - Article Example

Digital Реdаgоgy Review Student’s Name Institutional Affiliation Digital Pedagogy Review 1. Background and Context The peer reviewed article chosen is called “children participating in science through digital-media literacies” and it was written by Katherine Boyle and Michael Dezuanni. The paper is published in the ‘Literacy learning: the Middle Years’ journal and it outlines the research framework, methodology, and findings from a learning project undertaken in different primary schools in Queensland, Australia. The research project was conducted on primary school students who took science learning through media arts pedagogy. The article targets primary school students and teachers who participate in school science. The primary schools with students from diverse backgrounds were essentially targeted because diverse students have different levels of understanding, and the background has a certain influence on the learning outcomes. The students are encouraged to employ the use of digital media literacies to enhance participation and communication in the challenging science subjects. Teachers can also apply multimodal means as alternative teaching methods to better access the potential and retain the attention of the students in the classroom. Such digital media platforms that can be used in the classroom include films, photography, web-based science profiles and so on. The primary school students are the main target because the students are still in the cognitive developmental stages and hence, multiple forms of literacies will have a significant impact on the creativity, participation, and communication of the students both inside and outside the classroom The article involves incorporating digital media in the learning of sciences by middle year’s students. The use of the technologies is a modern way of helping students develops new skills while making creative science representations. Working with the digital technologies aids the students in making sense of the different scientific occurrences. The interpretation and representation of data and facts are a means of communication of the phenomena to the students. Further, it involves engaging the students in the media arts studies further their ability to communicate the processes and knowledge of science. The pedagogy has been applied in some schools in Queensland where the project was taking place. The implementation of the digital pedagogy led to certain findings. After the evaluation of the research project, the findings showed that there is a potential link between media arts and the science pedagogy in the schools. The students became active participants in the science learning process, and the most of the learning barriers were investigated. The media arts provided the students with a resourceful learning process that provided them with an opportunity to revisit and re-interpret diverse science concepts. The advantages of the scientific pedagogy are apparent because the digital media arts provide the learner with certain aspects of production, interpretation, and classification that are not available in the traditional print literacies. However, the scientific pedagogy has not been implemented on a large scale, but with the positive results from the project research, there is a need for a full implementation of media arts in the primary schools to help the diverse students with different needs quickly understand the science concepts being taught in the classrooms. 2. Critical Appraisal The digital pedagogy in the article is used to investigate and respond to different issues affecting the use of digital technologies by young people globally, specifically the use of modern media by students in the classroom. The use of new age media opens up the young people to the whole world and thus exposes them to different challenges and tensions such as legal and ethical issues, social and identity issues, and so on. The paper has attempted to react to various matters in the context of a student using digital technology. According to Hobbs and Jensen (2009), the increased use of digital media means that adults, mostly educators, must consider different issues and challenges associated with the use of media. The conceptual framework of digital pedagogy should focus on the enhancing the creative and critical thinking of the students, reflexivity and flexibility as well as communication skills. The central theme in the article is of knowledge creation and production. Technology has surpassed print sources on the creation and accessibility of knowledge. Students can use media art to perform different functions on the information to get different results. The impact of combining the technology in the traditional classroom is active participation and contribution of the students in the learning process. The use of digital pedagogy is significant because it surpasses the conventional boundaries of knowledge production. Young people are encouraged to work outside the classroom and gather more information than the traditional methods would have offered. The result of technology is students are invited to work in groups with their peers. Teachers also get an opportunity to assess the learning needs of the students in their class and how the challenges that the student's face can be solved. However, the ethical issue arises because educators and adults have a very limited influence on the online thinking and content of the young people. In the article, teachers only guide the student and bring them together for a group project. Therefore, the students have no information about the ethical and legal implications of their media art and the negative personal cost of improper content. However, the digital pedagogy poses a challenge to the educators and most adults who have to learn new skills on the use of the technologies to get by on their everyday work. The teachers must have the necessary know-how to instruct the students on the uses of the new technologies. It is imperative that the teachers learn new approaches and acquire tools and capabilities that will aid in the transition to the digital technologies (Jones & Shao, 2011). Therefore, the impact on the digital pedagogy on the young people will be reduced if the instructor lacks the capabilities to operate the digital media. Thus, the educators have embraced the digital pedagogy because it increases their engagement with the young people and increases flexibility in regards to planning and time allocation. According to Craft (2013), the digital media empowers young people as consumers and producers in the digital economy. Therefore, young people can influence changes and growth in the global community. The use of the technologies expose the young people to infinite possibilities because they can generate networks and contents and share them with other people thereby empowering them. The young people using the digital media have evolved to become a source of information to the community. Digital pedagogy encourages active participation of the youth in the learning process. As a result, the young people understand power relationships and dynamics inside and outside the classroom. Students learn how to use the technologies to do numerous things and in the learning environment, the students understand the interrelationship between identity and agency. Goldman, Booker, & McDermott (2008), claim that a combination of different digital technologies provides a platform for identity and learning. Making media helps the students find their voices and self-identity, and thus they get the energy and focus on taking charge. Doyle and Dezuanni (2014) similarly argue that students learnt to express their views in a different way that identifies their self-identity. According to the article, most students were willing participants in the group projects. Students owned their works, and the reactions were positive because the students controlled the learning process through planning, observing, inferring, questioning and classifying the information they had. However, the digital pedagogy is experiential and is mainly focused on production. Therefore, particular challenges face the youth using digital media for identity and expression. Some of the challenges are controlling the fine balance between the process and product, as well as the definition of a self-voice in a group digital media. 3. Application to Your Professional Context I am a primary school teacher in Saudi Arabia, and I teach science. The teaching profession in Saudi Arabian primary schools is mostly teacher-centred, and the students memorize the content rather than understand it. This means that the students play a passive role in the classroom, and knowledge is directly imparted from the teacher to the students. However, the Ministry of Education approved a curriculum that accentuates creative and critical thinking and problem-solving in teaching the science subjects. However, as a science teacher I use the student-centred teaching and learning approach so that the students can understand the concepts rather than memorize them. The approach is more meaningful, and the impact is positive on the experiences and learning of the students. The pedagogy was designed for the teaching and learning of science by the primary school students. There are certain similarities and differences between the Saudi Arabian context and the original context for the pedagogy. One, the new elementary science curriculum is student-centred must like the digital pedagogy. This approach to teaching is adopted because it emphasized on the students taking control of the learning process and there is a higher emphasis on the creative thinking and problem-solving skills of the students. However, teachers in Saudi Arabia primary schools admit that the new approach is challenging because of the diverse background and different students behaviours and abilities. The classrooms have very many students per class and the group-work, and instruction-based approach is hard to implement (Alghamdi & Al-Salouli, 2013). Another similarity is that the teachers agree that the use of media Art is significant in the learning process. Students utilize various technology forms to present the scientific content in the form of videos, photos, and sound clips. The use of media art is significant because come together for the presentation and the preparation activities. Further, the teachers in Saudi Arabia use the technologies to make lesson plans and to create instructional materials for teaching. Therefore, the science teachers in Saudi Arabia are more involved in the integration of technology in the classroom than in the original digital pedagogy context. The difference between the two contexts is on the barriers experienced in the elementary curriculum of Saudi Arabia. There is a teacher-level barrier which is as a result of lack of competent educators with the necessary skills to implement the technology in the classroom. The educators may also lack the confidence, or they may be resistant to change. As a result, the digital technologies will not be effectively implemented. The schools in Saudi Arabia also lack the resources and technical support to maintain the use technology in the schools. The potential possibilities of applying the digital pedagogy outlined in the article include the benefits that the students will accrue from the implementation. There will be an increased participation by the students in the learning process, and this will ensure that they all benefit from the material being taught. There is a possibility that the students will experience an active science learning experience. There is also a possibility that the students will become more creative in their thinking process because of the reinforcement of concepts such as planning, observing, reasoning, inference, questioning, and explanations for the different scientific occurrences. The final possibility is the potential advantage to students with difficulties in learning. The use of visual representations rather than the traditional written form is likely to encourage students who have issues with communication in the print form. Therefore, students will have the confidence to participate in class presentations and to demonstrate their scientific capabilities to the adults and their peers. The only potential limit is the inability of the teachers to keep up with the digital technologies employed in the classrooms. The efficiency of the digital pedagogy is highly dependent on the educators’ capabilities and technical know-how (Albugarni & Ahmed, 2015). To make the digital pedagogy more relevant in the Saudi Arabian science teacher context, I would first train the teachers on the use of ICT so that they are better placed to educate the students and interpret the materials presented in the classroom. I would ensure that there are collaboration efforts between the teachers and the school to make the implementation and the integration process easier because the school is responsible for the technical support and maintenance of the digital technologies (Al-Zahrani, 2015). Furthermore, the student centred approach would be emphasized to make sure that the students are active participants in the learning process of science. Therefore, I would emphasize on the strict involvement of the student in the learning process for a positive outcome. References Albugarni, S., & Ahmed, V. (2015). Success factors for ICT implementation in Saudi secondary schools: From the perspective of ICT directors, head teachers, teachers and students. International Journal of Education and Development using Information and Communication Technology, 11(1), 36. Alghamdi, A. K. H., & Al-Salouli, M. S. (2013). Saudi Elementary School Science Teachers’beliefs: Teaching Science in the New Millennium. International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 11(2), 501-525. Al-Zahrani, A. (2015). The Place of Technology Integration in Saudi Pre-Service Teacher Education: Matching Policy with Practice. Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology-TOJET, 14(1), 151-162. Craft, A. (2013). Childhood, possibility thinking and wise, humanising educational futures. International Journal of Educational Research, 61, 126-134. Doyle, K., & Dezuanni, M. (2014). Children participating in science through digital-media literacies. Literacy Learning: The Middle Years, 22(3), 42-54. Goldman, S., Booker, A., & McDermott, M. (2008). Mixing the digital, social, and cultural: Learning, identity, and agency in youth participation.Youth, identity, and digital media, 185-206. Hobbs, R., & Jensen, A. (2013). The past, present, and future of media literacy education. Journal of Media Literacy Education, 1(1), 1. Jones, C., & Shao, B. (2011). The net generation and digital natives: implications for higher education. The Open University, Walton Hall. Read More