In Stommel and Morris’ Critical Digital Pedagogy: A Definition, the pair points out that education is not based in pedagogy but uses terms such as “instruction, classroom management, training, outcomes-driven” instead to describe the current climate. Critical Digital Pedagogy pushes the boundaries of what learning currently looks like. I appreciated Stommel and Morris’ approach to further explaining “Critical Pedagogy”. Something that stuck with me in this article was that Critical Pedagogy is “predicated on fostering agency and empowering learners”. I love this phrasing because this has been my updated view on how a classroom should operate.
In Technology is not Pedagogy Morris covers online classrooms and what that actually means for society. COVID-19 forced us to move to an online classroom but Morris states “This crisis facing education didn’t need COVID-19. We have been living on an edge for a long time; and to be honest, I’m not sure which way is down.” There are administrations that lean into online education but that’s only because it is more acceptable ergo there is more money to be made. There is also the concern for an online classroom because the human element of a class is very difficult to transfer into an online space. Since the pandemic, anytime I have been in a virtual class, I get transported to that time. I feel disconnected and distracted and unable to focus the same way I do in the classroom and that is because in a classroom I am surrounded by my peers. We are all in the classroom, listening together and conversing. In an online classroom, especially in one where no one has cameras on it is challenging to feel connected to a blank screen. Online classrooms have also come with a new set of social norms we have had to adjust to. For example, you come with your camera turned off until told otherwise or see someone else turn theirs on. This is something Martha Fay Burtis kind of touches on this in her piece Messy and Chaotic Learning. She talks about digital identity and college. Cultivating a digital identity is extremely important in today’s world. Your digital identity will most likely come before your physical identity. It is necessary to take autonomy over your digital identity in today’s environment because most of (if not all) of our work and intellectual property is submitted through these systems that claim it as their own. As students it is important to recognize that you can have the control over your own narrative.
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