My first ever Blog-post! Life is full of surprises.
First a bit of housekeeping. Although my home language is
Afrikaans, I will do my PGCE blogposts in English to enable all my colleagues
access to it. My writing style will be informal and as authentic and real as
possible. I will not even attempt to impress anyone with fancy vocabulary or
lofty academic terminology.
The article by Paul Fyfe as required reading was a massive
challenge for me. I got the impression that Mr Fyfe was out to impress his
peers or other mere mortals with his flashy academic vocabulary with words such
as “felicitous”, “deleterious”, “dialectical”, “bailiwick” and “inchoate”. I
came close to almost single handedly overloading the Oxford Online Dictionary
website. I am also not sure if I really got the essence of what he tried to convey
with the article. The following quote by Albert Einstein soothed me while
licking my wounds: “If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand
it well enough.” That made me feel a bit less sheepish about not really getting
the gist of the article. After all, if Mr Fyfe could explain it better, I would
understand it better. I felt vindicated (sort of)…
But seriously (reminds me of the 1989 Phil Collins album…),
what did I learn or get out of the article? There must have been SOMETHING!
Firstly, the following combination of words hit the bull’s eye and made a deep
impression: “… by those PowerPoint lectures that rain down boredom in a hail of
bullet points”. Eureka! Some of my best lecturers in my PGCE classes hardly
make use of multimedia, but BOY OF BOY, do they engage! Professor Waghid’s
lecture during the past week on what it takes to be a critical teacher comes to
mind. He basically typed a few words on a white blank slide while engaging with
us, but did he grab our attention? For sure! How? By hailing down provocative
questions on us innocent hearers. He made us think. And think again. I like
that. I like it a lot.
Secondly (the plot thickens), relating to UNPLUGGED digital
pedagogy, the class exercise that Dr. Joorst did with us this week comes to
mind. He divided the class in 3 groups and then gave every group a scenario on
which its members had to write a synonymous blog post on a piece of paper. We
then had to swop papers with the other groups and then members could read out
the blog posts on the papers that they received. This simple exercise got the
whole class involved and engaged and gave everyone, especially the ones not at
liberty to verbally voice their opinions in class, the chance to speak out and
find their voice. I thought it was a stroke of brilliance! And an example of
unplugged digital pedagogy (if I’m not mistaken)…
My word counter says 482 words and counting… I suddenly feel
the urge to conclude this matter with a friendly: “Goodbye! Totsiens!
Sawubona!” Till next week.
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