The Standards of Critical Digital Pedagogy

Sam Hamilton highlights a crucial point in arguing that all students need to become critically conscious of the cultural and political oppression employed through educational standards.

Information and Communications Technology (ICT) involves thinking critically and creatively about information and communication, as citizens of the global community. Hamilton argues that the current standards of ICT literacy are limiting, particularly in the confinement of teacher–student roles. However, teachers are no longer in a position to control or dictate what kind of knowledge should be internalized. This is made explicit in the documentary “the Independent Project”, whereby a group of learners break away from the standardized education system and engage in self-directed learning. Self-directed learning can be defined as “a process in which individuals take the initiative with or without the help of others, in diagnosing their learning needs, formulating learning goals, identifying resources for learning, choosing and implementing learning strategies and evaluating learning methods.”

As illustrated in the documentary, self-directed learning can be highly beneficial as it captures the lost interest of students and allows them to take control of their learning environment. However, a key issue is the notion of access. All the learners who participated in “the independent project” had access to available resources in order to guide their objectives. Hamilton argues that functional, experimental and critical access are an assumed standard of ICT literacy, yet this challenge should not prevent educators from striving for inclusion. As Bernardo Trejos states, it merely presents an opportunity for teaching and learning to grow.

Hamilton brings forth a statement that changes the preconceived perspective regarding digital technology: “…digital technologies become tools to learn with, as opposed to dynamic processes to learn through.” This emphasizes the previous points made by Sean Michael Morris and Jesse Stommel, who state that digital technology is most valuable when used in a playful and creative manner. This is precisely what one sees when watching “the Independent Project”, as the learners take on new innovative strategies to teach themselves and learn from others.

ICT standards, in their rigid and unimaginative form, resist the idea of knowledge as an ever-changing and timeless construct. This conception limits the potential of technology-mediated, self-directed learning. Hamilton’s article argues how new digital tools can allow learners to progress via the adaptation and renewal of old tools, concepts and methods. This readjustment can be seen through the incorporation of critical digital pedagogy into existing ICT literacy. In agreement with Hamilton’s perspective, the above is a challenging objective with the potential to extraordinarily change the common assumptions regarding education and one’s role in the system.