Beginning to grasp digital pedagogy

After reading three articles with many big words resulting in mass panic and confusion, I feel that I may be starting to finally understand what digital pedagogy is. On the first day of PGCE the word pedagogy, a word that for 22 years had evaded me, was thrown around many times. I had no idea what this meant, and eventually I grabbed my phone and Googled "pedagogy":

Pedagogy

noun

the method and practice of teaching, especially as an academic subject or theoretical concept.

This vague definition helped ever so slightly, and I thought I would survive my PGCE with this understanding, I did not anticipate having a subject called digital pedagogy. 

Now however, I believe the action of me pulling the World Wide Web out of my pocket, was an act of digital pedagogy. 

I now grasp digital pedagogy may not refer exactly to, as I previously thought, online courses and interactive smart boards. Digital pedagogy is a way of naturally and effectively incorporating many moving parts into creating a lesson where learners can occur. 

A digital pedagogue, as said by Morris, is not person hired to teach, who uses PowerPoint and YouTube videos. I believe a digital pedagogue to be anyone who uses technology to enhance or support their message, with the result being that what they said being completely understood and learned. 

As Stommel suggests, successful digital pedagogy is not easy to accomplish. It requires a great deal of research, keeping up to date, and planning to be a digital pedagogue, which therefore makes digital pedagogy a lifelong learning experience.

Technology is advancing rapidly, and companies are coming up with new and exciting ways to bring technology into the classroom. Some teachers stay set in their old ways, others try but fail at using new techniques, and only a handful are successful in incorporating digital pedagogy into their classrooms. This is because it can be exceptionally distracting and if the teacher does not take caution in their use of technology, learning may not necessarily occur.

From the two articles by Morris and Stommel, I have learned that using technology in the classroom does not make you a digital pedagogue. In fact, being a digital pedagogue is a lifelong commitment to learning and researching in order to incorporate technology successfully into learning.