Lessons On-(the)-Line Blended Learning and Pedagogy of (the) Digitally Oppressed

Abstract

In this essay, I explore the meanings and implications of blended learning in an era of global pandemic by extending Paulo Freire’s notion of a “pedagogy of the oppressed” into the digital milieu and COVID-19 era of the 21st century. In doing so, I critically meditate on how Freire’s cue is reformulated in the context of online teaching while situating questions about online learning in the context of the Blended Learning Online South Africa (BLOSA) project based at the University of Witwatersrand. I do so as a means for tracking how, in material practice, blended learning operates in the context of knowledge dissemination and postcolonial poverty.