★ Too Cool 4 Skool? ★

The inevatability of the ‘technolgy classroom’, with fully intergrated gadgets is quickly becoming realistic, excitingly realistic. There is already an endless list of tech toys and devices out there just waiting to be utilised in the classroom. Mishra and Koehler highlight in order to harness the technology successfully the teacher must be fluent in the technoogies as well as the knowledge of how to intergrate it. This issue of staying ahead of the ‘technology pack’ is daunting and I ask myself how am I going to to do? But it just reinforces the idea of taking risks when I comes to this sort of digital stuff. The collaborativity of the internet makes it easier to learn with tutorials, e-training and support which is laced all through these websites and programs, so taking risks isn’t so risky when you have all this help, you just need to know how to find it…

The article introduces TPACK, an mouthful of an acronym; Teaching Pedagogy And Content Knowledge. Let’s see, I think Miss James had a good way explaining

‘As educators, our job involves teaching (Pedagogy) students specific subject matter (Content), align this with aspects of Technological Knowledge and there you have your TPACK.’

How am I going to stay ahead of the 'tech-pack'?

So pretty much TPACK is just an interconnected framework of knowledge for teachers to intergrate new tech toys into their classrooms. I was entertained by the description Mishra and Koehler gave about what new technology is and how pretty much everything is some form of technology wether it be high or low and with each new technology comes obstacles which we as educators must be triumphant in order to facilitate digital learning. And remember; ‘Teachers need to develop a willingness to play with technologies and an openness to building new experiences for students so that fun, cool tools can be educational.’

Mishra, P. & Koehler, M. J. (2009). Too cool for school?  No way! Learning & Leading With Technology, 36(7), 14-18.

James, B. (2011). R u TPACKED and ready?  LearningITnow retrieved from: http://missjames-learningitnow.blogspot.com/2011/06/r-u-tpacked-and-ready.html

Images are directly from Mishra and Koehler’s article, thank you!