Week 4 TPACK in Practice…

Our ongoing learning experience began with defining “Digital Literacy.” This term encompasses more than it excludes unlike traditional literacy’s. Digital pedagogy was also discussed as being synergistic in nature as it is more than digital, more than pedagogy and more than knowledge. This understanding is clearly represented in the TPACK model (Koehler & Mishra, 2009). We were challenged to use ICT as a part of student learning and not just at the lowest level of engaging students but to actually transform learning using ICT’s.

Reading Reflections

These readings helped me to understand the style of teaching I most naturally embrace, gives me alternatives and pinpoints the pedagogy we will be using for our PD (Instructional Design Knowledge Base, 2002-2006). The Horizon report was quite inspiring in its description of future technologies! (Johnson, Smith, Levine, and Haywood, 2010).

Professional Development

Jake & I attended an interesting PD this week. The keynote speaker was Glenn Finger. From a really weak start I find that I am now enjoying the TPACK model. I was even able to answer a question about it. OK, so I waited until no teacher was going to answer and then I got brave, put up my hand and even got the answer right. The workshops made me aware of just how much can be done with technology and how important it is to become a community of learners and to share with each other our technological “discoveries” on personal learning network forums as there is no way that we can do this effectively as a stand-alone individual.

LA 1

We are almost on th content for our PD. Our educational technology is Sketch Up. The Content Knowledge area is Math with 3D objects from Year 3 and 5 Essential Learnings (Queensland Studies Authority, 2007) being our focus. I personally see vigorous applications available using Sketch up in the Technology as a human endeavour strand as students design products to meet perceived needs (Queensland Studies Authority, 2007). This could involve the designing of 3D packaging for a food product including advertising. Students can also meet aspects of the Creating with ICT’s and Operating ICT’s strand (QSA, 2007). But for this PD we will simply stick to Math KLA.  We were all interested in Constructivism (Instructional Design Knowledge Base, 2002-2006) as a way to teach and to learn, and as our chosen educational technology is Sketch Up we believe that Discovery Learning (Instructional Design Knowledge Base, 2002-2006), which comes under the Constructivism umbrella, is the appropriate choice for our pedagogy. In its simplest form Discovery Learning is when the teacher provides the tools and the information to solve a specific problem or to learn a concept and the learner then "makes sense" of them (Instructional Design Knowledge Base, 2002-2006). This idea of leading students towards being self-directed learners is not new (Grow, 1991) and Discovery Learning supports this idea. We would provide students with a specific problem to solve and introduce them to Sketch Up as being a way to solve that problem. Technology students could even model the school on Sketch Up. Then they could geo-locate their models onto Google Earth. When studying SOSE students’ could recreate the pyramids or other historical sites. So many transformational educational applications and so little time. Follow this link for further ideas:

Educational applications 

References:

Grow, G.G. (1991). Teaching learners to be self-directed. Adult Education Quarterly, 41(3). Retrieved from http://alec2.tamu.edu/grad_courses/611/Modules/    Module2/Lesson2/Grow01.PDF

Johnson, L., Smith, R., Levine, A., & Haywood, K. (2010). 2010 Horizon Report: K-12 Edition. Austin Texas: The New Media Consortium.

Koehler, M., & Mishra, P. (2009). What is technological pedagogical content knowledge?  Contempary issues in technology and teacher education, 9(1), 60-70. Retrieved from http://www.zagami.info/4001EPS/Readings/Entries/2011/3/7_Week_2.html

Instructional Design Knowledge Base. (2002-2006). Retrieved from             http://classweb.gmu.edu/ndabbagh/Resources/IDKB/models_theories.htm #discovery learning

The State of Queensland - Queensland Studies Authority. (2007). ICTs Cross– curriculum priority By the end of Year 7.

The State of Queensland - Queensland Studies Authority. (2007). Mathematics Essential Learnings by the end of Year 3.

The State of Queensland - Queensland Studies Authority. (2007). Mathematics Essential Learnings by the end of Year 5.

The State of Queensland - Queensland Studies Authority. (2007). Technology Essential Learnings by the end of Year 5.