Friday, March 13, 2015

TPACK and ICT

Reccently on the ESC407 general discussion forum Chris Condy a fellow prospective ICT teacher posted the following;
"I am currently looking over the TPACK stuff and finding it really difficult to break a line between technology an content, as the subject I will be teaching is IT. "

On the same thread Zana Cefai responded with a pretty good article TPCK: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE 'T' IS ALSO THE 'C'? (Gill, 2012).

Both Gill (2012) and Chris observe that for an ICT teacher there is a lot of intersection between the T and C parts of the conventional understanding of TPACK initially defined by Mishra and Koehler (2006). In fact when teaching ICT it can be impossible to separate C and T.

Chris claims that the conclusion from Gill (2012) was that there needs to be a new ICT-TPACK. I am not so sure I agree with this. Gill (2012) does observes that Angeli and Valanides (2009) conclude that there needs to be a separation from other technologies, however, Gill (2012) goes on to include the point from Shuleman (1986) that the beauty of the TPACK model is its inclusiveness.

One thing is certain, Gill (2012) agrees that for ICT teachers there is a strong link between the T and the C.

All of this is very interesting to me because last semester I failed ESC407 and on reflection I believe one of the problems I have had coming to terms with for this subject ( and in particular assignment 2) is the tight coupling of T and C for ICT teachers. 

Also interesting to note is that Roblyer and Doering (p68, 2014) try to redesign the TPCK diagram with a TECH-PACK version that tries to include the added emphasis that is being placed on technology in the classroom. I have enough trouble getting my head around the standard TPCK diagram so the TECH-PACK version from Roblyer and Doering feels  very unweildy.

References

Gill, L. (2012). TPCK: What happens when the “T” is also the “C”? (p. 88). Presented at the Biennial International Technology Education Research Conference, Surfers Paradice: Griffith University. Retrieved from http://www.griffith.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/514768/2012-TERC-Volume-1-of-2.pdf#page=96
Angeli, C.& Valanides, N.(2009).Epistemological and methodological issues for the conceptualization, development, and assessment of ICT–TPCK: Advances intechnological pedagogical content knowledge (TPCK).Computers and Education ,52, 154-168.

Roblyer, M., & Doering, A. (2014). Integrating Educational Technology into Teaching: International Edition, 6th Edition, Pearson.

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