Too Cool for School? No Way!
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Too Cool for School? No Way!
Relax! Using the TPACK
model, teachers can repurpose
Cell phones? iPods? GPS? these gadgets as powerful
Those are toys, classroom aids!
not teaching tools!
istockphoto.com/Daniel Villeneuve
Using the TPACK Framework:
You Can Have Your Hot Tools
and Teach with Them, Too
Copyright © 2009, ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education), 1.800.336.5191 (U.S. & Canada) or 1.541.302.3777 (Int’l), iste@iste.org, www.iste.org. All rights reserved.
14 Learning & Leading with Technology | May 2009By Punya Mishra and Matthew Koehler
T
his is the age of cool tools. Repurposing these cool tools for edu-
Facebook, iPhone, Flickr, blogs, cational purposes, however, is not sim-
cloud computing, Smart Boards, ple. If educators are to repurpose tools
YouTube, Google Earth, and GPS are and integrate them into their teaching,
just a few examples of new technolo- they require a specific kind of knowledge
gies that bombard us from all direc- that we call technological pedagogical
tions. Often our reaction when we and content knowledge (TPACK).
see a new toy is one of surprise and
pleasure. These toys are cool! What about Pedagogy and Content?
As individuals we see a new tech- As educators, our job involves teach-
nology and can appreciate its cool- ing (pedagogy) students specific
ness, but as educators we wonder how subject matter (content). Many years
these tools can be used for teaching. ago, Lee Shulman, then a professor
The fact that a technology is innova- at Michigan State University, made a
tive and popular does not make it an provocative suggestion. He said that
educational technology. We hear com- teachers have specialized knowledge
mon refrains: “Technology should not that sets them apart from other pro-
drive pedagogy,” or “Technology is fessions. He argued that this special
just a tool, a means to an end, not the knowledge lies at the intersection of
end itself.” But these technologies have content and pedagogy—at the inter-
the potential to fundamentally change section of what we teach and how we
the way we think about teaching and teach it. He called this special peda-
learning. gogical content knowledge (PCK).
For example, a highly trained math-
What Is Technology Anyway? ematician would not necessarily be a
Someone once suggested that technol- great teacher of math. She might lack
ogy is all the new stuff that appeared knowledge of core pedagogical issues,
after we were born. The stuff that such as an understanding of students,
was around before we arrived on the their developmental trajectory, con-
planet we often take for granted. To ceptual misconceptions they may have,
the over-30 crowd, a car is not really and the best ways to present math-
a technology, but a website is. To chil- ematical ideas to individual students.
dren born in the 1990s, neither cars Quality teaching, Shulman argued, is
nor websites are examples of technol- the transformation of content and the
ogy, whereas iPods and Wii gaming act of teaching in a disciplined manner.
systems are. Teaching is not a process of pick-
We would argue that almost every- ing up a few instructional techniques
thing that is artificial—the clothes and applying them. It emerges from
we wear, the cars we drive, the pencils thinking deeply about the nature of a
we use to scribble notes, and the com- discipline in conjunction with strate-
puters we use to browse the Web—is gies for helping students learn that
technology, whether low tech or high discipline over time. In other words,
tech. But each of these technologies PCK is a kind of knowledge that goes
has affordances and constraints, po- beyond knowledge of content or of
tentials and problems that we as edu- pedagogy taken in isolation. Teaching
cators need to understand before we requires the transformation of content
can start using them for pedagogical in ways that make it intellectually ac-
purposes. cessible to students.
Copyright © 2009, ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education), 1.800.336.5191 (U.S. & Canada) or 1.541.302.3777 (Int’l), iste@iste.org, www.iste.org. All rights reserved.
May 2009 | Learning & Leading with Technology 15Rapid changes in technology have added a new kind of knowledge that educators have to integrate with pedagogical and content knowledge. Our work with teachers as they at- tempted to integrate technology into their teaching led us to update Shul- man’s framework to include technol- ogy knowledge or TK. This led to the technological pedagogical and content knowledge (TPACK) framework. (See A Closer Look at the TPACK Frame- work to the right). How Can You Repurpose Technology? The skills, competencies, and knowledge specified by the TPACK framework require teachers to go beyond their knowledge of particular disciplines, technologies, and pedagogical tech- niques in isolation. This is a contingent, flexible kind of knowledge that lies at the intersection of all three of these knowl- edge bases, allowing the creative repur- posing of the traditional approaches. The idea of creative repurposing is important because most technolo- gies that teachers use typically have not been designed for educational purposes. Technologies including The TPACK framework merges technology, pedagogy, and content knowledge. standard productive or office soft- ware, blogs, wikis, and GPS systems Microblogging. Noah Ullman offered divorced from the actual class routines were not designed for teachers, and as this example of using microblogging and thus can be relatively ineffective. such, teachers must repurpose them sites, such as Twitter, to complement for use in educational contexts. Such face-to-face discussions in a class- Specialized search engines. Paul Morsink repurposing is possible only when the room. Participants share short mes- suggested using specialized search en- teacher knows the rules of the game sages—140 characters or less—with gines (particularly visual search engines, and is fluent enough to know which each other using a microblogging such as Viewzi, Cuil, and Clusty) to rules to bend, which to break, and website. We have found that micro- help students understand intertextual- which to leave alone. This requires blogging within an appropriate peda- ity, which is the concept that texts often a deep experiential understanding, gogical frame can enhance the class- refer to each other in complex and in- developed through training and de- room in useful and engaging ways. tricate ways to create webs of meaning. liberate practice, of all the aspects of The important thing to remember is Students use these search engines to find the TPACK framework and how they that a technology such as microblog- webpages containing a target phrase interact with each other. ging does not exist in a vacuum. Its they have chosen—a famous line (such We provide three examples of tech- appropriate use has to be scaffolded by as “daggers in men’s smiles” from Mac- nology that can be repurposed for specific pedagogical instructions and beth), an adapted famous line (such as educational ends—microblogging, guidelines. Teachers should construct “method to his madness,” from a line in visual search engines, and music DJ a “space” within the classroom where Hamlet), the words of a book title (such software. All of these examples were these student-generated comments as Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness), developed by a team of Punya Mishra’s could be discussed. Without this, or a character’s name (such as Grendel graduate students. the microblogging activity remains from the epic poem “Beowulf”). Copyright © 2009, ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education), 1.800.336.5191 (U.S. & Canada) or 1.541.302.3777 (Int’l), iste@iste.org, www.iste.org. All rights reserved. 16 Learning & Leading with Technology | May 2009
As students explore their search results, they see firsthand
C ontexts how words and phrases are borrowed, re-combined, and
re-circulated, and they reflect on how the same words can
Technological mean different things in different contexts. As they criss-
Pedagogical and Content cross the Web, students begin to formulate hypotheses
Knowledge about vectors of influence, processes of transformation,
(TPACK)
and dynamics of popularity. Of course they could
do this just as easily using Google, but the advantage
of these visual search engines is the way the results
Technological
Technological Technological appear. These engines search results, not in the text-
Knowledge
Pedagogical (TK) Content based series of links as Google commonly does, but
Knowledge Knowledge with tag-clouds or visual icons. Similar search “hits” are
(TPK) (TCK)
grouped together, allowing students to view at a glance
how citations can cluster, thus scaffolding a student’s
Pedagogical Content
Knowledge Knowledge understanding about how certain texts work together.
(PK) (CK) Combining a search with freely available bookmark-
ing tools, such as iBreadcrumbs, allows students not
only to record their navigation through hyperspace
Pedagogical but also to annotate it. They can then share these itin-
Content eraries and annotations with the teacher and others
Knowledge and use them as the basis for further discussion about
(PCK)
the nature of intertextuality. The annotations also offer
interesting possibilities for student assessment.
DJ software. Graduate student Erik Byker looks at how
freely available DJ software, such as trakAxPC, can be used
to teach mathematical concepts such as ratios, fractions,
and percentages. TrakAxPC allows users to download mu-
sic samples and copy and paste them into a mixer. They can
A Closer Look at the TPACK Framework
Expert teachers consciously and unconsciously find ways to they use naturally make changes to their pedagogical approach
orchestrate and coordinate technology, pedagogy, and content and the content they cover to create a new “curriculum” that is
into every act of teaching. They flexibly navigate the affordances also highly effective.
and constraints of each technology and each possible teaching
Knowledge of technology, content, and pedagogy does not
approach to find solutions that effectively combine content,
exist in a vacuum; it exists and functions within specific contexts.
pedagogy, and technology. They find solutions to complex,
Teachers face a wide array of elements that make their contexts
dynamic problems of practice by designing curricular solutions
unique and different from other teachers. Consider, for instance,
that fit their unique goals, situations, and student learners.
the one-laptop-per-child initiative. Clearly the fact that each
These expert teachers demonstrate a specialized kind of child in a class has a computer that can access the Internet will
knowledge that the TPACK framework tries to capture by influence how a teacher approaches curriculum development and
describing their knowledge as a deep, pragmatic, and nuanced student participation. In contrast, consider the teacher who has
understanding of three knowledge bases—content, pedagogy, access to a computer lab for 50 minutes a few times per week.
and technology. We understand that, in some ways, the This situation calls for radically different pedagogical moves.
separation of teaching into content, pedagogy, and technology Similarly, many teachers face firewalls and restrictions on the
is not necessarily straightforward, or even something that good resources they can access from class. In this context, the issue
teachers do consciously. When technology integration is working is not to argue whether or not these restrictions are good or bad
well, effective teaching represents a “dynamic equilibrium” but rather something to consider when making curricular and
between content, pedagogy, and technology such that a change pedagogical decisions. (To read more about using the TPACK
in any one of the factors has to be compensated by changes in framework, see “Realizing Technology Potential through TPACK,”
the other two. For example, teachers who change the technology L&L, September/October 2008, pp. 23–26.)
Copyright © 2009, ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education), 1.800.336.5191 (U.S. & Canada) or 1.541.302.3777 (Int’l), iste@iste.org, www.iste.org. All rights reserved.
May 2009 | Learning & Leading with Technology 17Teachers need to develop a willingness to play with technologies and Resources
an openness to building new experiences for students so that fun, Clusty: http://clusty.com
Cuil: www.cuil.com
cool tools can be educational. iBreadcrumbs: www.iBreadcrumbs.com
Koehler’s blog: http://mkoehler.educ.msu.edu
also cut the music samples into small- this is a powerful way to bring math- Mishra’s blog: http://punya.educ.msu.edu
er units of sound and arrange them. ematics alive to students in an intrin- TPACK wiki: www.tpack.org
What makes this a powerful lesson is sically motivating manner. TrakAxPC: www.trakax.com/software/pc
that students actually get to manipu- In each of these cases the technol- Twitter: www.twitter.com
Viewzi: http://viewzi.com
late the trakAxPC software to help ogy was not constructed for educa-
them describe and explain ratios and tional purposes. Making it an educa-
Punya Mishra is an associate
percentages. Relating mathematical tional technology required creative professor of educational tech-
concepts, such as ratios and percent- input from the teacher to redesign or nology at Michigan State Uni-
ages, to rhythm, music, and tempo is a even subvert the original intentions versity. He is interested in is-
way to creatively build patterns. These of the software programmer. This sues related to technology inte-
patterns form a relationship between would not be possible without a deep, gration in teacher education,
design research, and creativity.
concepts (beats per minute and ratios) complex, fluid, and flexible knowledge
that belong to different disciplines of the technology, the content to be Matthew J. Koehler is an
(composing music and math) but covered, and an appropriate pedagogy. associate professor of educa-
can, and should, be integrated. This Teachers need to develop a willing- tional technology at Michigan
allows students to cross disciplinary ness to play with technologies and an State University. His interests
include the affordances of tech-
boundaries and transfer ideas from openness to building new experiences nologies, the design of learning
one realm to another, deepening their for students so that fun, cool tools can environments, and the profes-
insight into both domains. Moreover, be educational. sional development of teachers.
Connecting the dots to inspired learning...
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