“You can have your hot tools and teach with them, too” is a tremendous article written by Punya Mishra and Matthew Koehler.
In their article, Mishra and Koehler highlight the fact that we are now living in an age of cool technological tools. These tools include iphones, google earth, blogs, myspace, twitter, these are just a few technologies that are all around us. It is a privilege to have access to these wonderful tools, however, along with these tools come responsibility. How can we use these cool tools to teach our students? Repurposing these tools for educational purposes is not simple. According to Mishra and Koehler, if educators are to repurpose these tools and integrate them into their teaching, they require a certain king of knowledge called Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge or (TPACK).
Teaching isn’t a process of learning a couple of instructional techniques and applying them, according to Mishra, “It emerges from thinking deeply about the nature of a discipline in conjunction with strategies for helping students learn that discipline over time”. Teaching requires the transformation of content in ways that make learning and understanding the content easily accessible to students. The idea of creative repurposing technology is of great importance because most technologies that teachers use are not designed for educational purposes. In their article, Mishra and Koehler provide us with three examples of technology that can be repurposed for educational needs- Mircroblogging, visual search engines, and music Dj software. Mircroblogging allows students to share ideas using short messages of 140 words or less. However, it is up to the teacher to use (TPACK) and set up the Mircoblogging web site in a way that engages students and leads them to success!
I want to be the best teacher ever! After reading the article by Mishra and Koehler, I understand that technology will play a huge role in my ability to affectively teach my students. “Teachers need to develop a willingness to play with technologies and openness to building new experiences for students so that fun, cool tools can be educational.”
It is true Zach... technology is awesome to work with. As long as we can keep it under control, not putting restriction, but using it as an educational tool, we can achieve so much more than just a simple lecture. Microbloging will motivate students to voice out their ideas and work in a new way of communication. it will be nice to have you as a fellow teacher (co-worker)
ReplyDeleteIt is very true that with so much technology around us we must keep a focus of using it educationally. We need to learn to engage students to hand-on learning using technology. So TPACK helps to do this?...I think this program must have a great purpose since it's for repurposing technology.
ReplyDelete@Monta-jose-thx for the comment bro, "as long as we can keep it under controll"..such a true statement. Technology is sometimes unreliable..this is why its good to have a plan incase you have trouble shooting problems.
ReplyDelete@ Irene-thx 4 commenting, to answer your question, YES, tpack works, as long as you know how to work it. A good tip is to always stay on top of new technology gadgets...
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