Reflection on learning TPACK (and maybe gaining some myself)

When looking back at this course I immediately have to think of my preconceptions going in. I thought technology was for the student much more than it was for the teacher. During this course I have come to see though that technology is much more for teachers as well.

Working with the TPACK-model has shown me that there's more than one way to tackle a problem. Most importantly, not every technology integration has to start from the technology, it's often not even the best idea to do so. Maybe it's sometimes a better idea to first look critically at what you're teaching and how you're teaching it and than look at if you can integrate technology. But sometimes it can be a nice challenge to look and see, how can I change my teaching style or content covered with this new type of technology that I like. I feel that as I become a better educational designer this model, and some of the accompanying tools such as the RUBIC or the Survey can help me greatly in seeing things from more than one perspective. And I'm well-aware that I can use this perspective at times.

When used to design an actual product the TPACK framework once again showed it's strengths (and maybe some weaknesses). We tried to actually incorporate TPACK both as something to be taught and something to be taught with. I do feel that the model sometimes looks a bit too much at the technology aspect, or perhaps that was still me using the model to incorporate technology rather than letting myself be guided by content or pedagogies, something to perhaps look more into the next time I use this model.

Before closing I'd like to less look back and more look forward. How can we help teachers in integrating technology. I feel that this comes from using the model to see how C and P knowledge integrate with technology. In this way the teachers think about what am I teaching, how am I doing it and how can I support this. During my most recent courses I've come to see that starting with technology might not always be the best idea, but cynicism has this tendency to run strong with me so perhaps I'm overly critical now. Again, something to be aware of for the next time I use this model, to try and see how can we use this to jump-start novel technology use. My class-mates had some interesting ideas (which you can see on their blogs probably by going to my friends-list -->) which I am interested in trying out.

And finally I'd just like to say: Doing this course was a blast, I can see the elements of TPACK as they came to live during this course and the things we learned opened my eyes for trying out new things. Let's see if I can keep everyone up to date on my progress with this on this blog. Hopefully I'll talk with you on this blog soon, I look forward to your ideas on what TPACK means for you!

Awesome tool is Awesome

TPACK on Prezi

TPACK in my World

Over the past few weeks I've been talking mostly about how technology can support learning. Not entirely suprising since the course this weblog was originally made for is title Pedagogies for Flexible Learning Supported by Technology. If you look critically at my posts though one can see that teachers are left out. Or when they are not left out I'm mentioning the hard work they have to do in order to integrate this technology into their daily work environment. And that while Michael Fullan says "Educational change depends on what teachers do and think - it's as simple and as complex as that". So if integrating technology is hard and cumbersome, why should teachers even want it.


First I want to go back to one of my first posts on this weblog. It was about flexibility, I was describing how new technology can support flexible learning. Being a student I off course looked at how these situations can be advantageous for myself, how can technology support my learning. But I completely neglected how technology can support my teachers. If location and time-based flexibility helps me by making it easier for me to study, can this work for my teachers as well. In my time at this university I've often received e-mails in the wee hours of the night in response to questions. So my teachers are obviously using it as well. This does mean however that they need some additional knowledge of technology, not everyone is comfortable using e-mail just yet but more importantly their pedagogy has to change, the lectures might not be the central focus of their teaching but rather the communication with their students. This requires them to acquire new skills in order to deal with this but by doing so they gain greater freedom themselves in deciding when and where they want to help students. By becoming more TPACK-proficient teachers can perhaps become more flexible in the way they teach. This can in turn perhaps help alleviate some of the stress of being a teacher by allowing them to plan their own time a little bit more.

Then I looked at different types of pedagogies and how we can support those by technology. And once again I adopted a student's perspective. How can we support students by using technology in working with new pedagogies. As if the students are the only ones that need to get used to this. Looking back and thinking critically it seems teachers are the ones that could actually use the most support. If we change a pedagogy 1/3rd of the TPACK model changes. And due to the integration of all elements this means that more than likely everything else will change as well. So what can TPACK do here. New pedagogies can open up new opportunities to teach content in a different way. It can also let teachers see that maybe not all new technology is evil but that if you change the way you teach, maybe you can change what you use to teach with or maybe even change what you teach. TPACK can help in exploring these opportunities by showing teachers that maybe changing one thing isn't enough. If you just replace a blackboard with a digital white-board not much changes. But if you change your content and pedagogy alongside it a new world can open for both teacher and students alike.  TPACK therefore can help teachers see what the new possibilities of technology are and how they can use if to change their daily routines to perhaps become more exciting.

Looking back at these 2 reflections on earlier posts I now see that if you look at technology from a teachers point of view that there might indeed be some hard work ahead. TPACK in itself is quite a bit of work to get, integrating 3 sub-domains into one can be a lot of hard work. And changing one can often mean changing all 3 which means might mean even more work.

But TPACK can also help show connections between several elements.  This can help the teachers understand the worth of new technologies and how they can integrate them in their daily teaching. Therefore TPACK is a double-edged blade and it all relies on that final part. The context, if we place all the three elements in context we can see the value of them and how they can help a teacher in preparing themselves for 21st-century teaching with technology. 

What the .... is TPACK?

Lately in the world I'm living in the word TPACK has been thrown around a lot. It's an interesting concept detailing the knowledge teachers need in order to become 21st century professionals. For those of you who do not know what TPACK is in this first post about it I will try to explain in my words what is TPACK.

If we look at teachers in classrooms we can see that they need a lot of knowledge to function and that the amount of knowledge they need is always increasing. This calls for help, help for the teachers to understand what they need to know in order to be good teachers. According to Punya Mishra and Mathew J. Koehler teachers need 3 forms of knowledge. First of all, they need to know what they are talking about, teachers need content knowledge (C). Secondly teachers will need to know how to teach it. What pedagogies are most effective and how to apply these in their teaching (P). And in a 21st century environment teachers will need to know about technology. What is out there and how we can use this in order to support the learning of their students (T).

Now note how I've been assigning letters. If one looks carefully these letters are in the word TPACK as well. This is because TPACK aims to not see these three elements separately from each other but rather integrate them. In order for teachers to become good practitioners they require Technological, Pedagogical and Content Knowledge (TPACK!).

But having this knowledge is not good enough. In order for the types of knowledge to have meaning the knowledge has to be integrated. Technological Knowledge should be linked with Content Knowledge (TCK). Pedagogical Knowledge linked with Technological Knowledge (TPK) and off course Content Knowledge with Pedagogical knowledge (PCK). And in the end they should all come together so a teacher becomes TPACK proficient. Teachers should not only know the separate fields of knowledge but should also know how these different aspects work together in harmony.

All of this does not makes sense however if it is placed out of context. Teachers do not function in ideal situations but rather work in a classroom with ever changing variables such as student demand, parental demand and pressure from governments, boards and other people that think they know better than teachers what they should do.  Therefore the different types of knowledge the teachers have, should always be applicable to their surroundings.

Included here at the bottom is an illustration of how these different elements would look when put into a model. One can see how the different types of knowledge flow together within the context of a situation and how they finally come together to form a TPACK confident teacher. This final step is both the most critical and the hardest and in future posts I will be looking at how we can achieve this.

Innovative use of CMS' in Flexible Learning

After reading several more blogs about the use of CMS' in different pedagogies I've stumbled across a few things that kept my mind busy as well. First of all we all seem the share the same ideas, maybe we're being to influenced by what we're discussing in class or outside of it and starting to create a hive-mind.


Secondly I feel I and others with me could perhaps benefit a bit for some more out of the box thinking. We're highly locking into the use of CMS' in the ways we're using them ourselves I feel. And this way of use is dictated by our teachers, who might not be all that comfortable in using these technological tools. From experience I can at least attest to there being a huge difference in Blackboard usage between teachers. 


So how can we do something about this, well we could start a discussion together, what are ways of using CMS' in flexible learning that we've not yet seen all that much. Personally I feel that there's more ways of collaborative learning that can take place, not just the sharing of data but actively working together via web-editing tools to work in the same document at the same time for example. I also think that for group work an integrated planning system could help for groups that heavily divide work and are not working all together all that much. A task list can help get a quick overview of what's left to do. Such a list can for example by provided by the teacher as a guide for the students. 


But those are just my ideas, what are yours?

A Small Step For Journalism, A Giant Leap for Scientific Reporting

Have you ever read a news article about something interesting science wise but you were questioning the results, the methods or anything like that. Well I have, and I've more than once though, if only I could take a look at the paper. But unfortunately news reports hardly ever come with nicely standardized APA references, or links to the paper at all. Fortunately the BBC aims to change this. Hopefully others will catch on to this trend so we can have clear scientific journalism for all.


Read the full article here: http://onlinejournalismblog.com/2010/10/08/bbc-new-linking-guidelines-issued-science-journals-mentioned/

Words in the News

So to prepare for our next lecture Petra asked us to find an example of an online learning environment showcasing one of the pedagogies I discussed in a recent post. Whenever I think of online learning environments I think of the BBC's online learning center. Their resource section for teaching English has helped me teach English to loads of other people. But now I decided to look at it through some more educational glasses. What kind of pedagogy are they using exactly? 


To take a more clear example I decided to look at one of my favourite sections, the words in the news section. This page takes one of the most prominent news items of the day and does it's best explaining the words by providing both an explanation and pronunciation. 


I would personally classify this as a form of experiential learning. Instead of just simply learning the words out of context one can actually follow a topic they find interesting and experience the English language whilst doing so. If they than cannot understand this information than they can seek help by looking at what it means and how they can pronounce it. 


I think this is a nice example of how we can use on-line learning environments to support learning. Instead of learning these words from list and out of context one can actually experience the way these words are used. This can create learning that is far more likely to stick.

Gaming as Homework

Unfortunately this is for Dutch people only...

Basisscholieren krijgen huiswerk in vorm van game

(Novum) - Een game-ontwikkelaar heeft een programma gemaakt waarmee basisscholieren huiswerk via een soort Hyves kunnen doen. Daar schrijft het AD vrijdag over.

Via een website kunnen scholieren een profiel aanmaken en quizvragen beantwoorden over aardrijkskunde, taal, topografie, rekenen en geschiedenis. Daarmee kunnen ze punten sparen voor bioscoopbonnen, beltegoed en proefabonnementen op tijdschriften. Ook is het mogelijk wedstrijdjes met andere leerlingen te doen.

De dienst is niet verplicht en kost tot acht euro per maand. Het programma wordt al door zo'n zevenduizend leerlingen in de groepen 6, 7 en 8 gebruikt. "Wat doen kinderen als ze thuiskomen en huiswerk moeten maken? Dan gaan ze ook even op MSN, Hyves of Facebook. Ons programma, Squla, springt daar op in", zegt een medewerker van de ontwikkelaar in de krant.

Toetsinstituut Cito werkt met het bedrijf samen. "Het is een toegankelijke manier om kennis te maken met de lesstof." Leerkrachten gebruiken de website al op het digitale leerbord voor de klas. "Dan oefenen we de vragen en maken we er een leuk wedstrijdje van", zegt een docent in het AD.

Bron: http://nieuws.nl.msn.com/algemeen/article.aspx?cp-documentid=154819647

Support of Pedagogy by Technology

More and more technology is becoming a part of our everyday life and also our education. The way we use this technology in education is something that is not yet agreed upon however. The question however is, is their one best way to use technology in education or is it dependant on the context and the way education is given shape.  In other words, does the used pedagogy have an influence on the way technology is being used. Today we will be looking at this question by studying 5 different kinds of pedagogy and seeing what we can do to support these ways of learning by the use of technology. The form of technology we will be looking at is a Content Management System (CMS). A great example of such a system is BlackBoard 

Traditional Learning:

I would like to start with just simple traditional learning. We are all familiar with this kind of pedagogy since it will be the one we’ve most likely encountered at one point in our life. The teacher stands in front of the class and explains the subject matter. All students pay attention to this and then go to work on exercises that are given.

Supporting this via a CMS can be done in a myriad of ways. Most of them are most likely only using the standard features of the online environment. Teachers can put the assignments online and provide additional information for the students to use.  

Inquiry Learning

The second form of pedagogy I’d like to discuss is inquiry learning. This is a personal favourite of mine. In inquiry learning the knowledge is constructed by the student instead of being given by the teachers. The teachers start off with giving a question. The students than go out on their own and find the answers for these questions. They then report these answers and discuss them amongst each other and reflect on the answers.

To support this via a CMS we could look into more advanced features. Many CMS’ come featured with options for students to discuss amongst themselves. In inquiry learning discussion can be of great value since not all answers found will be the same. The use of discussion boards or chat sessions can help students with discussing these answers amongst themselves and helping with the reflection.

Leittext method

The Leittext method is a method often used in practical education. This method is based around 3 points. 1. Independent Learning. 2. Thinking ahead and planning 3. Learning from your own mistakes. By engaging in practical assignments students gain knowledge, apply this knowledge and practice practical skills. The students are being guided by ‘Leitfragen’ or guiding questions. These questions guide the students to take a systematic approach of thinking about the skills they need to learn and help regulate the way the students learn. This method focuses on learning complete skills.

The question of how to support the students can be answered in many ways. Independent learning lends itself great for support by a CMS. The teachers can provide the information and allow the students the use this information how, when and where they want. More interesting features could be using a planning feature. Students could use a planning tool within the CMS which teachers can look at as well so they can monitor how well the students are planning and how well they are sticking to this planning.

Collaborative learning

Collaborative learning is a way of learning where two or more people collaborate to learn. Thus far this seems to be quite obvious. The idea behind collaborative learning is based on the idea that knowledge is created where people come together and share knowledge and take on asymmetric roles. In collaborative learning students come together in a way where the end product is a result of the work of the individuals and the students need to rely on each other.

Collaborative learning can be supported in similar ways as inquiry learning. However as said collaborative learning also requires the students to share knowledge. A file exchange system where students can share the products of their work and share information can be of great help.

Experiential Learning

The final form of pedagogy I’d like to discuss is experiential learning. Experiential learning is learning by reflecting on what we’re doing. It’s a form of learning where the focus lies on experiencing the content that is to be learned rather than learning it from a textbook. By experiencing the content rather than it just being told the learning can be more individualized.

Supporting this kind of learning with a CMS can be quite tricky. The idea is that students do not study the content by just reading about it by going out in the real world to experience it. This is off-course hard to accomplish with a system which is not placed in the real world. Where the CMS can help is in the reflection. Students can share their experiences and discuss their findings.

In conclusion we can state that CMS’ can be used in many ways to support different forms of pedagogies. Obvious ways can be collaboration but we’ve seen that more CMS’ can be used in more interesting ways. Personally I feel that with the addition of technology we can support students in their learning process and there are many unexplored avenues we can go down. However I don’t feel I’ve explored them all thus far and I’m hoping you can help me figure out other interesting ways.

Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity | Video on TED.com

I revisited an old favourite video of mine, still think it's highly relevant and highly interesting. Check it out

The Role of Teachers in Online Learning (or what will they do now we got all these computers?)

When looking at online learning we often focus on what technology can do to support the learners. We oftenly forget that learners are not the only ones present in the classroom but that there's teachers there as well. In a world that's going online more every day it's important not to forget about the people that have been teaching us for hundreds of years.

Luckily enough not everyone is forgetting about the teachers. Anderson (2008) in her book discusses the role teachers can play in online learning environments. This role is based on a model that views learning in an online learning environment as a combination of social presence, cognitive presence and teaching presence. Designing this teaching presence is the role of the teacher. This activity has 3 parts, organizing the experience, designing the activities and going beyond merely moderating but providing subject-matter expertise. The hard part for teaching within an online environment for teachers will be balancing between being content-providers and being facilitators, the discussion about which role teachers should have is still ongoing and is one I look forward to having.

Anderson, T. (2008). Teaching in an Online Learning Context. In T. Anderson (Ed.), The Theory And Practice Of Online Learning (2nd ed., pp. 343-365). Edmonton: Athabasca University Press.

Flexibility in Learning

Flexible Learning

Flexibility is seen in many ways shapes or forms, I consider myself to be quite flexible. 4 years of breakdancing have taught me to bend in ways people consider unhealthy or impossible. I'm also very much flexible in my time, you can call me in order to do something and I can usually fit it in my schedule somehow, someway. When we're talking about flexibility in education we are talking about something else though. Flexible learning refers to moving away from a curriculum planned out in advance by instructors or institutions but going to a situation where the learner has a range of options available to plan the learning process. This flexibility has long been regarded as mere location-based but flexibility in learning allows for much more than just choosing a time and place to learn. In this post I will review 5 different types of flexibility in education.

Time-Related Flexibility

A form of time-related flexibility is allowing students to dictate their own pace of studying. The instructors can set out a course with supporting literature, video-classes and clear end-goals but no deadlines on when these goals have to be met. Students can choose when they want to work on this and how much time they want to spend on the subject.

The big advantage for the learner is that it allows the learner to dictate the way they follow the class. If they don't have a lot of time right now they can catch up later when they do, or when they do not fully understand a certain topic they can spend extra time on that which might not be possible if they had to meet a strict deadline. The big disadvantage is off course students slacking off, without external pressure of meeting deadlines students who don't have enough intrinsic motivation to finish the course might postpone, postpone until they do not complete the course at all.

Content-Related Flexibility

In content-related flexibility students get a choice in what part of the content they want to study. The CIMA-Mastertrack of Educational Sciences at the University of Twente is a great example. 6 electives are presented but only 4 have to be followed. The students get a choice in which subjects they want their master-education to be focused on. There's the choice to go very theoretical or very practical or one can choose to focus strongly on the Instruction and Media approach whilst some students might look at the Curriculum aspects more. With this form of flexibility students can give shape to their own education by selecting the subjects they want to study.

For the learner this is a great advantage, it allows them to focus on what they want to learn and what they want to get good in. This same advantage holds for the instructors, if students choose their own subjects to study one can expect them to be highly motivated to learn these. Off course this might interfere with the general evolvement of the student. If I were to get the option of choosing between studying history or mathematics as subjects I would most likely choose history. Math might have been the better choice for me though as it could support my general evolvement as a study. By giving students choice over what content they want to study there's always the risk they will create a "fun-package" rather than a set of content which will teach all the knowledge and skills they will need in everyday life and when they are going to work.

Entry-Related Flexibility

When we are talking about flexibility related to the entry of a course or even a complete study program we can look at what prior knowledge students must have to participate. One can be very strict about this and say that you need to have completed course A and B to participate in course C. Or one can be flexible. In order to participate in course C you need to have completed either course A and B, B and F, F and A or maybe even X and Z.

This allows students from different backgrounds to participate in the same course. This can foster discussion from different perspectives which can greatly help in the evolvement of the knowledge about the subject matter. It also allows students from different backgrounds to widen their view and perhaps study something they are interested in but is not covered in their study program. Whilst these advantages hold true there can be downsides to this as well. Due to a lack of shared background knowledge the educators will have to choose if they will discuss the basics in-depth which might turn off students or skip these basics and head straight for the in-depth subject matter which might alienate students which limited prior knowledge.

Instructional Flexibility

With regards to instructional flexibility there are off course a myriad of ways to be flexible. If one were to discuss them all this blog-post would become a book in its own right. I will contain myself to a form I find interesting and that is how we arrange the instruction. For education the teacher-in-front-of-the-class method has long been prevalent. However there are very many other ways of arranging how instruction is given. Students can discuss the subjects on fora, they can be assigned to study a certain topic and present it to their fellow students or they can study a topic and present their results to the whole world via a blog.

This freedom allows the students to give shape to the way classes are followed and can make instruction more interesting than just listening to a teacher for 4 hours. The downside is that it becomes harder for the teacher to control what is learned. If students have to study a certain instructional approach and explain it to their fellow students the teacher no longer has control over what information to give and what information to leave out. The teacher will have to assume another role in the learning process and this can be hard.

Flexibility of Delivery and Logistic

When discussing this last form of flexibility I wanted to focus on the types of help a student can get. For the longest time if learners get stuck they would come to the teacher to ask for help. However with the invent of media there's a lot more ways students can search for help (but help can still be found off-line off course, asking your neighbour during class if you get lost is still a viable solution). One can think of searching for information on Google, asking for help in a chat-room or forum or watching a lecture from a different professor on the same topic via iTunes U.

In this way students can find information they want faster and are not limited to the contact hours on which a teacher is available. It can also help the students if they are able to comprehend the subject matter at hand but are unable to understand the way the teacher explains it. The downside to this might be that the other sources available do not have the direct feedback you'd get if you were to ask a teacher or might not provide the same in-depth insights a teacher could give you. 

First!

So yeah, this will be the blog on which I will write my all my discoveries in one specific field on Educational Science and technology, but maybe more. Who knows, maybe I'll actually like this stuff. Never blogged about anything before though, never had the persistence to keep it up...

We'll see. For now, game on!