Week 2 TPAC

Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) attempts to identify the nature of knowledge required by teachers for technology integration in their teaching, while addressing the complex, multifaceted and situated nature of teacher knowledge. At the heart of the TPACK framework, is the complex interplay of three primary forms of knowledge: Content (CK), Pedagogy (PK), and Technology (TK). See Figure above. As must be clear, the TPACK framework builds on Shulman’s idea of Pedagogical Content Knowledge.


http://mkoehler.educ.msu.edu/tpack/what-is-tpack/

Week 1- Prensky-learning styles.

I have found Prensky's articles and ideas very interesting. I would consider myself digital immigrant but i guess it depends on your personality and the money you want to spend on the technology, there is so much on offer everywhere. I am not natural with technology but after reading the articles and also after myself experiencing the situtaion at school, it is pretty convincing that things need to change.  I agree that the teachers need to adapt to kids and not the other way around. There are generally 30 kids in the class and only one teacher, so it is clear who is going to win, the teachers need to play according to the new rules. The students have a right to be bored and have a right to protest against something they no longer relate to. We, as teachers should be happy that the kids have courage to protest and express opinions, we only need to learn how to work with them and that way they will learn, we could also learn with them, kids will be more than happy to show us how to use some programs as long as they will see that are making an effort to communicate in their language. Why not learn something new?life is about learning, lets learn together with students, lets make a difference successfully and meaningfully.

Learning style activity.

I am still catching up on some of the week 1 stuff....
Ok-i have done the test on learning styles and it is great!!!i thought i know things about myself but i guess i didn't know all that much about my learning preferences....my score rested close on the first 3 columns but the last column showed that I am a global learner, it didn't come as a surprise, it is just hard to put into words, the parts of me i guess.... global learners absorb material randomly and that's me, sometimes it can be hard because i do like to see the big picture and the facts just don't do it for me...All the material on learning styles was very beneficial and interesting...Again computers are making it possible to complete these sort of tests, in the future the students could complete these tests and the teachers could make decisions according to the results.

I have also read some parts of the Sir Ken Robinson's Transcript and the line that stuck with me is: Don't be afraid to be wrong! That is so true...we miss out if we don't try! it is important to dare and be different.....nobody likes boring, identical teachers and there is no need to have more of them...let's be different!

This is an example of the embedded video....I haven't actually watched it yet but it looks cool...

Learning styles.

           I absolutely love learning.  I would say that I am an auditory learner. I love languages and listening to the right way of pronouncing the words is a a key. Visually it is important to get the spelling of the words right, I also find it easy to remember the way words need to look if they are spelt right. There are so many ways to learn things and it also depends on the subject that it is taught. ICT's and technologies are enhancing the learning for all learning styles. Viewing, listening, making something, solving problems with interactive activities and games. it is important to connect with the class. Computers are making it easy to upload, share and comment on information presented by students. The teachers have more options on creating a class, which relates closely to the students' ineterests.

Computers are great tools when they are used right, the right time and the right set up. The activities should be purposeful and promote higher order thinking. Sometimes disruption in the classroom is created due to the activities being boring or not challenging enough. It is important to challenge the students- always.

week 1 reflection on ideas about Learning Theories

The psychology and learning theories help students and teachers to understand more clearly the teaching process at hand.

Multiple intellegences- it is important as a teacher to assess and recognise all the different intellegences that students bring to the classrooms. Profiling the learners is vital and this method will provide more information about the students.

Cognitivism an sensory register are important parts of the learning theory and should be investigated and understood before organizing the materials for the class. Students shold find the new knowledge stimulating and wothwhile. Digital pedagogy can support the transfer through the use of the multimodal information sources.

Short term memory- Organizes the information for long term storage. ICT is important in supporting and chunking of information through interactive learning objects.

Long term memory- once students understand the learnt information, or schema, this new schema is compared to existing schemas and new knowledge is added. For the successful learning to occur the existing and new information should link and be built on in order to achieve the learning goal.