TPACK: Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge.

      

       The formulation of TPACK is an extension of what Shulman proposed, “[…] that effective teaching requires a special type of knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge (or PCK).” (Koheler, Mishra, Kereluik, Graham & Shin, 2014, p. 102). Koehler and Mishra add the importance of technological knowledge because it can be an effective way of teaching. Consequently, TPACK emerges: As they said,“Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) refers to knowledge about the complex relations among technology, pedagogy, and content that enable teachers to develop appropriate and context-specific teaching strategies.” (cited in Koheler et al., 2014, p. 102).

       Furthermore, “An important part of the TPACK framework is that TPACK does not exist in a vacuum but rather is grounded and situated in specific contexts as represented by the outer dotted circle in the TPACK diagram.” (Koehler et al., 2014, p. 102). The diagram below describes TPACK.
        The particular method to implement the TPACK model is: in the first place, teachers have to think about the content they are going to teach. In a second intance, teachers decide how they are going to teach the content. Finally, they choose which technological tools are going to be implemented.

         Following this view of teaching suggested by the researchers mentioned above, teachers can make use of different technological devices to work with students inside and outside the classroom. We found that students from the 3rd year of a State Secondary school are used to work with Facebook groups in many other subjects. They use this social media as a platform to do homework activities, share ideas and doubts about subject matters, among other uses.

As an example of TPACK in English Language Lessons, we created the following Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/112371179403236/ for a 3^rd year of a State Secondary School. The students are expected to post or upload different assignments we will ask them to do.

As it is shown in the screenshots, students are working with Present Simple and Present Continuous. The aim of the task we gave them is to clarify the different uses of these tenses since it was difficult for them to distinguish. Students will post pictures with the time in order to portray their dailies routines using the Present Simple and short videos or “boomerangs” describing the actions they are performing using the Present continuous.

       Finally, we want to highlight that all teachers can design and create their own technological tools so as to make the teaching and learning processes more engaging

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References:

- Koheler, M., Mishra, P., Kereluik, K., Graham, C. R., & Shin, T. S. (2014) "The Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge Framework" Handbook of Research on Educational Communications and Technology, 101 DOI 10.1007/978-1-4614-3185-5_9