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Kate Chambers
ECI 546
Dr. Spires
10 December 2015

The successful teacher is one who can draw from content, pedagogy, and technology,

forming a technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) framework. (Spires 2013, p.

33). As a teacher of language arts, and a teacher of students with special needs, I find the task

ahead of me daunting at times. How can I simultaneously pay homage to the worlds beautiful

literary heritage and stay abreast on the new literature coming out each day, as I need to do? How

can I make sure that I am using a variety of quality instructional strategies that can meet the

widespread needs of my students? And finally, at the same time, how can I take initiative to learn

and integrate new technologies into my classroom, helping my students build skills that werent

even needed 5 or 10 years ago?

I love the idea of TPACK and the concise definition. Since learning about it, Ive tried to

keep it at the foreground when planning my lessons. I am so pleased with the results of my PBI

project, where I used an online annotating technology tool, Scrible, to help my 7th grade students

research for an argumentative piece. When technology and pedagogy can intertwine, students

will succeed. Many teachers have long known about the benefits of students using close reading

and annotation strategies to help them remember and understand what they read, and my students

are familiar and comfortable with this expectation. However, several of my students struggle

with writing fluency- they can verbally tell you their ideas while reading, but are very, very slow

to write their words on paper. The quality of their written annotations is often far below what

they are actually thinking. In contrast, when they were able to annotate online, the responses

were twice as long, demonstrating high-levels of thinking (making connections, asking

connections, making comparisons, summarizing ideas, etc.) with no prompting needed at all. I
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simply set a minimum number of annotations per article and I was so excited to find that all of

my students exceeded this minimum number of annotations simply because they were engaged

and excited about the assignment. Therefore, this is a perfect example of TPACK at work

because the technological pedagogical knowledge brought my students to a better understanding

of our content knowledge.

Have I mastered everything possible with my TPACK? Far from it. I think its pretty

obvious that it will be an ongoing process, as new content, pedagogy, and technology are

developed each day. This semester Ive learned that sometimes I need a push to get started and to

leave my comfort zone. I feel blessed to be in our masters cohort, with such knowledgeable

professors, relevant courses, and amazing, supportive colleagues. It has been invaluable to hear

such varied perspectives during our time together so far, and I love knowing that so many

students will have more qualified teachers because of this process. Out of the three, I will still

need the most development with technology. I usually find that once I start learning a new

technology, its pretty easy to figure out, especially knowing that it will motivate and engage my

students. However, there is always the extra time needed to effectively research, learn, and

implement new technology, and Ive found that teaching is a job where time is everything. That

being said, if a technology, with the right pedagogy, can bring my content to life for students and

make them fall in love with reading and writing, I know that it is totally worth it to spend the

extra time to make that happen. I also feel like it is my responsibility as part of this program to

learn as much as I can and bring it back to my colleagues at my school. I know that many

teachers at my school use technology, but for most of the teachers I directly work with, their use

of technology is very limited, like using the SmartBoard as more of a projector screen for

students to take notes from, or having students type essays on Microsoft Word. They have good
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intentions but arent sure how to take the next step. With everything Im learning from this

program, I know I need to be a leader in my school and help other teachers develop their

TPACK. In terms of concrete next steps, I plan on incorporating technology choices for my

students as they wrap up their CNN heroes project this month. Now that theyve researched

online using Scrible, they have been working on an argumentative research paper to meet our

standards for 7th grade writing. When they come back from break, I plan to offer them a variety

of choices to present their information back. I am currently collaborating with my media and

technology specialists to discuss options and Im also looking through different ideas from our

Cool Tool Blast this semester. I know that all my students in this class are so unique so I think

they will probably all choose different tech tools, meaning we will be learning the tool together,

but that is okay! With the ever-changing face of technology, giving up control over every step is

something teachers will need to get used to doing. In future projects, I plan to incorporate more

visual literacy (like the response we did on VoiceThread), social media literacy, media literacy,

and more time with technology in general to help close the gap for my students of low-SES. The

Revised Blooms Taxonomy has been adopted enthusiastically by my school and Im grateful for

this resource to help me make sure I am challenging my students in different ways to help them

grow.

This course really opened my eyes to some of the new issues that are facing our students

today. I especially appreciated learning about globalization and the difference in cultural

appreciation and knowledge in the U.S. versus other countries. I know that my students need an

emphasis on global learning for them to be global citizens, since many of them are lacking in

travel experiences that would allow them to better understand the complexities of our world.

After learning about our study abroad opportunities through this program, I am planning to
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participate in one of those programs next year and I know it will be a great experience. I learned

so much about myself when I studied abroad in Florence during my undergrad and I think my

learning will be amplified if I get to work with schools in another country. I would love to bring

that learning back to my classroom and school, to share it with my students and colleagues. I was

also passionate about the six new essential high-concept, high-touch senses shared by Daniel

Pink and Zhao and plan to present them to my department at our upcoming meeting as a great

way to make sure we are preparing our students for college and careers (Zhao 2009, p.149). I

learned so much about visual, social media, and media literacies and the importance of fostering

digital citizenship that I know will shape my next steps as an educator and leader. Teaching the

next generation of citizens is no easy task, but I know it is critical and Im inspired to grow to be

the best I can be so our world can be a better place tomorrow.

Works Cited
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Spires, H., Hervey, L., & Watson, T. (2013). Scaffolding the TPACK framework in reading and

language arts: New literacies, new minds. In C.A. Young and S. Kajder (Eds.), Research and

Technology in English Education (pp.33-61). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.

Zhao, Y. (2009). Catching up or leading the way. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.