TPACK Chapter 2--Bridging Digital and Cultural Divides

One of the things that I understand now is why we took History, Philosophy and Ethics and Research Methods before taking this course. While reading this chapter, I found I needed that background knowledge.
In this chapter, a real challenge for me was the use of the acronym “TMI.” I know that the chapter explained it as “technology mediated instruction” however every time the authors used the acronym, I thought “too much information.” I literally had to look up what TMI meant every few pages.
Leaving that aside for a minute, I was very interested in the digital divide conversation. I had of course heard of the term before, but I only knew it as what the authors describe as the “first” digital divide: the haves and the have-nots. We have tried to solve part of the first divide in our district. I am blessed to be able to teach in a school that has one to one laptops. However, there is an interesting attitude at our school. Many students don’t like the laptops! They don’t like carrying them around all the time (they’re heavy!) and they also think that they are old. They complain that they can’t do enough with them. There are also many complaints about the ‘Net Nanny, Bess, that our school employs. The students feel that it is too restrictive and in many cases it is. For example, a student would be blocked from many sites if he/she were researching breast cancer. I don’t know how to solve this, but it is interesting to note.
I had not considered the other two digital divides: “access to achievement enhancing TMI” (p. 39) and “ access to cultural sensitive technological pedagogy” (p. 43). Both of these digital divides were interesting. I should hope that I don’t use technology as a reward. I hate being held back when I am exploring new technology, so I don’t think I do that to my students, especially when the next direction is something like “hit enter” but I will be more aware of it in the future.
I also enjoyed the discussion of teaching as an “ill-structured ‘wicked’ problem” (p. 55). Teaching is amorphous and ever changing. That is one of the things I like best about it! It is never the same, day-to-day and year-to-year. I have three sophomore classes on B days. The same lesson could look very different in each one of those classes. I am interested in hearing more about how the context to TPCK can help me to teach these lessons more effectively. There is so much to do! How do we do everything that is asked of us? This is the most important question that I need answered.

All Quotes from The Handbook of Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPCK) for Educators edited by the AACTE Committee on Innovation and Technology.