TPCK-Chapter 4--Leveraging the development of English TPCK within the deictic nature of literacy

In reading chapter 4, I was struck by one important facet of TPCK: the need to integrate it clearly into all aspects of teaching. It is not just enough to use technology in your classroom, you must use technology to support learning in your content area. This task becomes even larger when you take into account the number of constraints that most teachers face.

Here is a real life example of something that happened to me just this week. I wanted my AP Literature students to start playing around with our wikispace. I had learned about wikis this summer and I wanted to start using them in my classroom, but wikis (and other personal pages) are blocked by our school’s net nanny, Bess. At the beginning of the year, I contacted our tech coordinator and he graciously agreed to allow access to the wiki. However, when it came time to start using it, my students could not post! It took the tech coordinator and me an entire class period (about 80 minutes) in order to work out the problem. I persevered, because I really wanted to use the wiki, but I did feel like giving up and going back to the “old” and more easily available ways of doing things. I can see why some teachers just “don’t want the hassle” because it was very frustrating for the kids and me.

Our school says that it values technology, and they show it in ways like giving us one to one laptops. However, in many other ways (most notably our incredibly restrictive AUP) they are not supportive of teachers and students really using technology, or stretching the boundaries of how technology can be used (in other words, going beyond functional fixedness). Obviously this is a problem that must be addressed in our school before we can truly even think about using E-TPCK. If we do not have full access to the scope of the technology that is available, how can we use it effectively in our classrooms? We can’t! It is maddening to be asked to use technology and to start thinking about new ways to integrate technology and then find out that we are not allowed to use tech in the way that we want and/or need to.

The information about the pre-service training was very interesting. In many ways, I felt that what the Ed-U-Tech program is doing in Minnesota is much like what UMF is trying to do with our MS Ed cohorts here in Maine. The one obvious difference is that we are in-service teachers, rather than pre-service. Again though, the emphasis is on training and using technology. This is a wonderful idea, but our districts must learn to trust teachers (and students) to use these tools as they are meant to be used in the classroom. Otherwise, we will be constantly be hampered from fully using E-TPCK.

While linking from site to site after James and Charmaine's presentations, I found this marvelous site, with cyber-guides for all kinds of literature. These pages also contain links to rubrics, graphic organizers and other activities. One of the best things about this site? It is broken down by grade levels! This site will work for elementary, middle and high school levels.

Another amazing site, EDSITEment, sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities, provides lesson plans and websites that are geared for all grade levels. I am looking forward to using one of these lessons this week with my AP Literature students.

Finally, Education World suggests that blogging can be done by students in kindergarten! I thought about my technology conversations with my team mates Stacey and Christine while reading this. Hopefully as our access to blogs and wikis opens up, we will be able to use some of these strategies in our classrooms. Perhaps these hints will be helpful.

Here is a story about how technology impacts students with disabilities such as autism. It also talks about how Hewlett Packard really stepped up to the plate to help this school.