The TPACK Radio/Video show that we had created for ISTE is now available on Vimeo. I think this version is easier to embed and view (as opposed to a 21MB download, as it was the previous time around).
A fake radio/video show created for ISTE2010 by Punya Mishra with Matt Koehler (and a bunch of other people who are thanked in the video). We were asked to create a video for ISTE, a conference that neither of us (Punya or Matt) could attend. Our goal was to create an engaging 15 minute video that would convey our ideas about technology integration in teaching, specifically the TPACK framework. The entire thing (including the two Mastercard & UPS commercials) was scripted, shot and edited over 4 days. More details (and credits here)
My daughter on her blog has a new poem / haiku called Sweat, a haiku with one glich. She is in India right now where the temperatures are easily in the 90′s – which I guess explains the genesis of the poem. What was more interesting, to me however, was the manner in which she, quite instinctively, breaks up a word in the poem. Interestingly, she regards that as a “glich!”
Here is the poem.
Sweat
Sticky, icky, ew!
I wipe it off, and it trick-
les, right back again!
See the neat little trick of breaking up the word “trickles” so that it actually
“trick-”
“-les”
down the page. Reminds me of one of my favorite poets, e.e.cummings and how he plays with words. For instance here is a poem by him
l(a
le
af
fa
ll
s)
one
l
iness
It takes a bit of effort to read but it is worth it. With some thought you will see that in the parenthesis is the phrase “a leaf falls,” broken up so that it runs down the page, rather than across it. So instead of “a leaf falls” you read
(a
le
af
fa
ll
s)
Of course breaking it all up forces you (the reader) to read the lines in slow-motion, with pauses as it were. Also the shape of the letters comes through now as do the alliterative / symmetric “le” “ll” and “af” “fa” sounds. There is a visual and audio pattern here… a verbo-visual pun maybe. Sort of what Shreya did with the word “trickles.”
But there is more…
Outside the parenthesis is the word “loneliness” broken up so that you can see the words “one” sandwiched between two “L’s.” The “L” is written in lower-case, which again makes it look like the number “1″ or capital “I.”
l
one
l
iness
So the repetition of the idea of “one” or “I” (once as “one” and twice as the number or the “I”) emphasizes the solitary nature of this experience. It could be 1 leaf falling, or one person watching one leaf fall… And all the pieces come together to set up a sad mood of one lonely person watching one leaf fall
How clever of mr. cummings. And how cool that Shreya, discovered something similar in breaking up “trickles” into two parts, showing how the sweat actually
“trick -
- les”
down.
To me it is an indication of her increasing comfort with language. It is only when we are comfortable with the rules that we start to break them, and it is there that true creativity and one’s one “writerly” voice emerges. So I would argue, despite Shreya’s thinking that it is a glitch, that it is not. It actually her noticing a pattern, imposed on her by the syllable count required by the Haiku structure itself, and then using that constraint for a creative purpose.
As for the mis-spelling of “glich” – I hope she doesn’t correct it. Because the poem now does have one glitch, the mis-spelling of the word “glitch.” How self-referential!!
All in all, what a wonderful way to begin a Sunday, reflecting on creativity and writing, inspired by a poem written by 11 year old Shreya. How very cool!!
I just spent a day at MICDS in St. Louis talking with a small but select group of teachers about creativity in teaching, the role of big ideas, the meaning of TPACK, the importance of trans-disciplinary learning (among other things). What a wonderful way of spending the day! This visit was organized by Elizabeth Helfant at MICDS. Apart from the workshop, it was also wonderful to finally meet up with Mr. Nashworld, Sean Nash himself. Sean and I have been blogging buddies for a while now and it was great to finally meet up with him.
As a part of our activities today I had all the participants crate i-Images. I have written about i-Images on this blog before (see here and here).
i-Images are the brainchild of David Wong and you can find his page on i-Images here.
Anyway, here are some of the i-Images created today. I do think they are pretty cool and thought provoking, each in its own way. Click on the images below to see what the workshop participants created. Enjoy.
I have never been able to make to the ISTE (formerly NECC) conference since it falls bang in the middle of my summer teaching. This year was no exception. The only problem is that, this year, Matt and I had been invited to a special forum by SIGTE (titled “Considering the “C” in TPACK: Curriculum-based Technology Integration”) neither of us could be there. (Bummer!) So instead, we were asked to make video!
The idea of a 15 minute video of the two of us speaking into a camera was not very appealing… So we did something different. Doing something different was appropriate given our interest in creativity and the fact that our talk was about TPACK! So 4 days and untold hours of work later, here is the video that was presented at ISTE. [Halfway through this I realized that it may have taken less time to have just flown to Denver and made our presentation!]
I should also take moment to thank Sarah McPherson, New York Institute of Technology, for organizing the session and the rest of the panelists (Glen Bull, Judi Harris, Ann Thompson and Denise Schmidt) for their support. Ann Thompson and Denise Schmidt deserve a special thanks for stepping in at the last minute to cover for Matt and me.
Thanks also to Leigh Wolf for narrating and hosting the radio show, and providing her office to shoot the UPS commercial; Mete Akcaoglu for starring in the faux-UPS commercial; Soham Mishra for narrating the faux-Mastercard commercial and Shreya Mishra and her friends for starring in it.
Just a warning, the video is 15 minutes long and a 21 MB download.
I have been a big fan of Despair.com and its quirky, dark humor. I particularly love the demotivational posters, with their beautiful inspiring photographs coupled with some deeply cynical or depressing message.
Today students in my MAET summer program completed a unit on motivation. They read the standard Ed Psych motivational literature (Dweck etc.) and also watched the RSA / Daniel Pink video (that I had linked to here). And then, they created a series of demotivational posters. These posters were created in Google Presentation, with images from Flickr and most importantly they had to use their ideas from either the readings or from the Pink video. [Incidentally the video was not created by Daniel Pink, nor by RSA, but rather by Cognitive Media.]
Here is what they came up with, click on the words to see the posters. The names of the students who created them is provided below the titles.
Incentives
Scot Acre
Patrick Gillespie
Marc Compton
Shawn Telford
Individuality
Kerry Guiliano
Aaron Moran
Mike Bammer
Julie Howe
Addy Hamilton
Motivation
Barb Bedford
Cheryl Schaefer
Hope Andres
Stacey Schuh
Rewards
Grace Bammer
Mary Wever
Jessica Steffel
Sarah Blazo
Curiosity
Craig McMichael
Chloe Tingley
Lial Miller
Katie Lorey
An interesting challenge that remains has to do with how we reconcile projections of the earth with the actual shape of the earth. For instance the Mercator projection distorts what are straight lines into curves and vice versa. Of course complicating all this is the fact that what we think of as straight lines needs to be reconfigured somewhat to meet the demands of a spherical surface i.e. the whole idea of a great circle.
I recently came across a very cool web site which uses Googlemaps to map a straight walk on the surface of the earth. Check out map.talleye.com
The moment you try this out you realize just how complex a process it is to go from the Mercator projection to understanding the same path on a sphere. This also reminded me of the maps of the earth that show the demarcation of day and night on its surface. Check it out at daylightmap.com.
[More information on the Mercator projection can be found here and on great circles here.]
There are lots of cool examples in this article but the one that stood out was this one:
This underwear sign presents an example of innovative thinking about space. Finding a drain
opening in the path of his endeavors, the artist spontaneously incorporated a navel (and home for a mynah bird)
How wonderful is that!! Read the entire article for more…
This presentation of a talk by Daniel Pink has been making the rounds on the Interwebs. I am including it here just as a personal reminder for me to use in my teaching AND as an example of a wonderful presentation style. Check out
RSA Animate – Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us
The three key factors that Pink describes as being inherently motivating are Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose. Now think about school… How much of these three do we present our students? Too often school is about doing things someone else as prescribed, not for mastery but rather just to get it done, with little sense of the broader purpose for doing so. Is it surprising that school is demotivating?
This is not an issue of whether or not (or how) we should be using technology – but rather a more fundamental issue of why we have school in the first place.
What can we do to bring in these three into the classroom?
My friend and colleague Leigh Wolf forwarded me this article on Edward Tufte: The Many Faces (And Sculptures) Of Edward Tufte. I have been a fan of information design guru Edward Tufte’s work for years (decades?). I love his emphasis on clarity and simplicity in presenting information. I love the fact that he designs and publishes his own books (so that he can have full control over each and every aspect of the presentation). What I didn’t know of was his playful artistic side. It turns out that ET (as he is known) is also an artist, crafting giant metal sculptures in his “back yard” (if you can call the hundreds of acres that stretch behind his house a “back yard!”).
Over the past few years I have been thinking quite hard about the idea that creative people are not creative in just one area but rather tend to play within and across multiple disciplines or areas. Robert and Michele Root-Bernstein have in their book Sparks of Genius often talked about how the most creative scientists are polymaths, often having artistic and other interests that go beyond their immediate professional interests. In fact they argue, and I would tend to agree with them, that creativity cannot be forced into one box or domain. Creative individuals are curious about everything and often engage in creative activities in multiple areas, though they may specialize in just one area (usually the domain they are most known for).
This is true for the most creative people I know. For instance, consider Douglas Hofstadter (best known for his book Godel, Escher & Back and is work in Artificial Intelligence) dabbles in everything from mathematics to music, wordplay to art. Similarly Scott Kim (best know as a puzzle game designer) creates ambigrams and composes music, plays the drums and teaches mathematics using dance!
In my own way I have tried to do the same. Everything I do, from creating ambigrams to teaching, from photography to developing keynote presentations, from being a parent to advising students on their research, seems to me to be connected and inter-woven. I think my success as a researcher and scholar (to whatever extent I have been successful) derives from this “dabbling” across disciplines.
What is sad, however, is how much such “dabbling” is frowned upon. Through high-school and college, through graduate school and even as a faculty member, I have been advised, always by by well-meaning people, to focus, to find my niche, to become an expert on one thing. I have resisted it, mainly because knowing just one thing, seems, at least to me, such an impoverished way of being.
And I understand why I have received the advice I have. We live in a specialized world. A world where expertise is valued. And an expert, after all, is someone who knows more and more about less and less. There is no space for dabbling in this world of.
But I wonder about that. I have a friend who is a successful professor of civil engineering. Turns out, that as he was growing up, what he really wanted to be, was a chef! I haven’t had a chance to talk to him about this but I wonder how his vision of being a chef influences what he does as a researcher and a teacher? Does it contribute (in some subconscious manner) to his work? Or has he suppressed it completely?
Either way I see it as a tragedy, in the first case because we haven’t developed a way of speaking of these influences, and in the second case because a possible, fruitful career was nipped in the bud.
The sad thing is that I am seeing school do the same thing to my kids, in fact to most kids I know. NCLB has not helped either. Don’t get me wrong. This is not an argument for some form of dilletantism (dabbling for the sake of dabbling). Not at all. What I am recommending (thanks to the Roob-Bernstein’s for this term) is polymathy. One of my students, Danah Henriksen, is currently working on a dissertation on looking for polymathy in teachers. As she says:
“Polymathy” may be thought of as an informed enthusiasm for more than one field of knowledge or expertise, or excellence in several realms that might seem distant from each other. It has been suggested that what makes polymaths so successful and fluidly creative is an ability to cross-pollinate ideas and information. People who open their minds to, and who learn from, multiple knowledge areas can apply new information and unique ways of thinking from one discipline into another.
This for me is the biggest reason for supporting such playing around in multiple areas. These experiences at the fringes (so to speak) of our professional lives, provide us with newer ways of being in the world. They allow us to see the world in new ways. They allow us to question things the field may have taken for granted. Just as Tufte says at the end of the piece, my goal, is to “make people see a little differently.” Turns out one of the best and easiest ways of doing so is by seeing through different disciplinary eyes.
We need to provide better opportunities for our students to do the same.
Back in 2007, I was second author on a paper titled Teacher as Filmmaker, in which we described an approach to teacher professional development that involved teachers creating short, evocative movies, which we called iVideos. You can read the paper and abstract (below).
In our Masters program in Educational Technology at Michigan State University, K-12 teachers create “iVideos” – short, two-minute, digital videos designed to evoke powerful experiences about educative ideas. For example, an iVideo might enable viewers to experience the vastness of space, the interconnection between people and their environment, the timeless themes in great literature, and other compelling subject-matter ideas. How might these teacher-made iVideos serve as catalysts for teacher technology education and professional development? We describe the conceptual foundation of iVideos by building on the metaphor of teacher as filmmaker – an idea that highlights how teachers and filmmakers both strive to create powerful experiences for their audiences. In doing so, we argue that teachers are enabled to transform ideas and practice by immersing themselves in deep pedagogical consideration of subject-matter, significance, audience, learning, epistemology, and aesthetics. We also discuss how this approach develops teachers’ competency and efficacy with technology.
A week or so ago I received an email from Dr. Matthew Kearney, from University of Technology, Sydney informing us that, inspired by our work (as laid out in the above paper) students in their “pre-service teacher education elective class chose to make some ‘idea videos’ on a range of current issues in K-12 education.” You can see these movies by going to
It feels great to know that our work was useful (and even inspiring) to others. Dr. Kearney adds that:
I would like to invite any interested student teachers at MSU to view an ‘ivideo’ of interest from our gallery and leave their reactions as a ‘comment’ at the bottom of the relevant page. (Our student teacher ‘filmmakers’ will be monitoring these pages for any feedback / comments / questions on conceptual or technical aspects of their iVideos.)
PS Please feel free to forward this invitation to any other teacher education institutions / staff who may be interested in this exercise.
Please take a moment to check out these videos. They are quite well done and worth a moment of your time. Drop a comment if you can, it will mean a lot to the students.
Three different news-stories/articles came to my notice today all connected by the infamous brood parasite the cuckoo. The first is a part of Olivia Judson’s blog (on the NYTimes) on biology and life (read Cuckoo! Cuckoo! here), the second is is about how scientists have tried to understand what it is that the cuckoo does to trick other birds into caring for the cuckoo’s eggs (read, Scientists Get Bird’s-Eye View of How Cuckoos Fool Their Hosts) and the third is regarding a new way of engineering design and optimization inspired by the Cuckoo! (read about the ‘Cuckoo Search Algorithm‘ here) .
Olivia Judson makes a very important point about how our perceptual systems prevent us from seeing the world “as is.” For instance, as it turns out what we “see” when we see a cuckoo’s egg is very different from what the bird sees. As one of the articles say:
In the past, this kind of analysis was tackled by humans comparing eggs by eye, but human vision differs hugely from that of a bird. Birds can see ultraviolet light and because they have four types of cone in their eyes, compared with three in humans, they see a greater diversity of colour and pattern.
What this means is that over evolutionary time, cuckoos and the host birds are engaged in an arms-race to develop better and better deception (on the cuckoo’s part) and detection (on the part of the host birds) mechanisms. As a consequence one of the host birds studied:
… lay probably the most diverse range of eggs of any bird in the world, and this is likely to be an outcome of the long co-evolutionary battle with the Cuckoo Finch.
The eggs are analogous to a bank note, in terms of the variety and complexity of markings, perhaps to make them very hard to forge by the parasite.
So the same techniques used by currency designers to reduce forgery (the intricate markings that are the defining characteristics of today’s currency notes) is used by the host birds as well. Of course forgers keep coming up with better techniques to trick us, as do the cuckoo birds… all this of course leading to a runaway race where every innovation by the forgers (read cuckoo birds) has to be matched by the police (read host birds).
Now, it turns out that a couple of engineers have take this a step further, utilizing the idea of this evolutionary war to develop a better search algorithm! So what we have here is an interesting confluence of evolutionary forces and the manner in which scientists have tried to understand how these forces work and leading to the development of new technologies and techniques for solving engineering problems. How very cool is that!
All this is interesting in and of itself, but there is a deeper point about perception being made here that I would like to highlight. Olivia Judson says it much more eloquently than I ever could, so I quote:
Which makes me wonder: what are we missing? Like the birds — like any organism — our sensory system defines the way we perceive and interact with the world, and it is limited in important ways…
And in a more metaphorical way, the sight of the cuckoo chick makes me wonder what we miss by our routine habits of thought. To what extent do our preconceived notions narrow our perception of the planet, and ourselves?
What a great question? What are we not seeing? How do we learn to see?
Followers of this blog (and people who have seen my presentations on creativity) know that this idea of “learning to see,” is in my opinion, the most critical first step towards being creative. I have talked of this in terms of “recognition v.s. perception” and it underlies my arguments for repurposing technology (that I go on and on about, most recently here). I think it is important that we continually ask ourselves this question that Olivia Judson leaves us with:
To what extent do our preconceived notions narrow our perception of the planet, and ourselves?
In other words, what are we not seeing?
(H/T Ken Friedman for the first and third links and Google for the third).
I have always been interested in the manner in which people use (or re-use) everyday things for purposes they were never intended for. Be it a piece of red tape to mark a glass door so that people don’t slam into the glass (as I see at the MSU clinical center every time I go there) or use a chair to prop open a door—these are examples of everyday creativity. I have used different phrases or words to describe this phenomena (particularly in the context of educational technology), everything from situational creativity to repurposing to jugaad.
So imagine my pleasure at serendipitously chancing upon a book titled Thoughtless Acts?
This book by Jane Fulton Suri and IDEO
invites you to notice the subtle and amusing ways that people react to the world around them. These “thoughtless acts” reveal how people behave in a world not always perfectly tailored to their needs and demonstrate the kind of real-world observational approach that can inspire designers and anyone involved in creative endeavors.
Its a neat little book, filled with photographs of different “thoughtless acts” i.e. (to quote from the book):
… intuitive ways in which we adapt, exploit, and react to things in our environment; things we do without really thinking.
Some actions, such as grabbing onto something for balance, are universal and instinctive. Others, such as warming hands on a hot mug or stroking velvet, draw on experiences so deeply embodied that they are almost unconscious. Still more, such as hanging a jacket to claim a chair, have become spontaneous through habit or social learning. Observing such everyday interactions reveals subtle details about how we relate to the designed and natural world. This is key information and inspiration for design, and a good starting point for any creative initiative.
What the book emphasizes, for me, is the the value of “learning to see” – a distinction between recognition (which is seeing the world through existing frameworks) and perception (seeing the world as it is!). (Related posts here.) I have argued that this distinction between recognition and perception is the crux of true creativity. To quote myself (see original post here):
Perception is about seeing things for what they are, while recognition is about seeing things for how they have been labeled or how we have seen them in the past.
Anyway, the book, Thoughtless Acts? is a pleasure to browse and a quick Google search revealed (no surprise there) a website that goes with the book. What else but thoughtlessacts.com. The website allows you to preview the book as well as contribute observations of your own.
And if you wonder what this has to do with education technology, take a moment to follow these links. In brief, I have argued that there is no such thing as an educational technology. What we have are a range of technologies that we can repurpose, re-see, and re-envision as being educational technologies. Be it using a audio editing tool such as Audacity as a data analysis tool or a GPS device to teach mathematics, teachers are designers of experiences for their students. Experiences that allow them to engage with the world, with deep ideas of content! (TPACK anyone?). But these technologies don’t come as a given, with their pedagogical purpose stamped all over them. Educators have to work on “re-seeing” them for their own selfish (educational) purposes.
I have written earlier about the idea of veja du (which ended up becoming an assignment in my creativity class). To recap:
… if déjà vu is the process by which something strange becomes, abruptly and surprisingly familiar, véjà du is the very opposite. It is the seeing of a familiar situation with “fresh eyes,” as if you have never seen it before. So if déjà vu is about making the strange look familiar, véjà du is all about making the familiar look strange!
I was, this morning, provided and excellent example of veja du by one of the participants in my CEP817, Learning Technology by Design seminar. Steve Wagenseller pointed us to the photograph above, Excusado by Edward Weston and also linked to an essay by Marco Bohr on this photograph. I would strongly recommend looking at some other photographs by Weston (the tight closeups of vegetables are fantastic) and reading this essay “Excusado by Edward Weston“. A couple of key quotes. In this first quote Bohr places Edward Weston’s work within the broader context of art (and art movements) particularly drawing attention to the similarities and differences between his picture of a toilet and another (more famous) toilet that featured in the history of 20th century art.
Just like Marcel Duchamp eight years earlier, although this stands in a completely different context, he gave character to a toilet with his own recognizable ‘handwriting’. Duchamp had said that the perception of his urinal instillation was transformed by putting it in a gallery and calling it art. Weston transformed the perception of a toilet by capturing its pure aesthetic value in his defined style…
The next quote (and this is how Bohr finishes his essay) captures, for me the essence of the veja du assignment and takes it one step further, to comment on all that we do.
‘Excusado’ means to look at your object from different perspectives. For me it also means to get closer to the center of interest. It means that the light shapes the form and the form shapes the light. ‘Excusado’ means that there is no excuse for not making a beautiful picture even if it is toilet.
Think about that last sentence for a moment:
Excusado” means that there is no excuse for not making a beautiful picture even if there is a toilet.
Wow! What does that mean for me as a teacher? As a parent? As colleague? There are no excuses …
I recommend reading the full thing but here is a quote that sort of captures his vision (though there is more, much more). Here is a great quote:
WHEN TEXT IS free to combine in new, surprising ways, new forms of value are created.
In another section he speaks of the page that results when you do a Google search for the word “journalism.”
Who is the “author” of this page? There are, in all likelihood, thousands of them. It has been constructed, algorithmically, by remixing small snippets of text from diverse sources, with diverse goals, and transformed into something categorically different and genuinely valuable. In the center column, we have short snippets of text written by ten individuals or groups, though of course, Google reports that it has 32 million more snippets to survey if we want to keep clicking. The selection of these initial ten links is itself dependant on millions of other snippets of text that link to these and other journalism-related pages on the Web. Along the right side of the page, we have short snippets of text written by five advertisers, mostly journalism schools as it happens, though they are in a silent competition with other snippets of text created by other advertisers bidding to be on this page. And then we have the text in the search field, created by me, which summons this entire network of text together in a fraction of a second.
What you see on this page is, in a very real sense, textual play: the recombining of words into new forms and associations that their original creators never dreamed of. But what separates it from the textual play that I was earnestly studying twenty years ago is the fact that it has engendered a two hundred billion dollar business.
Teaching with technology, for me, is all about repurposing technology. Such repurposing requires creative play. Our presentation at SITE 2010 was around some creative micro- and macro-design tasks that can help foster such creative repurposing. I just came across this 1964 Jonathan Winters / Jack Paar video that makes the same point but in a far more interesting manner. Enjoy.
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As he said, “Here’s a stick…” he said, “Make me believe in something.”
I just got back from an extended trip to California (San Jose and San Diego). I will be posting a lot more about this trip but for now here are the slides from a symposium on “Strategies for teacher professional development of TPACK” organized by Joke Voogt of Twente University. The symposium consisted of 4 different presentations by faculty and graduate students from three different universities.
You can access a pdf of the proposal here and a copy of the slides here.
Introduction to the symposium Joke Voogt, (Twente University)
Technology integration in the science teacher preparation program in Kuwait: Becoming TPACK competent through design Ghaida Alayyar, Petra Fisser & Joke Voogt (Twente University)
Developing TPACK by Design Punya Mishra, Matt Koehler, Tae Seob Shin, Leigh Graves Wolf & Mike DeSchryver (Michigan State University)
Developing TPACK through teacher design teams: The case of pre-service mathematics teachers in Ghana Douglas Agyei & Joke Voogt (Twente University)
The development of an instrument to assess teacher development of TPACK Denise Schmidt, Evrim Baran, Ann Thompson (Iowa State University), Punya Mishra, Matt Koehler, & Tae Shin (Michigan State University)
More details of the symposium can be found on Petra Fisser’s blog, here, here and here. Note: Petra blogs in Dutch but in an age of Google Translate how much of an issue is that!
TPACK Newsletter, Issue #7.1:
Special SITE & AERA Conference Issue
March-April 2010
Welcome to the seventh edition of the TPACK Newsletter, published four times each year between September and April. If you are not sure what TPACK is, please surf over to http://www.tpack.org/ to find out more.
Gratuitous Quote About Technology
“For a list of all the ways technology has failed to improve the quality of life, please press three.” ~Alice Kahn
In This Issue
-1. Gratuitous Quote About Technology
0.In This Issue (–> You are here)
1. Update on Newsletter
2. TPACK SIG Meeting at SITE 2010 in San Diego 3. Recent TPACK Publications & Presentations 4. Recent TPACK-Related Dissertations
5. TPACK at California Council on Teacher Education Spring Conference 6. Coming up: TPACK at SITE 7. Coming up: TPACK at AERA 8. TPACK Work in Progress 9. New Hybrid Ph.D. Program at Michigan State (Connecting with TPACK)
10. Learning and Doing More with TPACK
–. Un-numbered miscellaneous stuff at the end
1. Update on Newsletter
The TPACK newsletter currently has 707 subscribers! In addition to being a palindromic number, this also represents a 9.2% increase in membership during the last two months.
Many thanks to those of you who sent in corrections so quickly to version 7.0 of his newsletter! We have incorporated them in this 7.1 edition.
2. TPACK SIG Meeting at SITE 2010 in San Diego
The TPACK SIG meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, March 31 from 8 – 9 AM in the Marina 3 room at the SITE Conference 2010 in San Diego, California. Please mark your calendars. More information about TPACK-related papers and presentations at SITE can be found below.
There are some leadership opportunities in the SIG that may be of interest to members (faculty and graduate students). We hope to welcome many at the meeting. We look forward to seeing you there.
3. Recent TPACK Publications & Presentations Below are several recent TPACK publications and presentations that we know about. If you know of others that were shared within the past several months, please let us know (tpack.news.editors@wm.edu).
Articles/Chapters
Blanchard, M. R., Harris, J., & Hofer, M. (2010). Grounded tech integration: Science. Learning & Leading With Technology, 37(6). 32-34.
Figg, C. & McCartney, R. (2010). Impacting academic achievement with student learners teaching digital storytelling to others: The ATTTCSE digital video project. Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 10(1). Retrieved from http://www.citejournal.org/vol10/iss1/languagearts/article3.cfm
Grandgenett, N., Harris, J., & Hofer, M. (2009). Grounded tech integration: Math.Learning & Leading With Technology, 37(3), 24-26.
Groth, R., Spickler, D., Bergner, J., & Bardzell, M. (2009). A qualitative approach to assessing technological pedagogical content knowledge.Contemporary Issues in Technology & Teacher Education, 9(4), 392-411. Retrieved from http://www.citejournal.org/vol9/iss4/mathematics/article1.cfm
Hardy, M. (2010). Enhancing preservice mathematics teachers’ TPCK. Journal of Computers in Mathematics and Science Teaching, 29(1), 73-86. Retrieved from http://www.editlib.org/p/33136
Kramarski, B. & Michalsky, T. (in press). Preparing preservice teachers for self-regulated learning in the context of technological pedagogical content knowledge. Learning and Instruction. Doi:10.1016/j.learninstruc.2009.05.003
Lee, M. H. & Tsai, C. C. (2010). Exploring teachers’ perceived self-efficacy and technological pedagogical content knowledge with respect to educational use of the World Wide Web. Instructional Science, 38(1), 1-21. Retrieved from http://www.springerlink.com/content/d510480505435104/
Pan, N., Lau, H., Lai, W. (2010). Sharing e-learning innovation across disciplines: An encounter between engineering and teacher education. Electronic Journal of e-Learning. 8(1). Retrieved from http://www.ejel.org/Volume-8/v8-i1/v8-i1-art-4.htm
Tanti, M., & Moran, W. (2009). Warts and all: Integrating ICT in teacher training. International Journal of Learning, 16,641-655.
Van Olphen, M., Hofer, M., & Harris, J. (2009-10). Grounded tech integration: Languages. Learning & Leading With Technology. 37(4), 26-28.
Wang, Q. (2009). Guiding teachers in the process of ICT integration: Analysis of three conceptual models. Educational Technology,
49(5), 23-27. Retrieved from http://qywang.myplace.nie.edu.sg/Publications.htm
Whitehouse, P., McCloskey, E., & Ketelhut, D. J. (2009). Online pedagogy design and development: New models for 21st century online teacher professional development. In J. O. Lindberg & A. D. Olofsson (Eds.), Online learning communities and teacher professional development: Methods for improved education delivery (pp. 247-262). Hershey, PA: IGI Global.
Young, C., Hofer, M., & Harris, J. (2010). Grounded tech integration: English Language Arts. Learning & Leading With Technology, 37(5), 28-30.
The following TPACK-based dissertations have been released recently. There may be more… (and if so, you know whom to contact with that information
Chase, E. (2009). Extension educators’ perceptions of the use of digital technology in their work. Michigan State University, Lansing, MI. AAT 3381427
Nathan, E. J. (2009). An examination of the relationship between preservice teachers’ level of technology integration self-efficacy (TISE) and level of technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK). University of Houston, Houston, TX. AAT 3388727
Sheffield, C. C. (2009). A multiple case study analysis of middle grades social studies teachers’ instructional use of digital technology with academically talented students at three high-performing middle schools. University of South Florida, Tampa, FL. AAT 3394182
5. TPACK at California Council on Teacher Education Spring Conference
The annual meeting of the California Council on Teacher Education (March 25 – 27, in San Jose) has a strong TPACK thematic focus. There will be keynote presentations and panel discussions led by TPACK regulars like PunyaMishra, Judi Harris, Glen Bull and Mario Kelly. http://www.ccte.org/conferences/
6. Coming up: TPACK at SITE 2010
Here is a list of presentations related to TPACK at the SITE conference at San Diego, March 29 – April 1. There are 34 papers, presentations, poster sessions and symposia related to TPACK that will be included in this conference. Please note the SIG meeting at 8 – 9 am on Wednesday, 3/31/10 as well. Specific locations and times for the presentations can be found on the SITE Conference Web site.
We have tried to capture all of the entries but if we missed yours (or one that you know about), do let us know (tpack.news.editors@wm.edu).
Tuesday, March 30
SITE’s Digital Fabrication Initative Glen Bull, University of Virginia, USA; Gary Marks, SITE, USA; Nick Sanham, Aspex, UK; Willy Kjellstrom, University of Virginia, USA
Strategies for Teacher Professional Development of TPACK, Part 1 & 2 Joke Voogt, University of Twente, Netherlands; Ann Thompson, Iowa State University, USA; PunyaMishra, Michigan State University, USA; Petra Fisser, University of Twente, Netherlands; GhaidaAllayar, Public Authority of Applied Education and Training, Kuwait; Douglas Agyei, University of Cape Coast, Ghana; Matthew Koehler, Michigan State University, USA; Tae Seob Shin, Michigan State University, USA; Leigh Graves Wolf, Michigan State University, USA; Mike DeSchryver, Michigan State University, USA; Denise Schmidt, Iowa State University, USA; EvrimBaran, Iowa State University, USA
The Validation of an Instrument Measuring TPACK Nicolette Burgoyne, Brigham Young University, USA; Charles R. Graham, Brigham Young University, USA; Richard Sudweeks, Brigham Young University, USA
Using TPACK as a Model for School Development KirstiEngelien, Department of Teacher Education and School Development, University of Oslo, Norway; KjerstiStundal, Gjerdrum secondary school, Norway
TPACK as Shared, Distributed Knowledge HægeNore, Akershus University College, Faculty of Technical and Vocational Teacher Education, Norway; Kirsti L. Engelien, University of Oslo, Department of Teacher Education and School Development, Norway; Monica Johannesen, Oslo University College, Faculty of Education and International Studies, Norway
The annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association is scheduled for April 30 – May 4 in Denver, Colorado. TPACK will be well represented there, with approximately 12 presentations (that we could find) related to the construct. They are:
(Symposia)
Perspectives on TPACK Chair: Gerald A. Knezek (University of North Texas)
Discussant: Ann D. Thompson (Iowa State University)
Exploring the nature of Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge using Factor Analysis DeannaArchambault (Arizona State University), Joshua H. Barnett (Arizona State University)
Lost and found in Translation: A TPACK Survey of Mid-Career Teacher Beliefs and Practice Lisa G. Hervey (North Carolina State University)
Measuring the TPK Component of TPACK: An Alternative to Self-Assessment Andrew Frederick Barrett (Indiana University)
Knowledge Growth in Teaching Mathematics-Science with Technology: Moving PCK to TPACK in Online Professional Development Maggie L. Niess (Oregon State University), Emily H. Van Zee (Oregon State University), Tina L. Johnston (Oregon State University), Henry Gillow-Wiles (Oregon State University)
Innovative Pathways to the Development of Teacher Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge: Empirical Accounts From Preservice and In-Service Teachers Chair: ChrystallaMouza (University of Delaware)
Discussant: Ann Thompson (Iowa State University)
Evidence of TPACK in Preservice Graduates’ Rationales for Future Technology Use Joan E. Hughes (University of Texas-Austin)
Preservice Teachers’ Technology Integrated Planning: Contrasting Quality and Instructional Variety by Development Approach Mark J. Hofer (College of William & Mary), Neal Grandgenett (University of Nebraska-Omaha), Judith B. Harris (College of William & Mary), Karen Work Richardson (College of William & Mary)
Using Classroom Artifacts to Judge Teacher Knowledge of Reform-Based Instructional Practices that Integrate Technology in Mathematics and Science Classrooms Maggie L. Niess (Oregon State University)
Effects of Practice-Based Professional Development on Teacher Learning in Technology Integration ChrystallaMouza (University of Delaware)
GeoThentic: Designing and Assessing with Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge Aaron Doering (University of Minnesota), Cassandra Scharber (University of Minnesota)
(Individual Papers)
Developing TPACK in Mathematics Instruction. Andrew B. Polly (University of North Carolina-Charlotte)
Using TPACK Without Knowing It: Preservice Teachers’ Perceptions of Integrating Instructional Technology in Social Studies. Erik Jon Byker (Michigan State University)
The Continuing Development, Validation, and Implementation of a TPACK Assessment for Preservice Teachers Denise A. Schmidt (Iowa State University), EvrimBaran (Iowa State University), Ann D. Thompson (Iowa State University), Matthew J. Koehler (Michigan State University), PunyaMishra (Michigan State University), Tae Seob Shin (Michigan State University)
8. TPACK Work in Progress
Bob Isaacson, who works in the Faculty Development Division in the U.S. Army’s Defense Language Institute, shared a draft of a paper that he’s working on at present with us. It uses TPACK to describe “Training Requirements for Foreign Language Teaching Online.” In the paper, Bob concludes, “The TCPK construct can provide a conceptual framework for faculty development specialists to develop training that will enable foreign language teachers to make the transition from traditional face-to-face teaching to online distance teaching using both best pedagogical practices for teaching foreign languages at a distance and existing technology resources and tools.” If you would like to communicate with Bob about his work, please email him.
9. New Hybrid Ph.D. Program at Michigan State (Connecting with TPACK)
The idea of TPACK is deeply grounded in practice. Keeping this in mind, and in order the develop the next generation of TPACK-fluent scholars and researchers, the Educational Psychology and Educational Technology program at Michigan State University is now offering a hybrid doctoral program focused on the evolving roles of technology in learning. This cohort-based, blended program (which combines online coursework with intensive summer classes on campus) is designed for bright, established professionals currently working in K-12 schools, universities, policy centers, and research institutions who want to earn a Ph.D. while continuing in their current positions. The goal is to bring together a cohort of practitioners, using the powerful collaborative tools we now have, to create, explore and share; to engage in dialogue and dissent; to critique and conduct research; and to experiment with new technologies, new pedagogies and new content. To find out more about this program please click on the following links:
10. Learning and Doing More with TPACK Interested in learning more about TPACK or getting more involved in the TPACK community? Here are a few ideas:
Visit and contribute to the TPACK wiki at: http://tpack.org /
Join the TPACK SIG at: http://site.aace.org/sigs/tpack-sig.htm
Join and contribute to the TPACK Google group at: http://groups.google.com/group/tpack/
Review and provide feedback on the TPACK Learning Activity Types at: http://activitytypes.wmwikis.net/
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- Judi, Matt, Mario, and Punya
Judi Harris, Chair, College of William & Mary Matt Koehler, Vice-Chair, Michigan State University Mario Kelly, Futon, Hunter College PunyaMishra, Recliner, Michigan State University
Evrim Baran (who I often joke is the only reader of this blog) sent me this link to a set of notes by Jeff Jarvis from a TED talk he recently gave. He says that he
used the opportunity of a TED event to question the TED format, especially in relation to education, where — as in media — we must move past the one-way lecture to collaboration.
I just came across this page of excellent logo designs. Some of the designs may need a moment or two to truly register. Check out 20 Unique and Creative Logo Designs.
Just came across this video about Milton Glaser. If you are interested in design you have to watch it for yourself. But here’s a quote that stayed with me:
The possibility for learning never disappears. Basically you have to admit you never learn it.
I just finished a marathon session of presentations and discussions with the master’s students in Curriculum Development and Educational Innovation at Twente University. It was wonderful to meet with them and discuss creativity, teaching, design, TPACK, among other things. Here are the slides I used in pdf format. Photos from the past few days can be found on my Flickr site or on the Picasa site maintained by Petra Fisser (one of the organizers of the symposium).
I had them (as one of the mini-activities around half-way through the day) write a poem capturing their understanding. Here are the poems they came up with (with the names of participants at the end). Sadly no one took me up on writing a poem in Dutch!
A few days ago we announced a new hybrid Ph.D. program in educational technology. It will be offered substantially online with some critical on-campus face to face factored in. You can find more details of the program by going to the website, or by reading the news release or a news story. But here I want to speak to something else—I want to speak about my personal excitement at being a part of this new program and why I think it is important. These ideas are difficult to fit into a press release or program website, but I think they are extremely important, maybe more so, than what gets into official documents. So here goes… Read the rest of this entry »
TPACK involves understanding the capabilities of technology – understanding how we make meaning with it, how we can manipulate it to communicate, engage and teach. I include below an extraordinarily powerful use of media, created with the simplest of tools, one camera, a couple of people and some music. No 3-d aliens, no fancy digital effects – but (and this is important) the designers clearly have a deep understanding of the nuances of meaning that can be generated through subtle yet powerful use of the tools at hand. Zooms and pans, dissolves and wipes, memories and meanings.
Think about this video when people ask of what value are these new digital tools? Tell them we don’t know – but maybe a few years from now someone will surprise us by creating something this touching and breathtaking.
Russ Goerend over at Learning is Life has initiated a fascinating discussion on the TPACK framework on his blog. It all revolves around a blog post he titled The force is strong with the shiny one. I shall not seek to summarize the discussion here (please go read it for yourself) but there are a couple of things he wrote that connected with me and that I would like to comment on. He wrote:
When I think of the TPACK diagram, I picture horseshoe magnets on the outside of each circle, pointed into the middle. Those magnets are what keep the quality teacher balanced in the center, each magnet pulling and building a feeling of equilibrium. This is obviously best-case scenario.
He describes the evolving knowledge of the teacher as (and I love this phrase) Journey to the Center of the Venn. As Matt Koehler and I have written earlier, we see all good teachers as sitting right in the middle of the three intersecting circles. Elsewhere we had written:
Clearly, separating the three components (content, pedagogy and technology) in our model is an analytic act and one that is difficult to tease out in practice. In actuality these components exist in a state of dynamic equilibrium, or as the philosopher Kuhn (1977) said in a different context, in a state of “essential tension.” (This is in our original TC Record article that introduced the TPACK construct, though it was then called TPCK. I am sure we have written about this elsewhere as well, but I am being a bit lazy here.)
From the Saline Schools, right here in Michigan, comes a video about how teachers and students are using cellphone in the classroom to enhance teaching and learning. Check it out
The math-po (and sci-po) stream keeps flowing. Math Mama Writes, who started the whole math-poetry movement has some more on her blog, and here is Erin Nash with some really beautiful biological poetry. And of course, here’s her husband Sean Nash having his students writing poetry too. Of course let’s not forget my daughter Shreya (who sort of started this whole thing) and her sci-po’s at her blog Uniquely Mine.
Below are some thoughts about math-poetry – but you can ignore all that and scroll right down to the poem: The infinity of primes!
Through all this I have been plugging away at my math poetry. I know the original challenge was to write something to motivate students to learn math (and I did write one along those lines). But more interesting to me has been this theme I have picked up, which is of writing proofs as poetry. I know many people have described mathematics in poetic terms but I am trying something slightly different here. I am trying to explain theorems (as in these couple of instances, see here, here, here and here) and speficially in the poem included below, I am actually trying to construct a mathematical proof in rhyming verse.
The Rethink Scholarship is an scholarship for aspiring art directors and designers to Langara College’s Communication and Ideation Design program. This video is to publicize the program.
Abstract: Based in Shulman’s idea of Pedagogical Content Knowledge, Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) has emerged as a useful frame for describing and understanding the goals for technology use in preservice teacher education. This paper addresses the need for a survey instrument designed to assess TPACK for preservice teachers. The paper describes the survey development process and results from a pilot study on 124 preservice teachers. Data analysis procedures included Cronbach’s alpha statistics on the TPACK knowledge domains and factor analysis for each domain. Results suggest that, with the modification and/or deletion of 18 of the survey items, the survey is a reliable and valid instrument that will help educators design longitudinal studies to assess perservice teachers’ development of TPACK. (Keywords: TPACK, instrument development, preservice teachers)
I stumbled across this little machine that shuts itself off once it has been switched on! How cool is that. I don’t have an clue whom to credit it to and would appreciate a heads up on that. I was reminded of the myth of Sisyphus which led to a great piece of hand-drawn animation on YouTube. So here they are… somewhat apt images for a dull, dreary day in mid-Michigan.
Excusado by Edward Weston
