TPACK & SAMR (& Maybe some 5Es)

OK, so I have just been doing the Week 3 Learning Path, and have been introduced to some new acronyms; TPACK & SAMTR.  Both of them are very interesting and I am looking forward to getting a clearer picture of them in my head over the coming weeks.

The first, is TPACK; Technological Pedagogical (&) Content Knowledge.  Essentially, this is a way of looking at the art of teaching (Pedagogy), the science of teaching (content), and the way we use technology to help us to provide the richest learning opportunity to students.  It is about how we select appropriate instruction strategies, thinking tools etc ., along with the information or data that we want students to understand or know, along with ICTs.  Well that’s my take on it at the moment anyway.  If you want to know more there is some good information available at Teaching Teachers for the Future.  There are some good videos to help you get your head around it, too.

The second, is SAMR; Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, & Redefinition.  This theory, or way of thinking, is about recognising what stage you (or school) is at.  The goal is to get to the Redefinition stage; where ‘we use technology without even thinking about it’.  A bit like how we take photos on our phone and post pictures and messages to Facebook, without really thinking about it.  But we use it in a way that enables us to redesign how we do things.  You can find heaps of great info about it at iSupport.  The following picture was really good to help understand how we move from one stage to another.

 

I wanted to share an interesting idea that a fellow student, Pamela, blogged about recently.  She was talking about her current thoughts in relation to technology and learning, in preparation for assignment one when she mentioned the 5Es.  I was fascinated, as I had previously only thought of this as a science strategy.  I really love this connection…well done Pamela!