THE Total Package (TPACK)
What is TpAcK?
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Creating the total PACKage refers to the ideas of the TPACK framework illustrated to the left. TPACK is an acronym referring to three forms of knowledge: Technological Knowledge (TK), Pedagogical Knowledge (PK) and Content Knowledge (CK). The TPACK framework was created based upon Lee Schulman's idea of Pedagogical Content Knowledge and was expanded by Matthew Koehler and Punya Mishra. The framework "...suggests that content, pedagogy, technology and teaching/learning contexts have roles to play individually and together" (Koehler & Mishra, 2009, p.17). When the three types of knowledge intersect and are integrated together within a specific context, effective and meaningful teaching with technology can be achieved. |
Context
I am the part-time Educational Technology Specialist in addition to being a full-time mobile K-8 Spanish and Broadcasting teacher at St. Lawrence Catholic School in Utica, Michigan. St. Lawrence is a prekindergarten through eighth grade building supporting about 850 students. We have approximately 37 staff members who work in multiple capacities. We have three sections of each grade level beginning at Kindergarten. This will be my second year as Educational Technology Specialist and fourth year teaching at St. Lawrence.
We have one computer lab in our building with 31 desktop computers which is unavailable for regular classroom teacher use as it is used full time as the Technology classroom. All of our students receive an enrichment technology class as part of their curriculum once a week for fifty minutes. We are unable to build another computer lab due to lack of physical space. Available for teachers to check out, we have one mobile cart with 30 Dell laptops, another mobile cart with 30 netbooks and one mobile cart with 30 Windows 8 Surface Tablets all of varying ages and functionality which are shared between 15 teachers. We also have a cart of 10 MacBook Pro laptops dedicated to our middle school Broadcasting program.
In Kindergarten through third grade we began an iPad initiative last year to support literacy so there are six iPad minis in each classroom for those grade levels. Teachers were not supplied with iPads for classroom use of their own and are not allowed to check out school iPads from the school building. Teachers are all provided with one teacher desktop computer for their classroom. All classrooms are equipped with a built in projector and MimioBoard Interactive Whiteboards and lower elementary also have document cameras. We have a shared parish and school Technology Coordinator that does all of the school and parish technology purchasing and troubleshooting.
We have one computer lab in our building with 31 desktop computers which is unavailable for regular classroom teacher use as it is used full time as the Technology classroom. All of our students receive an enrichment technology class as part of their curriculum once a week for fifty minutes. We are unable to build another computer lab due to lack of physical space. Available for teachers to check out, we have one mobile cart with 30 Dell laptops, another mobile cart with 30 netbooks and one mobile cart with 30 Windows 8 Surface Tablets all of varying ages and functionality which are shared between 15 teachers. We also have a cart of 10 MacBook Pro laptops dedicated to our middle school Broadcasting program.
In Kindergarten through third grade we began an iPad initiative last year to support literacy so there are six iPad minis in each classroom for those grade levels. Teachers were not supplied with iPads for classroom use of their own and are not allowed to check out school iPads from the school building. Teachers are all provided with one teacher desktop computer for their classroom. All classrooms are equipped with a built in projector and MimioBoard Interactive Whiteboards and lower elementary also have document cameras. We have a shared parish and school Technology Coordinator that does all of the school and parish technology purchasing and troubleshooting.