Building up my TPACK

In writing my unit plan for a Year 4 History class, I have made significant contributions to my TPACK.

Reproduced by permission of the publisher, © 2012 by tpack.org

This post will focus on the Technological Content Knowledge (TCK) that I have gained during the research and writing phases of the unit plan.

First of all, I chose history as the subject area for the unit plan as I have not done a History lesson plan or unit plan before. When we are given choice in subject areas for our assessments, I like to choose areas that I feel that I need further development in... Essentially, to use the opportunity of assessment and feedback to build my knowledge bank ready for when I begin teaching.

If my understanding of TPACK, and in-particular TCK is correct, than I am to assess the development and improvement of incorporating ICT into my history content knowledge. Some of the things that I have learnt about that build on my TCK are:

• Google Earth can be used to map journeys of explorers and stimulate discussions on land features.
• Spatial Genie maps are available in Scootle to use as a resource.
• Organising and retrieving information in History can be facilitated using Diigo Library.
• Visit museum websites to source information relating to historical topics.
• Timetoast can be used to create historical timelines.
• Online archive websites provide primary and secondary sources of information, such as the National Archives.

After looking through other students' blog posts about TPACK, I do wonder if I fully understand how TPACK can be used. This ICT and Pedagogy post describes using TPACK as an organiser in place of, or in-conjunction with other frameworks such as Blooms. I think that I need more understanding on this model to truly understand its usefulness.