As students explore their search results, they see firsthand
how words and phrases are borrowed, re-combined, and
re-circulated, and they reflect on how the same words can
mean different things in different contexts. As they criss-
cross the Web, students begin to formulate hypotheses
about vectors of influence, processes of transformation,
and dynamics of popularity. Of course they could
do this just as easily using Google, but the advantage
of these visual search engines is the way the results
appear. These engines search results, not in the text-
based series of links as Google commonly does, but
with tag-clouds or visual icons. Similar search “hits” are
grouped together, allowing students to view at a glance
how citations can cluster, thus scaffolding a student’s
understanding about how certain texts work together.
Combining a search with freely available bookmark-
ing tools, such as iBreadcrumbs, allows students not
only to record their navigation through hyperspace
but also to annotate it. They can then share these itin-
eraries and annotations with the teacher and others
and use them as the basis for further discussion about
the nature of intertextuality. The annotations also offer
interesting possibilities for student assessment.
DJ software. Graduate student Erik Byker looks at how
freely available DJ software, such as trakAxPC, can be used
to teach mathematical concepts such as ratios, fractions,
and percentages. TrakAxPC allows users to download music samples and copy and paste them into a mixer. They can
A Closer Look at the TPACK Framework
expert teachers consciously and unconsciously find ways to
orchestrate and coordinate technology, pedagogy, and content
into every act of teaching. they flexibly navigate the affordances
and constraints of each technology and each possible teaching
approach to find solutions that effectively combine content,
pedagogy, and technology. they find solutions to complex,
dynamic problems of practice by designing curricular solutions
that fit their unique goals, situations, and student learners.
these expert teachers demonstrate a specialized kind of
knowledge that the tpack framework tries to capture by
describing their knowledge as a deep, pragmatic, and nuanced
understanding of three knowledge bases—content, pedagogy,
and technology. We understand that, in some ways, the
separation of teaching into content, pedagogy, and technology
is not necessarily straightforward, or even something that good
teachers do consciously. When technology integration is working
well, effective teaching represents a “dynamic equilibrium”
between content, pedagogy, and technology such that a change
in any one of the factors has to be compensated by changes in
the other two. For example, teachers who change the technology
they use naturally make changes to their pedagogical approach
and the content they cover to create a new “curriculum” that is
also highly effective.
knowledge of technology, content, and pedagogy does not
exist in a vacuum; it exists and functions within specific contexts.
teachers face a wide array of elements that make their contexts
unique and different from other teachers. consider, for instance,
the one-laptop-per-child initiative. clearly the fact that each
child in a class has a computer that can access the internet will
influence how a teacher approaches curriculum development and
student participation. in contrast, consider the teacher who has
access to a computer lab for 50 minutes a few times per week.
this situation calls for radically different pedagogical moves.
similarly, many teachers face firewalls and restrictions on the
resources they can access from class. in this context, the issue
is not to argue whether or not these restrictions are good or bad
but rather something to consider when making curricular and
pedagogical decisions. (to read more about using the tpack
framework, see “Realizing technology potential through tpack,”
L&L, september/october 2008, pp. 23–26.)
