Are students of today interested to use technology in order to learn?

Do
teachers have the skills to use technology to enhance their teaching? With
the Fourth Industrial Revolution, nobody can deny the influence of technology
in our lives. As future teachers of the 21st century, it is high time that you
prepare yourselves to integrate technology in your classrooms. Using
technology is a tool and a catalyst for change. What then are the roles of
technology for teaching and learning?

As teaching and learning go together, let us explore what would be the roles
of technology for teachers and teaching and for learners and learning.
According to Stosic (2015), educational technology has three domains:

1. Technology as a tutor. Together with the teacher, technology can

support the teacher to teach another person or technology when
programmed by the teacher can be a tutor on its own. The teacher will
simply switch on or switch off radio programs, television programs of
play DVDs, or CDs that contain educational programs. There are online
tutorial educational programs, too.
2. Technology as teaching tool. Like tutor, technology is a teaching tool,
but can never replace a teacher. This is like a handyman, which is just
there to be reached. Like any other tool, it is being used to facilitate and
lighten the work of the teacher. It will be good if the teacher can also
create or develop technology tools that are needed in the classroom.
3. Technology as a learning tool. While the teacher utilizes technology
as the tool for teaching , likewise it is an effective tool for learning. As a
learning tool, it makes learning easy and effective. It can produce
learning outcomes that call for technology-assisted teaching. Even
teachers who are teaching can utilize similar tools for learning. As a
learning tool, it is very interesting that even the elderly use these tools
for learning for life.

 FOR TEACHERS AND TEACHING

There are numerous roles that technology plays in the job of teachers. As a
tools, technology has opened wider avenues in management of resources and
management of learning. Likewise, it has modernized the teaching-learning
environment in schools. Here are some examples of the myriad of roles that
technology can do for teachers and teaching.
 1. Technology provides enormous support to the teacher as the
facilitator of learning. It transforms a passive classroom to an active
and interactive one, with audio-visual aids and models, smart
classrooms, e-learning classrooms which motivate and increase
attention level of learners. Many of these can be searched on the web.
2. Technology has modernized the teaching-learning
environment. The teachers are assisted and supplemented with
appropriately structured instructional materials for daily activities. There
are varied available technology-driven resources which can be utilized
for remedial lesson or activities. Likewise, there are also a lot
technology-driven resources that can be used for enrichment purposes.
You may search for examples on the web.
3. Technology improves teaching-learning process and ways of
teaching. This will make the act of teaching more efficient and effective.
There arrays of teaching methods and strategies that can use
technology which are found compatible with learning styles.
The multiple intelligence theory of Howard Gardner tells us that there is
a genius in every child. This implies that there must be varied ways of
teaching as there are many varied ways of learning. All the learning
styles can find support from technology, so that teaching will be more
effective and effic
4. Through the utilization of theories of learning and intelligence, which are
explained in references uploaded in the net, the teachers are
encouraged to imbibe skills to source these information with speed and
accuracy.
5. Technology supports teacher professional development. With the
demand of continuing professional development for teachers, the
availability of technology provides alternative way of attending
88professional development online. For those who are involved as
providers of continuing professional development like trainers,
facilitators or organizers, they can level up or enhance their delivery
systems with the support of technology tools.

TPACK is a technology integration framework that identifies three types of

knowledge instructors need to combine for successful edtech integration—
technological, pedagogical, and content knowledge (a.k.a. TPACK).
While TPACK is often compared with the SAMR Model, they are very different
in scope.
 Let’s dive into the purpose and elements of TPACK. 

The center of the diagram, otherwise known as TPACK, represents a full

understanding of how to teach with technology. Keep in mind that this is not
the same as having knowledge of each of the three primary concepts
individually. Instead, the point of TPACK is to understand how to use
technology to teach concepts in a way that enhances student learning
experiences.

Imagine you are a Social Studies teacher. The topic is:

The traditional strategies or activities might go as follows:

Got it? Okay. So how might the TPACK framework be used to enhance this
lesson?

Applying Technological, Pedagogical, and Content Knowledge to Your

Lesson

As mentioned before, the TPACK framework is based on three primary forms

of knowledge. So your first step should be to understand your primary forms
of knowledge in the context of this lesson.

 Content Knowledge (CK)—what are you teaching and what is your own
knowledge of the subject? For this lesson, you’ll need a solid understanding of
cell anatomy and processes.
 Pedagogical Knowledge (PK)—how do your students learn best and what
instructional strategies do you need to meet their needs and the requirements
 of the lesson plan? In this case, you’ll need to understand best practices for
teaching middle school science and small group collaboration.
 Technological Knowledge (TK)—what digital tools are available to you,
which do you know well enough to use, and which would be most appropriate
for the lesson at hand? For this lesson, students will need to label a diagram
and present, so the ability to fill in blanks with an answer key, find images
from the internet, create slides, etc. are important.

As we understand them individually, we can start to see overlaps where all

primary forms of knowledge blend together.

 Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK)—understanding the best practices

for teaching specific content to your specific students.
 Technological Content Knowledge (TCK)—knowing how the digital tools
available to you can enhance or transform the content, how it’s delivered to
students, and how your students can interact with it.
 Technological Pedagogical Knowledge (TPK)—understanding how to use
your digital tools as a vehicle to the learning outcomes and experiences you
want.

Now let’s weave all this technological, pedagogical, and content knowledge
(TPACK) together and enhance the activities of our original lesson plan.
Remember, the goal is to be purposeful in applying each form of knowledge.
CONTENT PEDAGOGICAL KNOWLEDGE TECHNOLOGICAL
KNOWLEDGE (Instructional Strategies-Learning KNOWLEDGE
(Choose Strategies) (Select of Digital Tools)
Learning Goals
Planning)