Rationale


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“The important thing in science is not so much to obtain new facts as to discover new ways of thinking about them.” //** **// —Sir William Henry Bragg  //**
 * Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge ** (TPCK) is a framework for understanding and describing types of knowledge that teachers must possess in order to effectively integrate technology into instruction. The framework posits that in order for technology to effective is must be appropriately aligned with the instructional content and instructional methods. One of the strengths of this framework is that it provides an explanation of how content, pedagogy, and technology can work together to address the needs of individual learners and promote content competencies. Technology can be used as a tool to enhance learning through visual stimulation, increase productivity, and encourage creativity. Educators must be prepared to manage the peripatetic mind of digital era learners. New media can be utilized to provide an emphasis on student interests, provide opportunities for social learning, and capitalize on the constructivist approach toward learning.

The teacher’s role as a facilitator is necessary and constructive. Children need time to play with technology in order to self-discover ways of using it creatively. Students who can see and hear their environment will be motivated to recreate their realities in an audiovisual manner.

The use of new digital media is on the rise yet over the past twenty years reading performance among teenagers and young adults has significantly dropped. The use of online comprehension aids helps make scientific articles easier for students lacking adequate comprehension skills to read. There is a positive value to multimedia online reading comprehension aids in the form of annotations, narrated animations, glossaries, motivational content, and self-check questions throughout the source. Active, participatory media creation is needed for the development of media literacy skills and subsequent literacy and highly prized job skills for our emerging digital society. This generation of students must be taught to use digital media on both an independent and group basis in order to acquire the literacy skills needed to face and solve the challenges of their future. Teachers need to properly manage digital media but do not necessarily need to possess personal mastery of it.

Von Bauwel states that various forms of media influence and control different aspects of daily life in the Western world but a divide exists between those with and without access. Theories and studies support the necessity of understanding how media works and foster critical thinking skills in terms of evaluating media and media content. It is also imperative to point out that the use of TPCK should not just encourage skills development, but it should work toward increasing problem solving skills, higher order thinking skills, creativity, and innovative thinking.

Negotiating the relationships among these three components requires selective planning, awareness, and access to current technologies. Incorporating TPCK into the classroom dramatically changes the role of the traditional instructor form that of being a provider of knowledge to a facilitator of knowledge. It is important that educators maintain an awareness of new technologies as they become available and a willingness to incorporate their usage in the classroom. Digital media can be used to enhance vocabulary development, increase decoding and comprehension skills, provide game-like learning of wide-ranging skills, and formative assessment. Foundational literacy skills must now be linked with critical thinking, collaborative problem solving, and media literacy in order for students to learn to solve authentic 21st century problems. These types of instructional methods result in learning that transfers to improved achievement on standardized tests, allow educators to improve their classroom performance, and engage digital students in the educational process. It is important that students gain an awareness of and skill-usage of a wide variety of technologies. Simply knowing the answers is not enough to get students into the colleges of their choice any more. Higher levels of education are seeking students with high-level cognitive skills. They are seeking students with strong problem solving, innovative, and inventive thinking skills. Gronseth states that LiPira is aware that, “Technological literacy has been linked to academic success and employment.” In order for the quality of education provided to our students to continue to improve it needs to grow, adapt to, and adopt new forms of technology as they become available. In response to NCLB, 21st Century Skills, and other educational initiatives, it is imperative that education evolve to prepare students to meet the educational, employment, and personal needs of their future. Students need to be empowered to use technology. This can be achieved through: publishing student work online, fostering connections with others of similar interests, teaching collaborative technological and networking methods, online network literacies, and responsible owners of online spaces. Some of this can be achieved through having students read and participate in blogs related to personal interests, start a Facebook page, and explore Twitter. Although some of these suggestions might be controversial to some, they should be undertaken with great thought, appropriate permission, and careful guidance.