Part B - Application of TPACK

Prologue:


Due to my misunderstanding of dates that assignments were due, I will not be able to fully implement the entirety of my proposed assignment in Part A of my WPP Project. However all adventures in technology integration benefit from having trial runs and tests so I will have one of my Grade 5 classes tweet out what they get up to in their classroom during a school week and get feedback from parents, students and the teacher involved. I will, prior to that, email the parents of the class with the details and introduction to Twitter (including a Jing tutorial). There, I think I'm calm now that I have that re-planned it out! Onwards!


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What is the TP knowledge for the solution?  (i.e., how does the technology you have chosen support the teaching strategies and methods you have chosen?)


The core technology that will be utilized will obviously be Twitter. The technological knowledge that our Grade 5 teachers have of Twitter is good as I was lucky enough to be able to introduce the benefits and advantages of using Twitter as a Professional Development tool. They both are aware of the advantages of Twitter, how to tweet using their iPhones and the little Twitter tips that help along in the process of Tweeting.
The main, underlying concept of this project is for the students to be able to share their learning and reflections to family (and the world) as it happens. Twitter helps this teaching and learning moment in a unique and obvious way due to the immediacy of Tweets, the audience a Tweet can reach and the ability for our followers to filter all our Tweets in one area using a Twitter desktop client. 




What is the TC knowledge for the solution? (i.e., how specifically does this technology make the content in your problem more intellectually accessible?  Be sure to think about representation.)


As the learning and teaching content will be fluid, varied and can be represented in many different ways, Twitter is a perfect tool to represent all of the different facets of learning. Students will take photos, embed links to videos or any sort of media that the students wants to share. Students will also Tweet written reflections on their learning. Twitter will hone their reflecting techniques due to Twitter's 140 character input limit so it will add more of a challenge to the reflection process. Students will have to investigate their word choice and pinpoint the most important parts of their learning they want to Tweet.




What is the PC knowledge for the solution? (i.e., how specifically do your pedagogical choices make the content in your problem more intellectually accessible?) Be sure to think about how the student will experience the content given these instructional strategies.

This project is, in essence, a solution to the problem of how students can share their learning and their reflections to their families and a wider audience for more authentic feedback and continued discussion. As it will be used in a wide variety of classes throughout the day and subjects the pedagogical approach to students learning the content will vary greatly. The most important part of our students' learning, though, is their reflections on what that have learned. So we will not, necessarily, change our pedagogical approach to teach the content but we will make sure the students are encouraged at any time to reflect using Twitter.