Journalist post

Hello everyone, my name is Julia Egea Leal and I’m the JOURNALIST this week.

First of all I’m going to talk about blogging. This is the first time for we all use a blog. Managing a blog is harder than what you can think, but we are getting used to it. We got very excited because after Lucía posted a motivational post, we got commented by a stranger who wanted to wish us luck with our blog.

I have commented in a post that talks about technology in schools, I found it very interesting so I thought that it was perfecto due to we are talking about technology, pedagogy and contents (TPACK) and it was related in a way. The name of the blog is: Michael Smith’s Principals Page. This blog is focused in the administration of the schools, and in a several topics about it. This is the post I have commented: http://www.principalspage.com/theblog/archives/technology-in-schools-is-a-fad-trust-me. And this is my comment: 

About the other group’s blogs, I have been following them, and watching what  the were doing during the week, and they basically did what they were told to, and not adding some extra posts.

According to our working week, it was very hard due to we have never done this kind of work. The first day (Monday) morning we assign the roles. In the afternoon, we talked about what we had to do and the roles. We also created some media pages: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube. We also decided how we were going to do the poster.

The second day (Wednesday) we were divided, half looking for information and the other half working on the poster.

As we couldn’t do it all on Wednesday, we had to meet on Thursday and Saturday. On Thursday we used the class hour to proceed. And on Saturday we finally finished it.

In conclusion, I think this had been a fun but hard week.  

SHINE BRIGHT LIKE A STAR BY INMA ÁLVAREZ DONAIRE

Hello everyone I am the star of the PowerPuffTeachers. This is my first post and I am really glad to share with you.

At the beginning, I was quite overwhelmed because being in front of almost 70 people explaining the poster is a big responsibility since I could put the work we dedicated a long time at risk due to the nerves. And the big day arrived… I have terrible nerves whenever I speak in public but when Linda said that the stars had to explain TPACK to each group using speed-dating dynamic I felt more relieved (I know it could seem silly). The first time I did with my group I think I did a good explanation but the second time I did with another group and Linda, I was really nervous so in my opinion I could have done better. In contrast, I realized how I was improving every time I did the representation to another group so I am proud of the effort my team and I put into the activity and I am also proud of me because I was frightened by the activity and I did not feel able to do it. Moreover, I have learnt a lot with this activity and I am sure that it will be useful in my future as a teacher.

In the representation, I was explaining the process of TPACK to all my classmates for 9 times. I tried to do my speech the best I could and with my own words: First of all, I introduced myself to my classmates. The next I said was:

·         TPACK is the knowledge teachers need to integrate technology in the teaching and learning process. It is made up by three core components (Technology knowledge, Pedagogical knowledge and Content knowledge). The interaction among the three core components is really important to achieve an effective and successful teaching with technology. There is no a unique combination of these three factors, there is no a single technological solution so teachers have to be creative, to develop and to re-establish a dynamic equilibrium among all components. Every time we make a change in any component we have to compensate the other components. That´s why we have represented TPACK as a roulette because when we move it, we can see the three main components move at the same time. Moreover, if we see any elements in isolation we will not be able to achieve an effective teaching with technology.

·         Content knowledge: As Shulman said, it is really important what teachers know about the subjects. Teachers should know the deeper knowledge fundamentals of the subject because if teacher do not know about it, it can produce negative effects on the students, they receive wrong information or understand the content in the other way. The subjects we have related to content knowledge have been Oral and Writen communication in English and in Spanish for the Primary classroom and educational  theories and institutions because we have learnt the content we have to know in order to transmit it to our future students.

·         Pedagogical knowledge: It is teachers´ deep knowledge about practices and methods of teaching and learning, techniques used in classroom and strategies to evaluate students understanding. This allow to understand lesson planning, how students learn and build knowledge, general classroom management skills and how a cognitive, social and developmental theories apply to students.                                                                                                           The subjects we have related to pedagogical knowledge have been sociology of education, educational psychology, developmental psychology and educational plannig because we have learnt how to react with society and in particular with our students. It will help us to face and sort out the problems in our daily live at school.

·         Technological knowledge: Technology is always changing and developing so it is difficult to define this term. If we look back, we can see the progress humanity have done thanks to technology and how the world has change so much. So, if now we define technology we probably have to change in the future.

The subjects we have related to technological knowledge have been Research and ICT and School Organization and Educational Resources. The most important thing we are going (because we have not finish the course) to learn is how to use technology (computers or digital blackboards) correctly at the classroom and what is more, how to catch the attention of our future students with these tools. Also we will learn how to conduct researches and important resources were we have to look for information.

·         Interaction between technology and content knowledge (TCK): Teachers have to know more than the subject they teach, they have to understand how the subject can be changed by technology and the impact that technology have on education and on other fields, as diverse as, medicine, history… in other words, the impact on the whole world. We have related this interaction to the film “Trascendence” in which Jonny Deep is going to die but he achieve to computerize his brain and his consciousness is uploaded into a computer. Finally, he succeed in changing the world and having the control of the whole planet. So, we do not know what the technology will bring to us in the future.

·         Interaction between pedagogy and content knowledge (PCK): It is related to Shulman´s idea of knowledge of pedagogy applicable to the teaching of specific content. One concept is the notion of the subject matter of teaching transformation. The teacher has to transform the student´s prior knowledge by multiple ways.

·         Interaction between technology and pedagogical knowledge (TPK): Teachers have to understand how teaching and learning can change by technology. Software programs are not designed for educational purposes but are usually designed for business environment. Teachers have to reject functional fixedness and develop skills to look beyond common uses of technology for pedagogical purposes. Teachers have to be creative, open-minded and to come up with ideas to achieve student´s learning and understanding.

When I was explaining TPACK to my classmates I did little explanations about the poster and why we decided to do like this.

On the other hand, in this task we were ask to associate the TPACK model with the subjects of our degree of University. However, in the presentation we realized that we did one of them wrong. We have related educational theories and institutions to Content knowledge instead of relating to pedagogical knowledge.

We hope you enjoy our blog. See you soon!!!

CLASS GROUPS EVALUATION

  Hello everybody!! 

  Here you are the final marks of the rest of the groups of our class. We have given the mark and     the motives of those results, we have been the most objective that we could. 

  

  Congratulations to everybody and see you soon!

Analyst Post

Hello everybody and welcome to our blog!!

Related to the activity of this week, which aim is know about TPACK.

My name is Maria Garcia Alcaraz and in this first task my role is "Analyst". The work of the analyst consist on evaluate the work of the group.

In order to talk about every aspect of this week, firstly, I am going to comment what was the best part of the activity.

The best part of the activity is the moment of the exposition, when the star of our group, who is able as the rest of the members of the group, to explain and show the work that we have done during all the week.  We feel good and pride about the result of our own work after a lot of hours.

In contrast, the worst part of the activity is when we have to go the whole group at the same time, place due to each member live in a different part of the city. As an alternative we thought about make an online video conference but we rather work all together.

The best moment of the week was when we finally understand what was TPACK, what each one had to do and the moment in which we finished the manual work

The worst moment of the week was the first day because we didn't know exactly what we had to do, what did TPACK mean, we had doubts about every part of the work, but little by little, we have solved all this doubts and problems helping one to each other. Due to it is the first task, we didn't divide the work well at all and two days before, we had to make the majority of the work with stress.

With this task we have learnt what is TPACK, that is something new for all of us, which means that it is an interesting topic to work on, as if we knew what it is, it would be boring for our group.

We also have learnt who to do each role, the way we have to prepare it, and many interesting things more.

Related to what we need to conserve our group, we understand as conserving all the members of our group, we need to conserve the way we dialog, we listen to other's ideas or opinion and what is the most important, work with energy and meet when the group is joint.

In this task we were ask to associate the TPACK model with the subjects of our degree of University. We have found the three principal kinds of knowledge in several subjects:

First of all, we have discovered subjects such as research and ICT and school organization and educational resources which have given us technological knowledge. The most important thing we are going (because we have not finish the course) to learn is how to use technology (computers or digital blackboards) correctly at the classroom and what is more, how to caught the attention of our future students with these tools. Also we will learn how to conduct researches and important resources were we have to look for information.

Secondly, we are going to analyze the subjects we can define as pedagogical. Some of them are developmental psychology, sociology of education, educational planning, educational theories and institutions and educational psychology (when we first did this task we thought it was related with content knowledge but in the presentation we realised we were wrong). From our point of view these subjects have taught us how to react with the society, in general, and with our future students, in particular. The knowledge we have acquire is going to help us to face all kind of problems in our daily live at school.

Finally (but not least important), oral and written communication in English and in Spanish for the primary classroom have gave us content knowledge, that is, the content we need to know in terms of transmitting it to our future students.

There is obviously a social connection of the content of the activity with daily social life. It is connected  to the news, to newspapers,  and the influence increase proportionally  to the passing of time.

Technology is present every day because we have Internet on our personal mobile and we are almost the whole day using it.

As future teachers we are going to use technologies every day and more and more each year, because pupils grow with technologies embedded in their life.

ABOUT MY ROLE: "Analyst".

This week my role is the Analyst, I have to mark the each member's work and evaluate how we have worked during  this week.  I have learnt to evaluate based in some criteria and it is good when you have the power to decide the mark that each member of the group have to receive in a fair way.

Thanks you all bloggers. We hope you like this.

See you soon!!

It is time to be a translator

Hello everybody! 

I am Ana Góngora and this first week it is my turn to be the translator. I had the opportunity to investigate more about the 5 most important terms we have studied. It is important to know that the task of this week was about TPACK and when we first listen to that concept no one of our group know what the teacher was talking about. The five terms we have choose as more important are: TPACK, CK, TK; PK and effective teaching.

• TPACK: conceptual model that gives the teacher capacity to acquire the knowledge needed in terms of the realisation of an effective integration of technology, pedagogy and the contents. This concept is very important in our technological world. At the same time it is composed by Technological knowledge (TK), Pedagogical knowledge (PK) and Content knowledge (CK).
• Technological knowledge (TK): it refers to the understanding and the ability to use technical tools in a productive way in our daily life but also in education. It is important to underline that these tools can improve or deteriorate the realization of a specific task.
• Pedagogical knowledge (PK): knowledge related with the processes of teaching and learning. We could include as pedagogical knowledge the behaviour of the teacher with the students or the planning of the syllabus
• Content knowledge (CK): it focuses on the specific knowledge that the teacher of the subject needs to have in terms to teach their students. For a better acquisition of the content the teacher could use outlines or conceptual maps
• Effective teaching: type of professionals TPACK try to create. These professionals need to have the knowledge related with the specific content they are going to teach but also it is important to take into account that the presentation of these contents can influence.

REFERENCES:

1. Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge. (2014, August 5). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 20:13, February 15, 2015, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Technological_Pedagogical_Content_Knowledge&oldid=619923358
2. BlogCanalTIC.com, Uso educativo de las TIC’s http://canaltic.com/blog/?p=1677
3. Koehler, M. J., & Mishra, P. (2009). What is technological pedagogical content knowledge? Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 9(1), 60-70.

Curator-farmer post

Hi, I'm Mari Carmen and this first week I've been  in charge of the farmer-curator role. I was suppost to gather every reference use to accomplish week task, and so did I. Here you are first task references about PTACK and a mindmap with them:

:

DOCUMENTS

-Koehler, M. J., & Mishra, P. (2009). What is technological pedagogical content knowledge? Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 9(1), 60-70. Retrieved from http://www.citejournal.org/articles/v9i1general1.pdf

-Teaching teachers for the future.  What is TPACK? Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK). Retrieved from http://www.ttf.edu.au/what-is-tpack/what-is-tpack.html

-Fernando (2013, may 8). El modelo TPACK. Retrieved from http://canaltic.com/blog/?p=1677

-Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge.  In Wikipedia. Retrieved August 5, 2014, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_Pedagogical_Content_Knowledge

VIDEOS

-Castañeda, Linda (2014, december 31). TPACK Tecnological Pedagogical Content Knowledge [Video file].  Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVT0pB_f2Zk

-Kimmons, Royce (2011, march 22). TPACK in 3 minutes [Video file].  Retrieved from http://youtu.be/0wGpSaTzW58

-Figg, Candance (2011, september 4). Understanding TPACK [Video file].  Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyDU_3-AH2k

Mari Carmen Molina-Niñirola Ballester

Facilitator Post

Hello everyone and Welcome to our Blog!

My name is Lucía, I am the FACILITATOR of my group this week.

My role consist organize, divided and coordinate the work of each member of the group, encourage the dynamic of the group and help the other member with their problems. And finally I also have to conserve and guarantee the blog's quality, answer the comments, correct the spelling and so on.

First of all, I have to say that has not been an easy work, since it is the first time we face an activity of this extremely complex way, but has also been interesting.

Prior to starting to work with the activity of this week, ourselves we have had to do other important things. Once our class was organized and divided into groups, we had to put a name to the group. Ourselves as another group chose "The PowerPuff Teachers" because we were inspired by an animated cartoon that we saw when we were small, this led us to the first problem, as both groups we had the same name, finally ourselves we went faster and we got the name for our group.

Once we had the group name, we created the blog. Julia was the main responsible for this, since it is really understood in technology.

In order to start work, the first thing was to establish a schedule that was good for all components of our group, my role as facilitator was to study the schedules of each member available and establish a place and a time optimal for everyone. Work in such broad groups is quite difficult to organize, but after good results are obtained.

I do work organization depending on the role that each member of the group, roles are:

 

As a facilitator I decided that the best way to deal with TPACK was understanding it and making a placing on common than each group member had understood and thought, to perform a brainstorming. Once this is done we split the tasks so that each member is responsible to find a information for the activity of TPACK. All this work without neglecting the functions that each member must perform imposed by their role. During the process, I supervise the correct realization.

In addition to supervising and organizing my group, doing my part of TPACK, I have also created Twitter, Youtube Channel and Pearltrees accounts. I've also occupied to keep them active and in a dynamic form, including blog.

When we was working in the TPACK, the organization was: Inma and Carmen (stars) with the help of Mari Carmen and Ana looked for information and summarize it, this is for prepare the exposition as "Stars" and also they should resume this information to put in our poster.

Maria and I were the responsables to design and do most of the work of the poster.

Finally, I supervised the work and posts of each component of my group to give my approval as facilitator.

We should bear in mind this is the first time we do a job like this, and in my case, sometimes I do not know how to organize or control the work, so everything went slower. I hope this is only the first week

In general, our group is satisfied with the work we have done this week, which means I have not had to be so bad boss.

See you next week but occupying another role. I'm sure that next week we will have an excellent facilitator!!

Thanks for your time blogger!

Lucía.

 

PICTURES WORKING IN THE TPACK

Hi again bloggers!!

Here you have some photos of the whole group working on the realization of TPACK.

We hope you like!

See you soon!