Research

Technologically Inclusive Classrooms has been designed with the following research articles in mind. Please read through the attached articles to better understand the theory behind the course.

Instructional Planning Activity Types as Vehicles for Curriculum-Based TPACK Development

Teachers’ knowledge is situated, event-structured, and episodic. Technology, pedagogy and content knowledge (TPACK) – one form of highly practical professional educational knowledge – is comprised of teachers’ concurrent and interdependent curriculum content, general pedagogy, and technological understanding. Teachers’ planning – which expresses teachers’ knowledge-in-action in pragmatic ways -- is situated, contextually sensitive, routinized, and activity-based. To assist with the development of teachers’ TPACK, therefore, we suggest using what is understood from research about teachers’ knowledge and instructional planning to form an approach to curriculum-based technology integration that is predicated upon the combining of technologically supported learning activity types within and across content-keyed activity type taxonomies. In this chapter, we describe such a TPACK development method.
https://chathamcat.pbworks.com/f/HarrisHofer-TPACKActivityTypes.pdf

Technical Pedagogical Content Knowledge: A Framework for Teacher Knowledge

Research in the area of educational technology has often been critiqued for a lack of theoretical grounding. In this article we propose a conceptual framework for educational technology by building on Shulman’s formulation of ‘‘pedagogical content knowledge’’ and extend it to the phenomenon of teachers integrating technology into their pedagogy. This framework is the result of 5 years of work on a program of research focused on teacher professional development and faculty development in higher education. It attempts to capture some of the essential qualities of teacher knowledge required for technology integration in teaching, while addressing the complex, multifaceted, and situated nature of this knowledge. We argue, briefly, that thoughtful pedagogical uses of technology require the development of a complex, situated form of knowledge that we call Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPCK). In doing so, we posit the complex roles of, and interplay among, three main components of learning environments: content, pedagogy, and technology. We argue that this model has much to offer to discussions of technology integration at multiple levels: theoretical, pedagogical, and methodological. In this article, we describe the theory behind our framework, provide examples of our teaching approach based upon the framework, and illustrate the methodological contributions that have resulted from this work.
http://punya.educ.msu.edu/publications/journal_articles/mishra-koehler-tcr2006.pdf

Teachers' Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge and Learning Activity Types: Curriculum-Based Technology Integration Reframed

In this paper we critically analyze extant approaches to technology integration in teaching, arguing that many current methods are technocentric, often omitting sufficient consideration of the dynamic and complex relationships among content, technology, pedagogy, and context. We recommend using the technology, pedagogy, and content knowledge (TPACK) framework as a way to think about effective technology integration, recognizing technology, pedagogy, content and context as interdependent aspects of teachers’ knowledge necessary to teach content-based curricula effectively with educational technologies. We offer TPACK-based “activity types,” rooted in previous research about content-specific activity structures, as an alternative to existing professional development approaches and explain how this new way of thinking may authentically and successfully assist teachers’ and teacher educators’ technology integration efforts. (Keywords: technological pedagogical content knowledge, learning activity types, technology integration, TPACK, TPCK)
http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ844273.pdf

The 'Digital Natives' Debate: A Critical Review of the Evidence

The idea that a new generation of students is entering the education system has excited recent attention amongst educators and education commentators. Termed ‘digital natives’ or the ‘Net generation’, these young people are said to have been immersed in technology all their lives, imbuing them with sophisticated technical skills and learning preferences for which traditional education is unprepared. Grand claims are being made about the nature of this generational change and about the urgent necessity for educational reform in response. A sense of impending crisis pervades this debate. However the actual situation is far from clear. In this paper, the authors draw on the fields of education and sociology to analyse the digital natives debate. The paper presents and questions the main claims made about digital natives and analyses the nature of the debate itself. We argue that rather than being empirically and theoretically informed, the debate can be likened to an academic form of a ‘moral panic’. We propose that a more measured and disinterested approach is now required to investigate ‘digital natives’ and their implications for education.
http://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2465&context=edupapers 

Grounded Tech Integration

http://www.learningandleading-digital.com/learning_leading/20090910/#pg24

Addressing First and Second-Order Barriers for Change: Strategies for Technology Integration
Although teachers today recognize the importance of integrating technology into their curricula, efforts are often limited by both external (first-order) and internal (second-order) barriers. Traditionally, technology training, for both preservice and inservice teachers, has focused on helping teachers overcome first-order barriers (e.g., acquiring technical skills needed to operate a computer). More recently, training programs have incorporated pedagogical models of technology use as one means of addressing second-order barriers. However, little discussion has occurred that clarifies the relationship between these different types of barriers or that delineates effective strategies for addressing different barriers. If pre- and inservice teachers are to become effective users of technology, they will need practical strategies for dealing with the different types of barriers they will face. In this paper, I discuss the relationship between first- and second-order barriers and then describe specific strategies for circumventing, overcoming, and eliminating the changing barriers teachers face as they work to achieve technology integration.
http://highlandsgoldenrams.wikispaces.com/file/view/ertmer.pdf