What Is TPack?
First of all, you may be wondering what TPACK stands for. It stands for 'Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge'. TPack is a framework that identifies the knowledge that teachers need effectively teach technology.
This is an image of TPack
"Effective technology integration for pedagogy around specific subject matter requires developing sensitivity to the dynamic, transactional relationhip between these components of knowledge situated in unique contexts." - Matthew Koehler
Now you are probably curious as to why this is important to teachers teaching technology. Well to be an excellent teacher in the field, you must know how certain technologies work. You must be versatile. When you walk in to your classroom on the first day of school, with tons of new students looking up at you, you have to know what to do that would be the best way of teaching them. For example, you wouldn't want to start the year off teaching a Kindergarden class about using Microsoft Word. They're not going to be able to comprehend everything you are telling them, they will be antsy and they will not want to listen. Although, if you are teaching a 6th grade class, you could easily make the first day about using Microsoft Word. You can make their first assignment to write a paragraph telling the rest of the class about themselves. This way, you are getting them interested and still teaching them the material they need to know. In order to be an effective facilitator of learning, you must know TPack frontwards and backwards. You need to know everything possible about it, so you can understand how to teach your classroom correctly. Being versatile is key, and so is being able to have back up plans. Working with technology will hardly ever go as planned, you must have a back up plan. That way, when/if your plan falls through you can easily figure out the next step with out stressing out.
Also, TPack is important to me because when i become a teacher i want to know how to utilize my technology in my classrooms. I want to be able to teach the specific technology to its fullest as well.
"Individual teachers, grade-level, school-specific factors,
demographics, culture, and other factors ensure that every situation is
unique, and no single combination of content, technology, and pedagogy
will apply for every teacher, every course, or every view of teaching." - Matthew Koehler
-Tara Lutz
