"How should we incorporate the use of digital technologies in our classrooms?"

As teachers, we should incorporate the use of digital technologies, or ICT, in our classrooms based of the Australian curriculum. Digital technologies have become a major part of teaching in the 21st century. This is because in today's world, most people are relying on digital technologies for day-to-day activities (Selwyn, 2011). Students need to learn ICT skills and understandings as the use of digital technologies plays a major factor in the 21st century society and the trend of digital technologies use in our daily life continues to climb. Students should have the right to be taught the skills and knowledge on how to use digital technologies for educational purposes (Newhouse, 2013). This can include inquiry-based learning, problem-based learning, design-based learning such as making a poster or PowerPoint presentation, game-based learning such as KAHOOT and collaborative learning so students work together on a task to achieve a learning goal (Bower, 2017). These types are learning relate to technology use and are skills that all students should learn in school. 

Problem-based learning activities are open-ended problems to drive student learning. Problem-based activities are good for collaborative learning and assessment as students are usually doing research activities in these types of activities. Inquiry-based learning is similar to problem-based activities as students are developing their investigating skills to gain understanding of the content. Both problem and inquiry-based learning are student-centred activities as the focus of the instruction is shifted from the teacher to the student (Bower, 207). As mentioned, these activities can be completed collaboratively. This means that the students work together to achieve a specific learning goal (Smith & MacGregor, 1992). Collaborative is one of the most important skills students will develop as students are developing their social skills which will help them in the outside environment when it comes to making friends for example. This is also beneficial for students such as EAL/d students who may not have the best social skills, so bouncing ideas of their peers will benefit these students make friends as well as understand the task better (Strnadova et al., 2022). 

Design and game-based learning are interactive and engaging activities for the students which is important for incorporating the use of digital technologies into our classrooms. Design-based learning allows students to become creative to create a design to represent their knowledge on the content, for example a Canva poster (Bower, 2017). Game-based learning allows students to present their knowledge of the content through game-based activities such as KAHOOT. This type of learning is engaging and interactive as students can play against their peers which makes them want to do the task. These activities should be implemented into the classroom as an engaging and interactive activity to break up the content work (Sanders & George, 2017). These types of activities will become more regular in future teaching with the applications of new technologies. 

However, for students to develop these digital technology skills and understandings, the teacher needs to understanding on how the technology works. This is important as the Australian curriculum is encouraging the use of ICT in school (Newhouse, 2013). This is where the TPACK model is important as this model is based on the teacher's knowledge. This model relates to if the teacher will implement technology into their classroom as the model has three aspects, pedagogical knowledge, content knowledge and technological knowledge. These three aspects overlap each other which means that for a teacher to be effective in their delivery of the content, they need to have strong knowledge in all of these, this includes their knowledge on how to use technology (Hilton, 2016). This also means that technology will be used effectively in the classroom which will result in the students getting the optimal oppurtunity to gain the skills and knowledge of digital technologies explained above.