Digital Binder Entry # 3.

1. Briefly describe and reflect your opinions regarding each model for technology & media integration covered in this class’s readings. What are their potential strengths and weaknesses? Is there one you prefer, why? How can we incorporate elements of these when assessing media or technology for use in teaching or even in organizational administration?

Can you apply one or more instructional or instructional technology models to any of your final project proposal ideas, how or what parts could you use in assessing the technology or instructional assets it provides?

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TPACK

The triangular relationship amongst three components (technology, pedagogy and content) is interesting because the diagram succinctly outlines what is happening in the real classroom with the advancement of technology. However, I would require many more examples than presented in the article if I truly wanted to see the full picture. It is because the interdependency of three elements is too abstract and theoretical. I wish I could see real classroom examples of how these elements play out in the actual world.

I am now trying my best to understand some relationships amongst the three. For example, I have I have already discussed how technology can influence pedagogy in my Digital Binder Entry #5 (i.e. I discussed how the digital ball in a yoga lesson can address the affective realm of pedagogy. Please go to that section of my writing if you are really interested in knowing about it). Therefore, in this post, I will discuss how technology influences content. If I can carry out this discussion successfully, I will be able to undermine some of the claim made by Clark that media (and technology) does not influence learning.

The James Webb Telescope is far more advanced than the Hubble Space Telescope, so we can now see far crisper images of stars and constellations and begin to ask new questions that are unheard of. For example, through the enhanced images from the James Webb telescope, students can ask questions about a previously unidentified star or about the nuanced colors being emitted from a faraway star that the teachers may not have an easy answer for, because there is no curriculum content ready for such a star or the colors coming from it. This example shows that technology can create a new curriculum content rather than enhancing the existing content.

By discussing both how technology influences pedagogy and how technology influences content, I think I have established some of the connections in the triangle of TPACK. By now, I think I have provided at least one concrete example for each of these two connections. I think this establishment of connections alone is significant enough for me to figure out the strengths of the TPACK model. Also, I think I have to a certain extent undermined the claim made by Clark by presenting my examples of how technology and media can influence learning.

PICRAT

The PICRAT model is interesting because it seems to refute the claim by Clark that media (and technology) does not influence learning. Kimmons and his/her researchers include the element of transformation (T) in their model of RAT. As far as I am concerned, this implicitly acknowledges the power of technology to transform learning.

The PICRAT model is interesting in another way. It looks at technology integration from two angles: one from the angle of the student and the other that of the teacher. The basic assumption of the model is that teachers and students can use technology from a basic level to the most sophisticated level. The keyword is the level of sophistication that teachers and students can achieve. In other words, it can be challenging for some teachers and students to achieve the highest level of sophistication in their use of technology in the classroom, while other teachers and students can take up those challenges and produce amazing results where creation and transformation occur in the classroom through the use of technology.

When I was teaching in Northwest Territories, my students were struggling in math and they wanted to avoid my math lessons no matter how hard I tried to make my lesson easier for them. For these students, technology that simply replaces (i.e. the R of RAT) my lesson with a digital one would already be too difficult for them, so it would be extremely challenging for them to use technology to create a math game or a math demo (presentation) on their own. However, the same challenge may not exist in students from South Korea, the country I am from, because some of them can get bored with passive learning or with the online learning that replaces their offline learning. To get out of their boredom, some of them might actually attempt to do more than just listening to the digital lesson and try to create something new to surprise everybody. For example, they might want to create their own digital lesson to do better than their digital teacher.

Kimmons, the researcher creating The PICRAT model, acknowledges this scale of sophistication present in the classroom and allows the reader to take his/her model with a grain of salt.

SAMR

I think SAMR is a good way of analyzing how we integrate technology. However, SAMR is quite similar to the RAT of PICRAT. Substitution (S) is similar to Replacement (R); Augmentation is (A) similar to Amplification (A); finally, Modification (M) and Redefinition (R) are similar to Transformation (T).