204.19 Pedagogical Dimension of Social Science

204.19 Pedagogical Dimension of Social Science

Module 4. Techno pedagogic content Knowledge

4.1  Pedagogic content knowledge- Techno pedagogic content knowledge

The term “pedagogue” is derived from two Greek words pais, paidos meaning boy and agogos meaning guide which together connotes a teacher. Thus pedagogic implies the science ofteaching . By pedagogic analysis we mean a logical and systematic breakup of the curriculum from the point of view of a pedagogue [teacher] for the purpose of its effective transaction.

Techno pedagogy is a key deciding factor in while an educational media product is a successful or not. Literally ‘pedagogy’ refers to art, the art skill handcrafting, derived from the Latin texere [to weave or fabricate].Here techno is a qualifier; it intersects or crosses the meaning of ‘pedagogy’ with its own. Techno pedagogy refers to the techniques of the craft of teaching into the learning environment itself. It requires conscious recognition of the mediated learning environment in order to maximize the ease and clarity in the transmission of information.

As educators know, teaching is a complicated practice that requires an interweaving of many kinds of specialized knowledge. In this way, teaching is an example of an ill structured discipline, requiring teachers to apply complex knowledge structures across different cases and contexts. Thus, effective teaching depends on flexible access to rich, well-organized and integrated knowledge from different domains including knowledge of student thinking and learning, knowledge of subject matter, and increasingly, knowledge of technology. 

An Approach to Thinking about Technology Integration - How can teachers integrate technology into their teaching? There is no “one best way” to integrate technology into curriculum. Rather, integration efforts should be creatively designed or structured for particular subject matter ideas in specific classroom contexts. 

At the heart of good teaching with technology there are three core components: content, pedagogy, and technology, plus the relationships among and between them. The interactions between and among the three components are different across diverse contexts. This accounts for the wide variations seen in the extent and quality of educational technology integration. These three knowledge bases (content, pedagogy, and technology) form the core of the technology, pedagogy, and content knowledge (TPACK) framework. 

The TPACK Framework 

TPACK is a framework to understand and describe the kinds of knowledge needed by a teacher for effective practice in a technology enhanced learning environment. In this model there are three main components of teachers’ knowledge: content, pedagogy, and technology. Equally important to the model are the interactions between and among these bodies of knowledge, represented as PCK, TCK (technological content knowledge), TPK (technological pedagogical knowledge), and TPACK. 

Content Knowledge (CK) 

Content knowledge (CK) is teachers’ knowledge about the subject matter to be learned or taught. The content to be covered in middle school science or history is different from the content to be covered in an undergraduate or a graduate course. Knowledge of content is of critical importance for teachers. This knowledge would include knowledge of concepts, theories, ideas, organizational frameworks, knowledge of evidence and proof, as well as established practices and approaches toward developing such knowledge. In the case of science, for example, this would include knowledge of scientific facts and theories, the scientific method, and evidence-based reasoning. In the case of art appreciation, such knowledge would include knowledge of art history, famous paintings, sculptures, artists and their historical contexts, as well as knowledge of aesthetic and psychological theories for evaluating art.  

Pedagogical Knowledge (PK)

Pedagogical knowledge (PK) is teachers’ deep knowledge about the processes and practices or methods of teaching and learning. They encompass, among other things, overall educational purposes, values, and aims. This generic form of knowledge applies to understanding how students learn, general classroom management skills, lesson planning, and student assessment. It includes knowledge about techniques or methods used in the classroom; the nature of the target audience; and strategies for evaluating student understanding. A teacher with deep pedagogical knowledge understands how students construct knowledge and acquire skills and how they develop habits of mind and positive dispositions toward learning. As such, pedagogical knowledge requires an understanding of cognitive, social, and developmental theories of learning and how they apply to students in the classroom. 

Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK)

PCK is knowledge about how to combine pedagogy and content effectively. It refers to the notion of the transformation of the subject matter for teaching. This transformation occurs as the teacher interprets the subject matter, finds multiple ways to represent it, and adapts and tailors the instructional materials to alternative conceptions and students’ prior knowledge. PCK covers the core business of teaching, learning, curriculum, assessment and reporting, such as the conditions that promote learning and the links among curriculum, assessment, and pedagogy. An awareness of common misconceptions and ways of looking at them, the importance of forging connections among different content-based ideas, students’ prior knowledge, alternative teaching strategies, and the flexibility that comes from exploring alternative ways of looking at the same idea or problem are all essential for effective teaching.  

Technology Knowledge (TK)

Technology knowledge (TK) is the knowledge to accomplish a variety of different tasks using information technology. It is the knowledge to apply information technology productively at work and in one’s everyday life, to recognize when information technology can assist or impede the achievement of a goal, and to continually adapt to changes in information technology. Working with technology can apply to all technology tools and resources.  TK refers to a deeper, more essential understanding and mastery of information technology for information processing, communication, and problem solving. 

Technological Content Knowledge (TCK)

TCK is an understanding of the manner in which technology and content influence and constrain one another. Teachers need to master more than the subject matter they teach; they must also have a deep understanding of the manner in which the subject matter (or the kinds of representations that can be constructed) can be changed by the application of particular technologies. Teachers need to understand which specific technologies are best suited for addressing subject-matter learning in their domains and how the content dictates or perhaps even changes the technology—or vice versa.  

Technological Pedagogical Knowledge (TPK) 

TPK is an understanding of how technology can be used in the teaching and learning scenario. This includes knowing the pedagogical uses and constraints of a range of technological tools. 

For example, consider how whiteboards may be used in classrooms. Because a whiteboard is typically immobile, visible to many, and easily editable, its uses in classrooms are presupposed. Thus, the whiteboard is usually placed at the front of the classroom and is controlled by the teacher. This location imposes a particular physical order in the classroom by determining the placement of tables and chairs and framing the nature of student-teacher interaction, since students often can use it only when called upon by the teacher. However, it would be incorrect to say that there is only one way in which whiteboards can be used. One has only to compare the use of a whiteboard in a brainstorming meeting in an advertising agency setting to see a rather different use of this technology. In such a setting, the whiteboard is not under the purview of a single individual. It can be used by anybody in the group, and it becomes the focal point around which discussion and the negotiation/construction of meaning occurs. An understanding of the uses of technology and how they can be used differently according to changes in context and purposes is an important part of understanding TPK.

TPK becomes particularly important because most popular software programs are not designed for educational purposes. Software programs such as the Microsoft Office Suite (Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Entourage, and MSN Messenger) are usually designed for business environments. Web-based technologies such as blogs or podcasts are designed for purposes of entertainment, communication, and social networking. Teachers need to reject functional fixedness and develop skills to look beyond most common uses for technologies, reconfiguring them for customized pedagogical purposes. Thus, TPK requires a forward-looking, creative, and open-minded seeking of technology use, not for its own sake but for the sake of advancing student learning and understanding.  

Technology, Pedagogy, and Content Knowledge 

TPACK is an emergent form of knowledge that goes beyond all three “core” components (content, pedagogy, and technology). Technological pedagogical content knowledge is an understanding that emerges from interactions among content, pedagogy, and technology knowledge. Underlying truly meaningful and deeply skilled teaching with technology, TPACK is different from knowledge of all three concepts individually. Instead, TPACK is the basis of effective teaching with technology, requiring an understanding of the representation of concepts using technologies; pedagogical techniques that use technologies in constructive ways to teach content; knowledge of what makes concepts difficult or easy to learn and how technology can help redress some of the problems that students face; knowledge of students’ prior knowledge and theories of epistemology; and knowledge of how technologies can be used to build on existing knowledge to develop new epistemologies or strengthen old ones.  

By simultaneously integrating knowledge of technology, pedagogy and content, expert teachers bring TPACK into play any time they teach. Each situation presented to teachers is a unique combination of these three factors, and accordingly, there is no single technological solution that applies for every teacher, every course, or every view of teaching. Rather, solutions lie in the ability of a teacher to flexibly navigate the spaces defined by the three elements of content, pedagogy, and technology and the complex interactions among these elements in specific contexts. Ignoring the complexity inherent in each knowledge component or the complexities of the relationships among the components can lead to oversimplified solutions or failure. Thus, teachers need to develop fluency and cognitive flexibility not just in each of the key domains (T, P, and C), but also in the manner in which these domains and contextual parameters interrelate, so that they can construct effective solutions. This is the kind of deep, flexible, pragmatic, and nuanced understanding of teaching with technology we involved in considering TPACK as a professional knowledge construct.  

Introduction of a new educational technology forces teachers to confront basic educational issues and reconstruct the dynamic equilibrium among all three elements. The introduction of the Internet, for example – particularly the rise of online learning – is an example of the arrival of a technology that forced educators to think about core pedagogical issues, such as how to represent content on the Web and how to connect students with subject matter and with one another. Teaching with technology is a difficult thing to do well. The TPACK framework suggests that content, pedagogy, technology, and teaching/learning contexts have roles to play individually and together. Teaching successfully with technology requires continually creating, maintaining, and re-establishing a dynamic equilibrium among all components. It is worth noting that a range of factors influences how this equilibrium is reached.  

Implications of the TPACK Framework 

Teaching is a complex, ill-structured domain. Underlying this complexity, however, are three key components of teacher knowledge: understanding of content, understanding of teaching, and understanding of technology. The complexity of technology integration comes from an appreciation of the rich connections of knowledge among these three components and the complex ways in which these are applied in multifaceted and dynamic classroom contexts. 

• The TPACK framework seeks to assist the development of better techniques for discovering and describing how technology-related professional knowledge is implemented and put into practice. 

• By better describing the types of knowledge teachers need (in the form of content, pedagogy, technology, contexts and their interactions), educators are in a better position to understand the variance in levels of technology integration occurring. 

• TPACK framework offers several possibilities for promoting research in teacher education, teacher professional development, and teachers’ use of technology. 

• It allows teachers, researchers, and teacher educators to move beyond oversimplified approaches that treat technology as an “add-on” instead to focus again, and in a more ecological way, upon the connections among technology, content, and pedagogy as they play out in classroom contexts.

4.2 ways and means to link technology to pedagogic content knowledge

Student-teachers need to be empowered to use emerging ICT to explore the huge reservoir of knowledge, to use technology for their project work, assessment of students’ assignments, and designing teaching-learning experiences for learners. Communication technology encompasses all forms of electronic communication in both digital and analogue form. The digital electronic devices include computers, CD, optical disc and its players, storage devices, the Internet, cellular telephony and satellite broadcasting while analogue devices are largely limited to conventional radio broadcasts and audio tapes and tape recorders. 

Audio aids

(a) Broadcast talks -  Radio broadcast and audio recordings are the sources of audio learning experiences for the children. In order to provide learning experience beyond the school syllabus and to relate it to the real life outside the classroom, school broadcast programmes could be one of the best medium. It may not always be possible for a science teacher to invite eminent persons of science for the lecture or talk. In such cases the lectures or speeches can be pre-recorded and can be played in the classrooms.The All India Radio has regular programmes for school children.

(b) Audio tapes- The major advantage of a magnetic audio tape over a disc is that one can record programmes easily and economically. When the material becomes outdated, or is no longer useful, it could be erased and the tape can be reused. These devices are seldom used these days.

Visual aids

 (a) Charts -Charts of different types can be prepared by the learners with a little help from teacher depending on the teaching-learning objectives to be achieved and the need of the subject matter. Charts help in effective representation of the subject matter which is in the form of data, diagram, etc. Charts depicting pictures of great scientists, instruments, equipment used in industry, industrial processes, etc. could be used as teaching aids. 

(b) Posters -Printed posters on various science concepts and life history of scientists are available from science publishers. These can be used as a resource in teaching scientific concepts covered in the school syllabus. 

Audio-visual aids

Audio-visual aids are the most important teaching-learning aids as they involve both auditory and visual senses. They help in giving concrete and realistic experience. The various types of audio-visual aids are discussed below.

(a) Educational television -The television in the present day society can be used as one of the important teaching-learning aids. UGC programmes are telecast on Doordarshan. NCERT telecasts its educational programme on GyanDarshan channel. There is a tremendous potential to increase television based education as we have a dedicated satellite in the geostationary orbit named EDUSAT. A large number of educational television programmes can be made and telecast. EDUSAT also offers a facility for two-way interaction where the viewers can raise their doubts and make comments also. NCERT also uses video-conferencing mode to interact and train teachers all over India. A large number of scientific programmes on scientific issues are telecast on various channels of television. 

Disc records

CDs -The disc recording has a number of attributes that makes it an attractive medium of teaching-learning. It can reproduce the audio spectrum even beyond the limits of human hearing. A major advantage of audio CDs (and other optical discs) is that the user can quickly access any part of the disc. Data from the disc can be retrieved in any desired sequence.

DVDs and Blu-ray Discs -Similar to audio CDs these are the other forms of optical discs. DVDs and Blu-ray Discs offer all the advantages of audio CDs.These are used for video rather than audio due to their higher capacity. Blu-ray Discs supersedes the DVD formats and are used for High definition video and audio.

Other storage devices -USB (Universal Serial Bus) flash drives and external hard discs can also be used for carrying data and teaching-learning materials for students. Documents, pictures, audio and video

can be carried in these devices. These are cheap, rewritable and removable devices. Very small in size pen drives can easily be carried in pockets and offer a huge storage capacity of data.

(b) Multimedia

The Multimedia concept involves using multiple media for transaction of a concept. It involves integrating different media into a structured and systematic presentation. Multimedia systems are multi-sensory and stimulate learning. The multimedia kit may include films, videos and audio tapes, records, still pictures, overhead transparencies, maps, worksheets, charts, graphs, booklets, real objects and models. Since they cater to many senses, multimedia kits make learning enjoyable. They are versatile in their content, range of media, and variety of applications, and thus contribute to learning for a wide variety of learners in many subject areas. In addition, multimedia kits provide scope for individualised attention to students.

(c) Uses of computer

Computer is a power driven machine equipped with keyboard, electronic circuits, storage compartments and recording devices. It can perform mathematical operations at a high speed. It can store large amounts of data which can be retrieved on demand. A computer can do what a whole set of multimedia systems can do. So, whatever has been said above  about audio, visual and audio-visual devices, computer alone can do all that. That is why, this single device has made all other devices obsolete. In fact, computer with an Internet connection is an all-in-one device for all kinds of educational aids.

Computer systems can deliver instruction directly to students by allowing them to interact with lessons programmed into the system. This is referred to as Computer Assisted Instruction (CAI). CAI can also facilitate students with Special Educational Needs (SEN) in various ways. Computer can facilitate most effectively for simulation practices, tutorial, educational gaming, discovery and problem solving.

(d) Simulation

A simulation is a simplified version of reality in which essential physical or social elements are represented without hazards, cost or time constraint normally associated with them. The purpose of simulations is to enable us to understand and function in real situation. Simulations are representation of real situations with the element of safety, because some real equipments cannot be used in the class as they may be too costly or too delicate or may be length of time involved in a real exercise would be too great. Simulation and games can give students practice in decision-making and allow them to test a hypothesis in abstract situations. 

(e) Internet

It is a major tool for gathering, accessing, analysing, sharing and disseminating information. With the help of websites which store information on specified subjects information can be accessed by any internet user through the website’s address. Newer applications of computer are being discovered everyday in the field of education.

The teachers can use computer and the internet to design their lessons using huge reservoir of information and knowledge available online. One of the advantages of using computer and the internet is that one can explore quickly the information available online .

The teachers can form networking groups where they can exchange ideas, innovative experiences, joys and excitements of teaching-learning processes with their peers. They can get help from them and give help to them. They can use computers and internet as a tool for lifelong learning to enhance their professional and social stature. 

Social networking sites and their use in education

A social networking site can be a good way to make connections with people having similar interests and goals. These websites offer tremendous educational potential for students and teacher-educators for advanced teachinglearning process. Teacher can share link of educational website with her students. Some of the social websites are discussed below

Facebook (www.facebook.com) -One of the most popular social networking sites is facebook. One can adjust privacy settings and make group so as to control who has access to one’s personal information. Students’ social networking accounts can help teacher to discuss on the doubts and questions on any   concept. She can also know about their interests and hobbies and this may help her for better understanding of her students.

Twitter (www.twitter.com) - Twitter is an effective communication tool for concise messages and news items, or links to longer messages and news items. Twitter is fun to use and may, therefore, be effective in engaging students in discussions who do not need to write longer essays. We can share events at work and this helps us to know our friends a bit more and adds an additional layer of community within our online network. One can customise and use it to meet ones’ specific needs and interests.

Orkut (www.orkut.com)

Orkut communities can be used productively by teachers for effective teaching-learning. Discussion or scientific issues can be generated and idea can be exchanged on this site. ThroughOrkut communities, like-minded people can come together for better understanding of their subjects of interest. We can create communities on Orkut in the name of our school to share our memories and stay in touch with our childhood friends. Orkut can be used to get news updates, find a suitable job, get good career ideas, and know about institutions and certification, and so on. 

Virtual field trips-A virtual field trip is a guided exploration through the web that organises a collection of pre-screened, thematically-based web pages into a structured online learning experience. It is an interrelated collection of images, supporting text and/or other media, delivered electronically via the World Wide Web, in a format that can be professionally presented to relate the essence of a visit to a time or place. The virtual experience becomes a unique part of the participants’ life experience. A virtual field trip is a real time guided field trip that is supported by interactive pages on the web. The live links with experts on site in real time is a key aspect in creating a ‘real’ experience for students.

YouTube -YouTube can be used for viewing, sharing and uploading video files. Teacher can make videos of experiments and activities and upload them on the YouTube and interact with students. A large number of videos on any experiment and activities already available on the YouTube can be reviewed and used for teaching-learning of physical science. Students can upload video file of any innovative experiment and project on the YouTube.

Podcast-A podcast is an audio or video file created and placed on the web for individuals to download and view or listen on their computers or digital media players. Podcasting is a means of one-to-many audio distribution via the Internet. A podcasting is a useful educational tool for two very different activities— receiving content from experts, and as a means of student media production. Podcasting is the generally accepted term for both audio and video files, but video file distribution is sometimes referred to as ‘vodcasting,’. This provides a convenient, subscription based model for distributing educational materials. A list of educational podcasts to get an idea of what is available and how do they work, you can visit the site– www.enpweb.org. This site also describes simple steps on how to create a podcast by clicking on ‘cast’.

Flickr - Flickr is an online photo management and sharing application. The basic service is free. We  can upload your pictures from your desktop or camera phone. Then you can organise your photos by categorising them. These photographs related to activities, experiments, projects, model, chart, poster, etc. can be later used in teaching-learning process. Flickr allows you to share your photos online, create groups that are public or entirely private. So, if you are participating in a collaborative activity with another class somewhere in the world, you can share your photos instantly. And if you want only your students to see the photos, you can maintain autonomy by creating a privacy setting. This aspect is so significant for education that every group can have its own discussion board. The class can ask questions about the photos and have meaningful discussions regarding the photos, and work with international students to generate discussions with them. Visit the website www.flickr.com to have an idea about it.

Wikis-A wiki can be thought of as a combination of a website and a word document. At its simplest, it can be read just like any other website, but its real power lies in the fact that groups can collaboratively (and privately, when necessary) work on the content of the site using just a standard web browser. The second important element of a wiki is its ability to keep track of the history of a document as it is revised. Since people come to one place to edit, the need to keep track of word files is eliminated. Each time a person makes changes to a wiki page, that revision of the content becomes the current version, and an older version is stored. Versions of the document can be compared side-by-side, and edits can be ‘rolled back’ if necessary.

A wiki makes it easy for students to write, revise and submit a assignment, since students can develop, write and revise. Students can be given a wiki page to develop an assignment, and might start by

tracking their background research. This allows the teacher, and peers, to see what they’re using, help  them if they are off the track, suggest other resources, or even get ideas based on what others find useful. Next, the student can draft the paper in the wiki, taking advantage of the wiki’s automatic revision history that saves a version of the document each time she makes changes. This allows the teacher and peers to see the evolution of the paper over time, and continually comment on it, rather than offering comments only on the final draft. It helps in making assessment continuous. When the student completes the final draft, the teacher and peers can read it on the wiki, and offer feedback. You may visit the website www.wikispaces.com to get an idea about it.

RSS - This web tool allows you to gather information from certain websites and display this information on your own site. RSS has great potential of providing teachers and students with a wealth of current information about various topics that are covered in the curriculum. One simple way to take advantage of this tool is to use it to collect information from the sites you visit often and then share the information with your students. The information could be used as research sources for your students as they explore various topics within the curriculum. You may visit the website www. rssfeedreader.com to get an idea about it.

Blogs -Blogs allow you to post homework and other discussion prompts. It keeps record of threaded discussions and arranges items by date. Attachments can be added to blogs too. Students can interact with the teacher online. A blog is a type of website or part of a website. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other materials, such as graphics or video. A blog is similar to an empty book. This book can be in the form of a sketchbook, a diary, a dictionary or portfolio— it depends on the content that we put into the book. The commenting feature of blogs allows for immediate feedback on a posting and active participation. The content that can be posted

to a blog can be text, images, files, hyperlinks, audio and video. Blogs can be classified on the basis of their purpose as Educational Blogs, Personal Blogs, Group Blogs, Press Blogs, Project Management Blogs, Library Blogs, Institutional Blogs, etc.

Edublogs can be written by the teachers for improving classroom teaching-learning process, by the students to post their assessment tasks and by the policy makers who need to comment on education. Edublogs allow all students to participate in discussion on any topic. Teacher acts as a facilitator in blog-based teaching and learning who moderates the discussion process to keep it on the right track. She can invite absent students, provide necessary teaching-learning materials and communicate with parents, link her class with another class somewhere else in the world, write comments, opinions, or questions on daily news items or issues of interests and showcase students’ best writing pieces. Teacher can also post teaching-learning notes for students, resources, and important links. In many countries students use mostly blogs instead of paper journals for writing assignments. Services like http://www.blogger.com; www.learnerblogs.org and http://epnweb.org/blogmeister/are free blogging services that students can join. Some are open to the public, others are password protected.

Digital books

Laptop computers and e Readers, such as the Kindle and the iPad, allow students to accessdigital textbooks and library books anytime and anywhere. Further, as more and more books are transferred to digital platforms, they are re- designed to include more multimedia content to complement the text. Multimedia-enhanced digital books provide accessible content for learners who might be less comfortable with text-heavy materials. In addition, eBooks allow readers to annotate content and then share and archive their comments online. Websites such as CAST’s UDL book builder allow teachers and students to create their own digital books, which can be customized to meet the needs of individual readers. Digital books are becoming more and more popular as it  attempt to cut down the use of paper, as well as cut publishing costs, but have not yet been used widely in school settings (Johnson, Levine, Smith, & Stone,2010).

Cloud computing

Cloud computing refers to digital programs and storage that live in networked computers (rather than a local server), and that can be accessed any where using personal computers or mobile devices. Many applications that people use every day, such as gmail or Google Docs, are cloud applications. Cloud computing can bring otherwise out of reach resources into classrooms and into students’ hands. For example, iLab Central makes authentic experimental laboratories accessible for students to use and access through the Internet. And because they live on the network, applications in the cloud make it easy to share documents, collaboratively edit, and effectively manage versions, both locally and at a distance.

Collaborative environments

Digital collaborative environments range from small single-purpose tools (e.g.,Google Docs and wikispaces) to comprehensive collaborative virtual learning environments (e.g.,Blackboard, Moodle, Schoology, Edmodo).These tools can facilitate synchronous and asynchronous collaboration on anything from small assignments to semester-long projects between classmates, students at different schools, students and teachers, and teachers and teachers, via the Internet. Social networking platforms also fall into this category. These sites allow users to share their interests with their peers, find other users with common interests, and participate in online collaboration (Johnson etal. 2010). While the use of collaborative environments in education has not yet been systematically studied, teachers have begun to explore the use of this technology in the classroom. An example is the Networked News room project. Networked News room is an online participatory learning news platform for high school classes. It allows users to post story ideas, leads, photos, videos and other information directly from their computers or mobile phones. Editing is done collaboratively in the virtual news room, where diverse users supplement one another’s work to develop more meaningful and robust stories. Final stories are published on a public wiki.

Mobile devices

Newly released, large screen mobile devices, or tablets, such as the Apple iPad, Google Tablet, and HP Slate, along with cell phones, iPods, and mp3 players that students are already using, offer a variety of educational affordances. In addition to mobile capabilities that might be used in the classroom such as Twitter to facilitate in class discussions, poll anywhere (pollanywhere.com) to turn a mobile device into an automated response system, or Internet browsing - this new generation of mobile devices can store digital textbooks and library books for students to access anywhere and at anytime, run augmented reality programs, and allow students to more easily take notes and share digital resources (Johnsonetal.,2010).Teachers have also used hand held devices (such as PDAs or smart phones) as progress monitoring tools.

Visual data analysis 

Tools for collecting, analyzing, and visualizing complex data sets are becoming more readily available. Websites like Gapminder.org allow people to upload, visualize, and manipulate their own data. Researchers and educators see great potential in the eventual ability of such tools to allow students to see and manipulate complex processes, leading to deeper understanding of complex relationships and concepts

4.3Teacher as a Techno pedagogue

• A Techno- Pedagogue is a person who focuses on the use of technology and whose expertise is in electronic pedagogy methods and theory. 

•  A techno pedagogue is not a systems administrator or network administrator that is job for the technical person you hired when you thought they could also help your teachers apply technology in the classroom. 

• The techno pedagogue is a person who can see the practical uses and appropriate uses of technology to attain the educational goals.  

• This person’s expertise is grounded in educational theory curriculum development and course design.  

• This person stays up-to-date of new developments in technology and helps to flitter new information to other teachers in a manner that can be understood by the less techno knowledge. 

•  The techno pedagogue designs, model courses that use technology for other teachers to learn from.  

• A techno pedagogue can manage the design, production and even implementation of online environments, interfaces and tools that supports learning on diverse processes. 

•  The techno pedagogue communicates and works easily with information architects and programmers as well as professionals and administrators translating from one to the other.