Journal Article Blog The Second

“Too Cool for School? No Way!” By Punya Mishra and Matthew Koehler

This article talks about how teachers can use popular technology as teaching tools. They reference things like blogs, iPhone, YouTube, Flickr, and Google Earth as technologies teachers may not look at as things they could use to teach their students, but if they are modified to be used as an educational tool they could be used as new creative and fun ways to teach. They call their concept technological pedagogical and content knowledge (TPACK). They added on to a concept called pedagogical content knowledge created by Lee Shulman. Shulman said that what makes a teacher a teacher is that they have the ability to understand how to allow children to learn. They can apply strategies to make learning accessible to students. Mishra and Koehler say that technology needs to be added to how teachers can teach their students. They need to be able to transform technology that wasn’t necessarily made for educational purposes. They gave three examples of current popular technology that could be used in the classroom. They suggested microblogging as a way for students to interact with each other about classroom discussions outside of the classroom. They talked about specialized search engines to help students understand intertextuality. Students would search for a target phrase and look at the different ways it’s used in different places, and they could record and annotate what they find. The last technology they mentioned was music DJ software. This can help students learn about math concepts like ratios, fractions, and percentages.

I think it is a good idea for teachers to use technology that is popular with their students in an educational way. It would be something different than what they are used to, and they may be more willing to use it because it’s something they enjoy using all the time. They would most likely be used to having online conversations, so things like blogging and discussion boards could be very useful in getting students to talk, and some students may even feel more comfortable discussing their views online than in the classroom. There’s potential for things to get out of control on blogs and discussion boards, though, so there would have to be rules and the teacher would have to closely monitor what’s going on. I think the music DJ software is a very good suggestion. Most kids love music, so they may actually be a little more enthusiastic about the lesson than if it was just a regular lecture. Technology can be very useful if you know how to use it, so creating ways to use technology to help students learn will not only teach them the subject matter they are learning, but also how to use technology to their advantage.