SAMR: a ladder for educators to use to evaluate where their use of technology falls on a scale. This scale can be used to figure out if the tech is helping to achieve higher order thinking skills. The scale can be easily applied to any use of tech and the teacher can quickly see just what role tech is playing in the lesson and the student's achievement. The four categories are neatly named to reflect just what role tech is playing.
TPACK: unlike SAMR, TPACK is an approach to tech integration that allows the teacher to see how their teaching style, content knowledge and tech intersect and overlap. TPACK allows for a much deeper understanding of how tech can make one a better teacher when one realizes how all three focus areas overlap and meet. This is not only true for the learner, but more importantly, for the educator.
For me personally, I find that TPACK is makes more sense. For someone who is just starting out integrating tech into their lessons, SAMR is definitely a great tool. It helps the educator evaluate just what role tech is serving. Since I have integrated tech before, I find that TPACK is geared more towards me. It allows me to not only evaluate the role of tech in my lesson but also just how tech is merging with my content knowledge and the knowledge of my class and students.
1. Currently I feel that there are some lessons/projects that I do that fall into that magic TPACK triangle and then there are some that don't. I would like to hit the triangle more consistently.
2. One thing that I could very quickly implement would be how I handle formal writings with my upper level students. I would like to start making my students each create and maintain a blog for all of their various formal writings throughout the year. Currently, the students do not always get to read what their peers are writing in the target language. Blogs are free and very user friendly, presenting no costs and something that can quickly be integrated into my classroom, especially since every student has a laptop. After posting new writings, I could make the students view each other's work and comment on their pieces. The major issue that I could foresee would be students not completing the comments or even their own formal writings. Possibly given the new tech and new approach to formal writings, students might be more engaged than I think. Attaching a grade to comments would be another avenue for me to hold students accountable for doing the work.
I have students create blogs and I love how they can see growth over their time learning a language. I also struggle with how best to have students look at what their peers are posting, especially because I haven't been able to find an easy way to monitor who is commenting. What I've done in the past is in-class "peer-review days" where students get partnered with someone and they review each other's blogs.
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