21st century learners are desperate to be in a classroom where technology is seamlessly threaded throughout the instruction, just as it is in the real world. Technology is a vital piece in the TPACK (Technology, Pedagogy, and Content Knowledge) model of instruction; an essential component to any educators instructional practice. The use of technology not only provides students with an increased motivation to learn, but opens the doors to an increased inter-connectedness and awareness in our ever-shrinking global society. Technology is the vehicle that will bring civic engagement opportunities to students, and the means by which they can take action to make a difference in the world. |
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What does Britney Spears have to do with Technology and Civic Involvement? Not much, but Voki, (along with a number of other Web 2.0 tools that my ECI 546 class compiled) is a piece of technology that I can incorporate into any one of my lessons to increase interest and motiviation, communicating with the 21st century learner in their own, native language. |
ILP Project for ECI 546- students used www.dipity.com, to create interactive timelines that recorded the life events of Edgar Allen Poe along side the historical events that took place during his life time. Dipity not only allows students to create their own interactive timelines, but also posts their own timelines related to current happenings from around the world.  |
"Central to closing the gap between in-school and out-of-school student technology use is teachers’ dispositions and uses of technologies to support student engagement with new literacies in the classroom."-Spires, Morris, & Zhang, 2008) 
An explanation of what the TPACK model means to me and how it will influence my instruction. |
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