TPAK Lesson Plan

Lesson Plan for TPACK integration

Application
Constructing and writing a 5-paragraph essay.

First, provide some details regarding:

• Learners: This activity will be optimal for 5^th or 6^th grade reading students, as reading often incorporates writing in the elementary and early intermediate classrooms.
• Learning outcomes: After this lesson, the students will be able to state the process of writing a 5-paragraph essay as well as creating their own with the proper formatting, use of complete sentences, and grammar.
• Assessment: As a 5-paragraph essay has a standard format, I can easily gauge whether students understand the format of the essay. With the aid of the apps, students will be able to map a story properly as well as write in complete, grammatically correct sentences, and I can gauge their progress on these as well. I’ll check for the formation of ideas, the development of ideas, and the understanding of the essay format.

The lesson will begin with the introduction of the two educational apps, Idea Sketch and Sentence Builder. This will take approximately 5-7 minutes as I’ll explain the apps to the students and provide examples. Idea Sketch offers students an easy way to map out their ideas to more quickly get them onto paper. Sentence Builder provides students a tool to ensure that their sentences are complete and grammatically correct. Students will use both apps when writing their papers. Next, I’ll introduce the structure of a 5-paragraph essay: introduction, body, and conclusion, and explain each section and its purpose. This will take approximately 10 minutes. I’ll now give the students an example prompt, my favorite summer break, and give them a couple of minutes to come up with an idea. While the students contemplate, I’ll walk around the classroom and offer aid, answer questions, etc. Finally, I’ll ask the students the 3 parts of an essay and their purposes. If extra attention is required, I’ll go over the process again.

Reflection

The two technological aspects of my lesson plan, Idea Sketch and Sentence Builder, serve predominately as supplemental or supportive elements for the lesson. Writing stands as a more old school field of study where students rely on their own thoughts and opinions to strive. However, both Idea Sketch and Sentence Builder aid students’ abilities to develop their writing processes and—hopefully—eliminate the need to use these apps in the future.

 Idea Sketch provides students with the opportunity to easily create a brainstorm chart or “spider web” as we used to call it in school. The app allows students to create a main idea and branch off supporting details for their main ideas to create a helpful diagram for which to build their papers. Sentence Builder allows students to check their spelling and some minor aspects of grammar as well. Students merely type a sentence into the program, and it informs them if their sentence contains a misspelled word or where they should place a comma or apostrophe. Again, both apps serve as supplementary avenues of thought when it comes to writing a paper; writing still requires a large amount of effort from the writers themselves.

I employ examples along with lecturing and some self-guided learning in my essay activity. I use the examples alongside the lecturing in my activity to provide the students with a correct way to write the exampled material. For example, when I discuss a thesis statement, I provide the students with a sample thesis statement to show them a correct example. This shows the students what is expected of their writing, and explains the process of writing it correctly. The self-guided learning stems from the students’ own ability to develop their arguments and topics. I allow the students to rely on their own experiences when writing, and I cannot tell them how their experiences have affected their own lives. Writing is quite a personal process, and students must develop their own style and voice to succeed with a paper. Developing their own style and voice requires the students to practice and refine their skills, so self-guided learning is an essential part of the process. A person’s own style and voice lasts as one of the most unique and beautiful aspects of writing. A writer employs his or her own personal experiences, ethnic backgrounds, and memories to create a writing voice as unique as his or her own speaking voice. Writing is akin to thinking, and writers own thoughts bleed through on the page to create a distinct, personal work of art.

3D Printing

As I looked through the articles on 3-D printing from the Smithsonian and Thingiverse, I became intrigued by what I saw. I knew that many people had been using 3-D printing for awhile now, but I didn't fathom the full extent of its application. The Smithsonian's use of printing to preserve history stands as my favorite application so far. The ability to take something either lost to history or badly damaged and recreate it for the use of education seems far more practical than simply creating a case for your iPhone 6. However, Thingiverse has many practical applications as well. I think back on the scaled model of the T-Rex skull that we looked at in class last week, and I found similar models on Thingiverse. I enjoy that 3-D printing has taken on the form of education, rather than just a form of art--which has its own uses in society. If I were to use a 3-D printer in my hypothetical classroom, it would be as a supplemental element on a creative project. Being an English major, I imagine assigning a creative project over an author or a piece of literature and allowing the students to create an object that represents and encompasses a feature of their project. For example, if a student were to choose "The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe, that student might want to create a model of a perched raven or, perhaps, a bust of the speakers lost love, Lenore. I think that the 3-D printer has functional and useful applications no matter the chosen subject, and I look forward to experimenting with it further!

TPCK
I found this article interesting in its not simply arguing for or against the use of technology, but how the article objectively showed the necessity of technological knowledge by both the teachers and the students in a classroom. The theory of TPCK is a good one; it shows that technology is in the world, whether liked or not, and human beings must not be completely foreign to its uses. The idea that teachers should use technology, but not completely rely on it, hits my view on the argument completely. Teachers exist in the classroom to, well, teach. If teachers do nothing but facilitate a room full of computers and iPads, why go to college and waste their time at all? I think that technology must be used in a TPCK format, where technology is integrated into the instruction as a supplemental form or aid, but not as the primary source of education. There are other factors in schools--beyond textbook learning--that require more than a tablet or laptop. Skills in social and cultural facets that require human interaction, and not virtual human interaction. Students need development in these areas as well, and merely using technology as a primary source of education will not suffice. If schools produce students with no social and cultural cues, then our society will begin to break down and crumble beneath us. The TPCK form of education works as well as any that I have witnessed in my education. It incorporates technology into the classroom, but does not remove the teaching/learning aspect from the respective people in the room.

I found myself intrigued by the question posed by Mr. Apple in his article. I think his point is quite prevalent and rather rare in the grand outlook concerning technology in a modern society. People should raise the question "why?" when aggressively encouraged to commit to a new and foreign avenue of life. While some may say that Mr. Apple only offers the negative aspects of a technologically fueled society, I would argue that the majority of arguments surrounding technology paint its use as an enlightened future with no drawbacks or limitations. I believe that Mr. Apple merely peels at the veneer of technology and offers a contrasting opinion to the overall argument. I think that differences of opinion are a healthy and necessary process to achieving a more beneficial outcome to any issue, and Mr. Apple seeks to apply this practice in his article. 

With regards to the experiment involving paper vs. tablet surveys, I'm not surprised in the slightest at the results the members received. There are times when I thoroughly prefer an iPad to a sheet of paper and vice versa. Technology is a tool and like any other tool it should be used to benefit the person who uses it. If a person finds more substance from using a pencil and paper, rather than a tablet, that person should be allowed the method that most comforts them and produces the best results. 

When I read the article on the advancements of robotic items, I was a little surprised. There are many television shows and movies that depict a world filled with automatic appliances and furniture, but to have these entities in a realm of reality takes a person aback to say the least. I'm not very old, and I remember a time without cellphones, laptops, Facebook, and large, cumbersome television sets. The advancement of technology has exponentially increased within the last few decades, and "Summon the comfy chairs!" only sheds more light on the ever-growing advancements in the technological field. 

I got the same impression from the article covering some of the latest inventions from 2015. I'm not completely appalled by the technology it shows, but by the frequency of its delivery. It used to take months, years, or even decades before a new form of technology became readily available to the grand public, but now the time-frames are completely condensed. Apple, Google, and Samsung release new cellphones at least twice a year, and the capabilities of the phones is mind-blowing. Again, I'm not very old, and I remember dial-up internet in my lifetime. Now a 3G network seems to take forever. 

The PBS study mostly confirmed for me what I already expected to be true. I'm not surprised to see that the majority of teachers find the use of technology to aid and simplify their teaching process. After all, that's the purpose of technology: to help make a person's life easier.