Combining TPACK with what we've learned

Well, to begin with the first course. It was about Flexibility. In the other posts you can read the different kinds of flexibility. The second course was about Pedagogical Approaches. Also we post some information about that, 5 different approaches. The course after that we discuss Technology. We played with a camera and post a little reflection about it on the blog.
The previous course was about TPACK. The first thing I thought about was: What does flexibility has to do with this? TPACK is about Technology, Pedagogy and Content. Where’s the flexibility?
But after thinking about that, it became clear.
TPACK has to do with Pedagogy and Technology, that’s clear. But the flexibility is a must have to work with TPACK.
Imagine that you as a teacher would use the blog (like Petra) as a delivery method for assignments. Making a blog is technology, the assignment is the content. The flexibility in it is the manner that students can make the assignments. They can post a little story or they can put some pictures on it. It’s the choice of the student. Also he or she can choose where and when he or she will make the assignment.
So, that’s clear to me!

The main question
Coming back to the main question. How do we combine TPACK with what we have learned?
As I said before in a previous post, when we did the assignment of playing with the camera, we as a group started to think about TPACK. We didn’t think of it literally, but we thought how to combine the camera (technology) with a pedagogical approach. Also we combined it with a content. We used biology as a subject matter. At that moment, we haven’t had the lecture about TPACK, but in our heads we where thinking about it.
After the course about TPACK, it was clear to me how it works. Still I’m sure that it’s very hard for teachers to use TPACK, when they never worked with technology.
The teachers need to develop themselves and then they can work with it. It’s a challenge I think.
But also I think it’s necessary to work with some kind of technology. Marloes said that she was giving a lesson about maps to children on a primary school. When you just teach them about maps on the blackboard or paper, it won’t be authentic for them. When you use some kind of technology, like a GPS or Google Maps, it will be authentic. Children recognize a GPS or Google Maps. It’s something they work with in daily life.

'A lecture is still a lecture when you play it on a laptop'
In the last course we say a video about TPACK. It was a funny video with a reporter, P. Mishra and M. Koehler. A nice common they made was: A lecture is still a lecture when you play it on a laptop.
Some teachers would think: Well, I use technology by putting the lecture on Internet so students can see it. But do you use TPACK than? I don’t think so. You just combine the content with the technology, but don’t change the pedagogical approach. It’s not TPACK.

Conclusion
So, we learned a lot about TPACK. How does it work and what are the implications. How to implement it and how can you make sure teachers will use it, is still a little bit unclear for me. But, I think that we will learn about that in the next courses.
First I wasn’t so enthusiastic about TPACK, but I think that’s just the ignorance…