Week 8 PLE Post

For access to our plans for the Google Earth Project follow these links:
4 Locations for Google Earth Project (Google Doc)
Lesson Plan Table of 6 activities for Google Earth Project (Google Doc)


I have read the article and here are my responses to the following questions:

•What are some of the problems with learning TPACK skills?
One of the problems is that educational technologies are not yet well-integrated into instruction in most K-12 classrooms and many teachers are unfamiliar with the methods and how to use them correctly.  When they are used incorrectly it actually defeats the purpose and can hinder the sutdents ability to learn instead of enhancing their experience.
•What is the main idea of the article?
The main idea of the article is to "suggest that a logical approach to helping teachers to better integrate technologies in their teaching is to directly link students’ content-related learning needs with particular content-based learning activities and related educational technologies that will best support the activities’ successful implementation."
•What are some of the ideas in the article that led you to your main idea?
One of the ideas was how they focused on the ability to plan technology-integrated, content-based learning activities in a maximally efficient way and the other was "that the emphasis in this approach is upon content-based learning activities -- the primary elements in teachers’ instructional planning -- rather than the affordances and constraints of educational technologies that can support learning activities for students."
•What are some reasons that this article might be important for you as a teacher?
This article is important for me as a future teacher because I think this is where the world of teaching is going.  We are going to have to learn to use and integrate new technology and this method is one of the few ways we know how to do it.  I think it is imperative that we keep up with methods like TPCK.