Week Two

Welcome to week two of ICT and Pedagogy.

In this week’s tutorial we set up our blog for LA1 using Blogger. This site is a free weblog publishing tool from Google. Blogger allows me to edit and update my blog’s at any time.

We also used Google Sites to set up our web page for LA2. This site is also a free tool from Google to create and share webpages.

Jason discussed LA2: For my eportfolio I need 3 examples of working at ICT pedagogical level. To work at an ICT pedagogical level my examples must include Professional Values, Professional Relationships, Professional Knowledge and Professional Practice. These requirements are outlined in the Smart Classrooms Professional Development Framework. There are multiple Frameworks to work towards depending on a teacher’s position and expertise within a school. Being a University student my current position allows me to obtain the ICT Certificate, by participating in this course.

This week’s reading also gave me a greater insight into the TPACK framework. I enjoyed watching the YouTube clip with Toni (Technology), Pedro (Pedagogy) and Chris (Content). The clip shows that TPACK consists of Content Knowledge (what to teach), Pedagogical Knowledge (how to teach), Technology Knowledge (what technology to use to teach), and then how they combine into PCK (Pedagogical Content Knowledge), TCK (Technological Content Knowledge, TPK (Technological Pedagogical Knowledge) and finally TPACK (Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge). The clip has a good explanation of how each area works together to support good teaching.

This week we started our group presentations. Our topic is Computational Thinking and Programming.

Having no previous knowledge on Computational Thinking I did extensive research and found this YouTube clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFcUgSYyRPg&feature=youtu.be

This clip explained Computational Thinking so I had some understanding of our topic.

My understanding on our topic so far:

Computational Thinking is an approach to problem solving. It promotes high order thinking and incorporates digital technologies together with human ideas (ISTE, 2011).
Programing is a language that is used to create programs that tell computers step by step how to solve the problem.

I still do not fully understand so more research here I come!