Why Theory: Or the TPACK story

by | Wednesday, December 07, 2016

Note: There are two key updates / correction to this post

  • The first has to do with a couple of things that I either got wrong, or rushed over. More about that at Update on “The TPACK story” or “Oops!
  • The second has to do with an update to the diagram itself that came in 2018, prompted by identifying a semantic inconsistency in the diagram (particularly around the idea of context). More about that at The TPACK Diagram gets an upgrade.

I was recently invited to speak at the fall Doctoral Research Forum for the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College on the ASU West campus. (A bit more context about the event, from a couple of years ago, can be found in a blog post by my colleague Sherman Dorn titled “Observations from a Doctoral Research Forum“). In speaking with Craig Mertler, who directs the EdD program here, I thought it best to speak about the role of theory in research. This is something that troubles graduate students a lot as they move through the program (and I have posted about it earlier here and here). I contextualized the discussion within the history of the work that Matt Koehler and I did in developing the TPACK framework. This was a fun talk to create and share. I created a narrated video of the slides of the talk, embedded below:

Note: There is an update / correction to this post which
can be found here: Update on “The TPACK story” or “Oops!

A few randomly selected blog posts…

Jugaad, India-genous creativity

Jugaad is a Hindi word which does not have a straight forward equivalent in English. I guess the closest phrase I would say would be "situational or indigenous creativity," the ability to make do creatively with the tools/resources one has at hand. On Jugadu.com I...

Introducing Matt ‘n Punya

Joel Colbert is coordinating the AACTE special forum on TPCK and will be introducing all the speakers and leading the discussion after the presentations. He asked each of the speakers to send him a short introductory blurb that he could use to introduce us. This is...

RK, calligrapher, designer, teacher

R. K. Joshi | 1936 - 2008 R. K. Joshi was a calligrapher, typographer, artist, type-designer, and teacher. He has been maybe the greatest influence on me and what I do as a designer and teacher. And I know I am not alone. He influenced a generation or more of...

Representing DNA as code

What does it mean to represent something? Sean Nash (of Nashworld) and I have been having some fun at the expense of periodic representations (my post and his response) and even children's books. I had been wanting to write about this for the past few days but travel,...

Palindromic Poetry

A few years ago I got bitten by the bug of Palindromic Poetry - poems that double back on themselves, that can be read this way, or that. This is consistent with my love for ambigrams and other kinds of symmetrical wordplay. Take a look...

Demotivational posters

I have been a big fan of Despair.com and its quirky, dark humor. I particularly love the demotivational posters, with their beautiful inspiring photographs coupled with some deeply cynical or depressing message. Today students in my MAET summer program completed a...

Christine Greenhow visit + new ambigram

Christine Greenhow from the University of Maryland visited the College of Education this past week. She gave a talk and met with various faculty members and graduate students. I had met Christine a couple of years ago when we had both been invited to the National...

AllTop

I just came across a rather different kind of news aggregator, at least compared to Google. The brainchild of Guy Kawasaki (ex-Apple evangelist and tech guru) you have to check out AllTop. This may actually become a regular destination for me.

New Literacies & TPACK

I recently (through the magic of Twitter) found out about an initiative New Literacies Teacher Leader Institute 2010. This institute was organized by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary & Secondary Education, the New Literacies Research Lab at the...

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Trackbacks/Pingbacks

  1. Designing Theory: New article | Talking About Design - […] in memory. I have also given talks about why theories are important (such as this one titled Why Theory?)…
  2. Designing Theory: New article – Punya Mishra's Web - […] in memory. I have also given talks about why theories are important (such as this one titled Why Theory?)…
  3. Theoretical Frameworks: A walk through the forest with my friends - […] Why Theory: Or the TPACK story […]
  4. The TPACK diagram gets an upgrade – Punya Mishra's Web - […] story, full of blind alleys and external factors that guided its evolution. (See this video “Why Theory: The TPACK…
  5. Blurred visions: Another history of TPACK – Punya Mishra's Web - […] I had posted recently a video based on a talk I had given at ASU. In that video I…
  6. Update on “The TPACK story” Or “Oops!” – Punya Mishra's Web - […] had recently posted a video of my talk fall Doctoral Research Forum for the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College on…
  7. Diigo links 12/08/2016 – DrAlb - […] Why Theory: Or the TPACK story […]

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