From my understanding, 21st century literacy != TPACK.

With 21st century literacy, I think of the example of hypertext. In EDU800 we read an article by Coiro & Dobler that explored reading comprehension of hypertext, which is what I consider to be a good example of 21st century literacy. It requires a different (often greater) cognitive load to process than regular text.

Unless I’m wrong, however, the concept of literacy itself doesn’t come pre-packaged with a well-defined framework like TPACK that can be used as a research construct. I would envision 21st century literacy as an element than can be examined through the lens of TPACK.

I think TPACK is a way to get to 21st century literacies. If the teacher is able to combine the best practices in technology, pedagogy, and content then they are not only able to create units, lessons, and activities that instill 21st century literacies into students, but they are demonstrating their own ability to do it.

After reviewing the TPACK mind-map definition, I believe that 21st Century Literacy framework creates a strange (& different) and larger overlap replacement for TPACK’s Technology Knowledge discipline section. So this would place 21st Century Literacy as being TPACK’s largest subset of the other two disciplines.

Dr. Mishra also states in the video that nothing has changed…the 21st Century Learning framework still has the core pieces of TPACK. What has changed is the tools available. I view 21st Century Literacy as a sub-section of TPACK.

This is similar to when he discussed being a video game designer. As he said, you can’t be only a programmer—you have to also be an artist.

In his diagram of 21st century learning, the first thing he pointed out is content knowledge. Later, however, he agrees with the notion that standardized testing is the cause of the decline in creativity, but I would question whether the content knowledge is there to allow for the divergent and convergent thinking that he mentions.

I see the definitions/disciplines of TPACK assuming the inclusion of creativity. What I mean for that is each of the 3 sections of TPACK (Technology, Pedagogical and Content) all assume their information. But in reality the technology section is part because creative minds were used to create the “Technologies” to use, the ability came from previous “Content knowledge” that was taught and learned by children starting at an early age (pedagogy). So, TPACK’s definition assumes the use of creativity or chooses to not define their section origins in such a granular manor.

The vision for creativity as being NEW (Novel, Effective, and Whole) is similar to my understanding of TPACK. In TPACK, TK is new, unique, novel ways of applying technology to teaching and learning. PK is effective teaching and classroom strategies and CK is strong content and learning applications as a whole.

I like the idea that Dr. Mishra introduces about combinatorial creativity, aka (in)Disciplined learning. It actually explains a lot about where creativity comes from. For instance, for Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy to exist, there had to be an author who knew enough about science and enough about the arts to cross-pollinate the two in a creative way.

I still would not equate trans-disciplinary learning with TPACK, but would say it’s one aspect of learning that could be part of the TPACK framework.

Trans-disciplinary thinking is just a fancy way of connecting ideas and thoughts. We used to call it “Out of the box” thinking. And sorry to state the obvious but the more you know about a subject and the more subjects you know the more opportunities you have at having unique ideas. And, of course, practicing that type of thinking also helps.

Trans-disciplinary thinking is weaved within TPACK in my view. For example, in TK, an educator may decide to integrate an app they use for their fitness goals as a tech tool to explain a health sciences concept. On the other hand, the idea of trans-disciplinary thinking is true for how it applies to students. Students’ interests outside of their academic pursuits shape how they learn, how they problem solve and how they express their creativity.