Annmarie Thomas Creates TPACK Inspiration Station

Annmarie Thomas has been working on an app that supports teachers in their discovery of effective technology integration using TPACK.   She has created a “TPACK Inspiration Station” designed to pair a pedagogical strategy with a technology tool in the hopes of inspiring new innovative lessons.  Featured within the game are complete explanations for the strategies used.  You’ll also find links to the technology tools for quick and easy access.  The game is available to play on her website!  Thomas hopes to have a mobile phone app version of the game available soon.  This will allow teachers to simply click the “new pairing” button  for some instant TPACK inspiration.   “The app has pedagogical ideas, culture building ideas,  and vetted technology that is free (or totally worth the cost!) and compatible with multiple operating systems and devices,”  Thomas shares.

My Imagine IT project was focused on supporting teachers in teaching for conceptual understanding and integrating technology more frequently. TPACK helped guide this work, but I continually found that teachers felt either intimidated by technology or were too busy to sort through and learn how to use the endless tech resources to determine which fit their lessons best. I also noticed that some teachers had a small handful of pedagogical approaches they used constantly and many more were unsure of how to structure student-centered learning.  -Annmarie Thomas