Distributed TPACK What kind of teachers does it work for?

Abstract

Technology at school can be either integrated as an everyday support to normal, curricular activities or as a trigger for special projects. Drawing on the distributed cognition theory, the distributed TPACK (Technology, Pedagogy and Content Knowledge) model (Di Blas et al., 2014) claims that, at least in the latter case, the knowledge required does not reside in just the teacher’s head but is rather distributed within a complex system of resources that includes students, colleagues, relatives, experts, the internet, etc.
After introducing the distributed interpretation of the TPACK model, this paper focuses on the profile of the teachers who “enact” it within their classroom, based on data from a large case-study with digital storytelling at school. Results are quite surprising: most of the teachers are quite aged, with more than 20 years of teaching experience, with a background in humanities rather than science; many admit a poor command of Technology Knowledge. Yet, they succeed: benefits for their students are substantial, over a wide spectrum. What lesson can be drawn? That contrary to what may be expected, PK and not TK is probably the issue when introducing technology at school.