TPACK and the real world: How useful is the framework?

This paper describes a recent longitudinal study set in Australia which examined the extent to which early career teachers used information and communication technologies (ICT) in their classrooms. The study, which tracked 35 teachers through the first three years of their teaching, found a range of personal and socio-cultural factors that impacted on the extent to which ICT was used. In addressing personal factors such as teachers’ beliefs, knowledge and skills, the research drew upon the work of Mishra and Koehler (2006) to consider the inter-relationships between teachers’ technological, pedagogical and content knowledge (TPACK). The use of TPACK as an analytical framework was at the same time insightful and perplexing. This paper reflects upon the usefulness of TPACK in making sense of how two of these 35 participants used ICT