Teachers conversations during design of technology rich curriculum activities for early literacy

Technology is steadily gaining more foothold in kindergarten practice and classrooms. As such, kindergarten teachers are challenged with how to integrate computers in such a way that they aid kindergartners in developing skills in various areas of development. Especially, technology may be used in a rich learning environment targeting the attainment of early literacy skills by kindergartners (Lankshear and Knobel, 2005; Van Scoter, 2008) TPACK has been conceptualized as the knowledge and skills related to technology integration in the classroom, which teachers develop when they collaborate on the design of learning material and instruction with technology (TPACK, Mishra and Koehler, 2005, 2008; Niess, 2011). Several studies found that teachers increased and gained TPACK by designing and implementing learning material (Mishra, Koehler and Yahya, 2007). TPACK represents a useful way of conceptualizing explicated reasoning during design of such beforementioned material, because it highlights how during such a task a teacher integrates knowledge and beliefs from pedagogy (p), early literacy (c) and technology (t) to shape knowledge and beliefs in any of the four compound domains (tp, tc, pc and tpck). Especially higher order inquiry processes such as analysis and planning are considered to aid a team in developing new knowledge and understanding, and thus might foster the development of TPACK in design teams.