Cooking with TPACK

Today I have been completing a quest in which I tried to do some cooking with a tool that was not necessarily made for the job.  The task is called 'Cooking with TPACK'.

TPACK is a framework of how content, technology and pedagogy should overlap to produce a complete learning experience.

Image from http://www.tiltnet.org/tpack.html

In this task, I had to use a utensil that I didn't choose to complete a random task.  I ended up chopping vegetables with a potato peeler.  This actually could have been a lot worse, as a peeler does at least have a sharp edge so I was able to thinly slice the veggies with it.  Watch this video to see how I got on.

I learned that re-purposing tools can work to get the job done, but probably not as well as the right tool for the job.  The classroom implications for this are that the best experiences happen when the tool, the task and the knowledge are in sync.  You might be able to create a lesson without the right tools or technology and achieve some results, but you can do something much better when you select a tool that really allows you to fulfill the potential of the task.  One surprise of my task was that I was able to slice the veggies quite well, just in a different way than I would have done with a knife.  In the same way, when we use technology in the classroom we open up the possibility of redefining traditional activities and doing something that simply couldn't be done before.  As teachers, we just need to make sure that we choose the correct tools, so we don't end up trying to slice vegetables with a rolling pin.