In his oft-cited work on the individual elements of teacher knowledge, Shulman (1986) proposed a theory that sees the core knowledge of teachers to centre around three focal points: 1) content knowledge, 2) pedagogical knowledge, and 3) pedagogical content knowledge. The first element, content knowledge stands for having expert knowledge on the content of the subject(s) one teaches. The second, pedagogical knowledge entails one’s knowledge of teaching methodology, and pedagogical content knowledge emerges as the combination of the two, when a teacher is able to combine methodological knowledge to teach their specific subject effectively in a way that it supports and facilitates learning (Shulman, 1986, p. 8). Additionally, Shulman (1986) remarked that the teacher has to convey their subject matter into explanations and activities that prove to be effective to support learning; thus, this very blend of content knowledge and pedagogical knowledge should receive much attention.

 

 

Thus, the TPACK framework (Mishra & Koehler, 2006), building on Shulman’s (1986) original theory of the building blocks of teacher knowledge, fits well into the sociocultural approach (Vygotsky, 1978) and the argument that technology is an extension of learning and teaching possibilities. It also means that technology in teaching and learning processes should not be looked at in isolation (Lim, 2002; McDougall & Jones, 2006; Sutherland et al., 2004). Another important implication of this argument is the fact that studies conducted into the field of technology inclusion should use complex and good-quality data collection instruments (McDougall & Jones, 2006) and explain how ICT inclusion facilitates teaching, learning, meaning-making, etc. within the given educational context.

 

The comprehensive model encompasses of three sub-domains: 1) educators’ professional competences, 2) educators’ pedagogic competences, and 3) learners’ competences as detailed in Figure 2. The framework offers and applies descriptors to detail the competence levels in each subdomain from levels A1 to C2 (Redecker, 2017b), which suggests that teachers can master different elements of the model on different levels. This, however, also means that apart from self-categorisation thorough well-detailed descriptors, a standardised measurement instrument is not attached to the model to help teachers determine their technological knowledge levels. While the extent to which teachers can objectively position their technological knowledge through can-do statement is questionable, the model effectively reflects the spatiotemporal sensitivity of integration as well as how technology is the extension of teachers’ existing pedagogical knowledge.

 

 

The literature, however, does not necessarily turn to specific models to assess or describe teachers’ existing or desired technological knowledge. As opposed to applying the TPACK or the DigCompEdu frameworks, it is also frequent to use or adapt one of the many general technology acceptance models (originating from Davis, 1989) to assess the basic attitudes and familiarity of individuals towards technology. Another frequent solution is to design locally adaptable models relating to specific educational contexts (Tondeur et al., 2021). Tondeur and colleagues (2021) developed a set of assessment criteria and reviewed three technology integration models, the 1) Will, skill, tool, and pedagogy, 2) Synthesis of qualitative data, and the 3) Four in balance models and concluded that each of these modules shared fundamental similarities; all of them were set up of several subdomains of knowledge and were sensitive to the sociocultural aspects of integration. It was also concluded that adaptation models centred around teaching, teachers, and the teaching context, while there are not any generic or widely adapted models on the learners’ end of the spectrum (Tondeur et al., 2021). Consequently, a learner-centred model as widely applicable as the TPACK model has not yet been proposed.