Layers and Links: Learning to Juggle ‘One More Thing’ in the Classroom

Source: Teaching and Teacher Education, Volume 23, Issue 5, July 2007, Pages 572-585

This paper presents a model—hypertextual function—to consider teachers’ thinking, practice, and development in the use of technology. Hypertextual function is a multi-dimensional model linking a teacher's knowledge about students (familiarity) and technology (facility), with a teacher's teaching practice of integrating technology with content (transparency) and across disciplines and experiences (connectivity), and a teacher's sense of support (collegiality). Additionally, a teacher's context affects each of these.
Such a model is important as technology becomes more pervasive and integrating technology into classrooms adds another layer of complexity to teaching. Case studies and graphic representations of the proposed model are presented.