Learning theories and frameworks for teaching with technology

In this episode, we explore key learning theories — including Connectivism — and how they inform digital teaching practice. We also unpack two essential frameworks, TPACK and SAMR, that can help educators make purposeful choices about using technology to enhance learning. A great starting point for building your digital pedagogy toolkit! 

Music by amado zapana from Pixabay

Transcript

Welcome back to Digital Pedagogy in Practice. In today’s episode, we’re going to take a closer look at how learning theories and teaching frameworks help shape how we use technology in education — and why understanding these is so important for us as educators.

Now, during your studies, you’ve probably come across some of the big names in education — people like Jean Piaget, Jerome Bruner, and Lev Vygotsky. Their work has laid the foundation for much of what we know about how people learn — how they create new knowledge, how they build on what they already know, and how they transfer that learning into new contexts.

For a long time, education research was kind of stuck in a debate — is learning an individual pursuit or a social activity? But as the research evolved, we’ve come to understand that learning isn’t either/or — it’s both. We learn in different ways depending on the content, the context, and the tools we’re using.

And of course — one of the biggest shifts in education has been the arrival of computers and digital technologies in our classrooms.

When computers first came onto the scene, a lot of people dismissed their potential — or worried that they might replace teachers altogether. But educational researchers kept going — looking at how technology could actually change how we teach and how students learn.

From that work, new learning theories emerged — including one I want to focus on today: Connectivism.

Connectivism is sometimes called a ‘learning theory for the digital age’. It was introduced by George Siemens in the early 2000s, and it suggests that learning is all about creating connections — connections between people, ideas, resources, and information networks.

In Connectivism, knowledge doesn’t just sit inside an individual’s head — it lives in the network. Learning is the process of building and navigating those networks — and knowing where to find knowledge when you need it is just as important as knowing what or how.

A few key principles of Connectivism include:

• Learning happens through connecting specialised nodes or information sources
• Learning can actually reside in non-human appliances — think of all the ways we use search engines or apps today
• The capacity to know more- matters more than just what you know right now
• Maintaining those connections is key for ongoing learning

As you can probably tell — this theory really aligns with how we use technology today: constantly connected, constantly learning.

But here’s the thing — having access to technology alone isn’t enough. Just putting an iPad in a classroom won’t automatically lead to great learning.

That’s why as educators, we need frameworks that help us think carefully about how we’re using technology — and how it can actually improve teaching and learning.

Two really useful frameworks for this are: TPACK and SAMR.

Let’s start with TPACK — which stands for Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge.

The idea here is that to teach well with technology, you need three types of knowledge — content knowledge (what you’re teaching), pedagogical knowledge (how you teach), and technological knowledge (the tools you use).

But the real magic happens when you blend these areas. An educator with strong TPACK can create lessons that aren’t just technically polished — they’re also pedagogically sound and deeply connected to the subject matter.

Then there’s the SAMR model — which helps us think about the level of impact technology is having on learning.

SAMR breaks down into four stages:

1. Substitution — using technology to substitute something you’d normally do anyway (like typing an essay instead of handwriting it)
2. Augmentation — adding some functional improvements (like sharing that essay online for peer feedback)
3. Modification — changing the task itself (maybe turning that essay into a collaborative blog post)
4. Redefinition — creating entirely new tasks that wouldn’t be possible without technology (like turning that essay into an interactive multimedia story with video, audio, and hyperlinks)

What’s important here is that you don’t always need to aim for Redefinition. Sometimes, a simple substitution is the best pedagogical choice — it depends on your students, your content, and your learning goals.

But as educators, we should always be thinking critically about the why behind our tech choices — and aiming to design learning experiences that help students develop their own digital fluency.

As we move forward in this series, we’ll dive deeper into how you can apply these frameworks in your own teaching — and how you can build your own TPACK as you prepare for the classroom.

So — that’s it for today! In the next episode, we’ll look more closely at how digital pedagogy helps shape 21st-century learning, and explore some real-world examples from practice.

Thanks for listening!