A Digital Update for Bloom's Taxonomy

I just have to share one more thing....on the same Tech & Learning website that I talked about in my final activity, there was an article entitled "Bloom's Taxonomy Blooms Digitally." (http://techlearning.com/article/8670)

The original Bloom's taxonomy (red) was developed by Benjamin Bloom in the 1950's. In the 1990's a student of his revised and published "Bloom's Revised Taxonomy" (blue) in 2001, using verbs for each category. I'm not sure who the individual person is who should get credit, but this article adds digital tasks to each category (green)

• Knowledge became Remembering (bullet pointing, highlighting, bookmarking or favorite-ing, social networking, searching or Googling.)
• Comprehension became Understanding (Advanced & Boolean Searching, Blog Journaling, Twittering, Categorizing, Commenting & Annotating, Subscribing)
  
• Application became Applying (Running & operating, playing, uploading & sharing, hacking, editing)
  
• Analysis became Analyzing (mashing, linking, reverse-engineering, cracking, validating, tagging)
  
• Synthesis became Evaluating (Blog/vlog commenting & reflecting, posting, moderating, collaborating & networking, testing)
  
• Evaluation became Creating(programming, filming, animating, videocasting, podcastng, mixing & remixing, directing & producing, publishing, Video blogging, blogging, wiki-ing, building Mash ups)

This is a great article to read to see what level of thinking we are asking our students to do when assigning digital projects or tasks.

Peaceful Scenes

Peaceful Scenes

Module 4 - Web 2.0 Tools - Final Activity

First of all, I have to say, that it has been so much fun exploring all these new tools and sites that I had no idea were "out there." I always felt/knew that there was an unbelievable amount of information and resources on the web, but now I am even more overwhelmed. I also have to admit that as I have been exploring different sites that I am not sure exactly what is a Web 2.0 tool and what is not. But I have sure enjoyed exploring all week.

I actually started my investigations for this last project from several points. One of the regular sites I have subscribed to and get regular email updates is http://techlearning.com. This week that site had an article called "More Tools for Digital Storytellers" (http://www.techlearning.com/blogs/29246) The author of this blog gave approximately a dozen different sites where students can create web-based digital stories. I checked out Tikatok, Storyjumper, and StorySomething. They are all great sites that elementary students could use to write their own stories digitally. I would think that writing a story digitally might just be the "hook" for some students who hate to write the conventional way. Most of these sites also had stories that others had written and saved that could be accessed by the teacher as opportunities for students to read. Again this might be another avenue to "hook" a reluctant reader.

The Web 2.0 tool that I finally focused on to investigate and explore more thoroughly actually came from the individuals Andy and I had been interviewing for our district media specialist. During their interviews two of them had mentioned "Animoto" as a Web 2.0 tool they had used with elementary students. So I checked out the Animoto website. It is an online digital creation and editing video service. You can take your own images, videos, and music or you can use their gallery selections to create short "movie trailer" type video clips. You start with a title, upload images and video clips. Add some text and music. Then they "process, analyze and render" it and you can see what they come up with. If you don't like it, you can remix it until you get a version you like. They also had some samples you could preview. I checked out several that gave me lots of ideas of how this could be used for different classes in the elementary school. I watched one called "Be a Buddy, not a Bully" - an idea for our 3rd & 4th graders to do an Animoto video clip instead of their traditional posters at the end of their month-long developmental guidance unit on "Bullying" and our guidance counselor is a techie so she might really enjoy this. I watched another called "The Alphabet" - students had formed all the capital letters of the alphabet out of various ordinary classroom objects - unifix cubes, markers, clay, counting bears, macaroni, etc. What a great way to review the alphabet with young students - have them each form a letter, take a photo of their creation and then put them all together into a video using Animoto. The final sample one I watched was a 4H Watershed Experience. This paralleled what our fourth graders did in science this year. They did put together either a PowerPoint or PhotoStory video show afterwards, but Animoto would be another option.

You can do a 30 second video for free or there are 2 additional options for money that allow you to make longer versions - $30 per year for an All Access Pass and $249 per year for Professional.

I put together a short 30 second sample video just using digital pictures, video clips, and music from their galleries. You can see it on my blog - it's entitled "Peaceful Scenes." (I can't believe I figured out how to post it to my blog. I am so proud of myself!! ) I must say I found the Animoto site very user friendly! I am anxious to have our new media specialist start next year and help our staff learn to use this new Web 2.0 tool!
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Wikipedia experience

I just had a very interesting experience. I received a "Toad Abode" from my son and daughter-in-law as a gift to put in my raspberry patch as a natural way to take care of all the mosquitos that plague me when I try to pick the raspberries! Since it's now spring, I put my "Toad Abode" out in the raspberry patch last weekend and today my husband found me a toad. So my toad is in his new home. So I decided that I needed to do some reading on how to take care of my toad. I looked online and found a site called "wikihow" It had all kinds of information about the care of a toad and it was interactive. Just as we've all read about wiki's - I could edit any of the sections that talked about the food, home, care, etc. of toads. It even listed the most recent edits -- date and by whom. Lots of very interesting information. Toads are the most intelligent amphibian -- they like to be petted, will come when you call, will eat from your hand, will learn to show up at a certain time for regular feedings -- fascinating. Not sure I'm up for all that. I just want to make sure he has water and plenty of insects to eat. Might have to buy him some crickets, meal or wax worms until more insects show up. New adventure. But for this class...I was fascinated by the wiki that provided me with lots of information & I could change it if I had something to add.

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions!

I put this same kind of comment on the General Discussion Board, but when I saw that no one else is posting there, decided that I should just post it on my blog. Even though I haven't posted anything for a few days, I have been poking around on the Internet trying to decide what web 2.0 tool I want to investigate thoroughly and write about for Module 4 project. There are SO MANY things out there. It is hard to choose, especially when I'm looking through the lens of the elementary school setting. I am going to look back through my notes from the recent media specialist interviews we did to see what they've mentioned using. Maybe that will help me focus. Tomorrow night I've told myself it will be time to settle on one - good or bad -- and thoroughly investigate it.

Media Specialists & Technology in Schools

Andy and I have been interviewing applicants for a district-wide media specialist position the last 2 nights which is why I haven't been posting. Of course, one of the very important qualities we are looking for in our new media specialist is their knowledge and ability to integrate new technologies into instruction and facilitate teachers to do the same. We have been very impressed with several applicants' knowledge and the ease with which they talk about 2.0 tools that the two of us have just become aware of through this course. I know I am SO GLAD that I have taken this course and learned something about blogging, open course software, Google reader, and had at least "heard of" many other applications that I can't recall right now because I don't know them that well. For these "younger" people, technology is simply pervasive in their lives.

Two New Blogs

Somehow long before I took this class, I had been getting regular email notices about new and interesting technology articles from a website called SimpleK12. I used to just read them, print them if they were good, or delete them if I didn't really want to keep them for any reason. But today I went poking around and found their blog. The URL for their blog is http://blog.simpleK12.com. It is really a neat site. There are 2 articles/posts that I found of great interest today. One was titled "Is Moodle Secretly Hijacking Your School District's Resources?" As best I understood the article, the author maintains that Moodle as a free "open source software" isn't really free when you count the costs to install, customize, train, and then purchase the supporting hardware you need to run it well. Course I believe the article is on a site that is some kind of company that sells a website service - so it's a bit biased!!!

The second article was titled "Are you REALLY an Ed Tech Leader in Your School/District/State/Country?" It led me to another site of a guy in the United Kingdom (http://www.ictineducation.org) This guy has an interesting project he is dong and blogging about. He calls it "31 Days to Become a Better Ed Tech Leader." He challenges ed tech leaders to give a specific hint to their constituents every day for 31 days. He is modeling examples on his blog of what you might do. There was also an ad on this website for a book titled Amazing Web 2.0 Projects.

Now having done all this poking around, I have to confess I am confused about what's an ordinary website versus what's a blog when I go to some of these sites.