Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy: Creating

As a final project for the college students in my Educational Technology class, my students research webquests. They first read an interview with Bernie Dodge and review two webquests that he mentions in the interview. They are then directed to the rubric Dodge developed to assess webquests and are then assigned to evaluate two different webquests using the rubric. The process is completed as part of a lab activity and responses to questions that I have asked about the webquest process as well as the evaluations of the two additional webquests go into the lab portfolio and are evaluated as part of the portfolio

Then as their final project in this class, which meets the creating level of Bloom's Digital Taxonomy, the students develop a webquest of their own, in groups of 2 - 4. For this project, the students use a website specifically designed for teachers/students to create webquests and share them with others.  What is nice about this website is that webquest creators are able to focus on the content of the quest rather then worry about developing a website, etc.  This website basically walks the creator through the steps.  Here is a simple webquest about service learning that I created using this website several years ago.

I think that this process is an excellent way to have students pull together all that they have learned about the webquest process as well as other concepts that we discussed in class about learning with technology.  To me, this is an ideal "creating" project for them!

Objectives:

• After exploring the process of a webquest, the student will create a webquest of their own.
• In the creation of their webquest, students will focus on using technology to foster:  authentic assessment, collaborative learning, higher level thinking, and project based learning.

Assessment:

This is the final "exam" for this class.  Students present their webquest website to their peers by highlighting the main points of the quest.  The students are assessed by looking at the effectiveness of the different sections of the quest and several factors relating to authentic assessment, collaborative learning, higher level thinking, and project based learning.

This is the rubric that is currently in use for this project.  It will likely be adapted as time goes on.

 

Webquest	Beginning  (0 - 1 pt)	Good   (2 – 3 pts)	Excellent  (4 – 5 pts)
Mechanics	There are more than 5 broken (non working ) links, misplaced or confusing images, misspellings and/or grammatical errors. (NOTE:  this is worth 0 points.)	There are some broken (non working) links, misplaced or confusing images, misspellings or grammatical errors. (NOTE:  this is worth 1 pt.)	No mechanical problems noted. (NOTE:  This is worth 2 pts.)
Blooms Taxonomy level of webquest project.	WebQuest project only addresses the lower level of Blooms.	WebQuest attempts to address an upper level of Blooms, but the goal/project is weak.	Webquest addresses one of the three upper levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy.
Motivational      Effectiveness of Introduction	The introduction is purely factual, with no appeal to relevance of today’s world and students in it.	The introduction relates somewhat to the learner’s interests and/or describes a compelling question or problem.	The introduction draws the reader into the lesson by relating to the learner’s interests or goals and engagingly describing a compelling question or problem.
Cognitive Effectiveness of Introduction	The introduction doesn’t prepare the reader for what is to come, or build on what learner may already know.	The introduction makes some reference to learner’s prior knowledge and previews to some extent what the lesson is about.	The introduction builds on learner’s prior knowledge and effectively prepares the learner by hinting or giving a clue to what the lesson is about.
Cognitive level of Task	Task requires simply comprehending or retelling of information found on web pages and answering factual questions.	Task is doable but is limited in its significance to students’ lives.  The task requires analysis of information and/or putting together information from several sources.	Task is doable and engaging, and elicits thinking that goes beyond rote comprehension to higher levels of Bloom’s taxonomy.  The task requires synthesis of multiple sources of info, and/or taking a position, and/or going beyond the data given and making a generalization or creative product.
Clarity of Process	Process is not clearly stated.  Students would not know exactly what they were supposed to do just from reading this.	Some directions are given, but there is missing information.  Students might be confused.	Every step is clearly stated.  Most students would know exactly where they are at each step of the process and know what to do next.
Richness of Process	Few steps, no separate roles assigned.	Some separate tasks or roles assigned.  More complex activities required.	Different roles are assigned to help students understand different perspectives and/or share responsibility in accomplishing the task.
Relevance and quality of Resources	Resources (websites, etc.) are not sufficient for students to accomplish the task.  OR  There are too many resources for learners to look at in a reasonable time.  AND Links are mundane.  They lead to information that could be found in a classroom encyclopedia.	There is some connection between the resources and the information needed for students to accomplish the task.  Some resources don’t add anything new. AND Some links carry information not ordinarily found in a classroom.	There is a clear and meaningful connection between all the resources and the information needed for the students to accomplish the task.  Every resource carries its weight. AND Links make excellent use of the Web’s timeliness and colorfulness.  Varied resources provide enough meaningful information for students to think deeply.
Clarity of Evaluation Criteria	Rubric is not clearly outlined with expectations for success.	Rubric provides some guidelines for expectations for success.	Rubric is complete and clearly outlines what is needed for the student to be successful on the WebQuest.
Conclusion	Summary is weak or not present.  No Closure	Summary is present.	Good summary of task.  Gives closure to quest.
Relevance of Teacher resources/standards	Standards are missing or not at all relevant. No teacher information shared.	Standards are selected.  Teacher information is shared.  Neither is very elaborate or complete.	Appropriate standards are selected for project.  Teacher information is relevant and well expressed.
Presentation	The presentation was clearly not prepared or organized.	Presentation was clear and fairly well organized.  Most participants were well prepared.	Webquest presentation is well prepared and organized.  Participants knew their part and were well prepared for it.
Participation	Student received negative comments from each of their partners.	Student did not get completely positive results.	The student’s peer evaluations were all very positive.

        62 points Total.  Grade will be determined based on the percentage of points earned on rubric.

Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy: Evaluating

This was a challenging one for me but I ended up realizing that I am already requiring the college students in my middle school methods class to evaluate information as participants in a class WIKI.  The WIKI is dedicated to two assignments that the students are required to complete.  One is their individual philosophy of middle school and the other is a team based project that is the culmination of the semester's work.  In this assignment, team's are given the project of developing a presentation on what they believe would be the ideal middle school.

The WIKI was created as a collaborative site for the students to review material that I have posted as a reference for them and to share readings that they themselves have done as a part of their membership in the National Middle School Association.  The goal is that they use the readings of their classmates as a resource for developing their own personal philosophy as well as their ideal middle school presentation.  Here is the link to this semester's Ideal Middle School WIKI (specifically the page where I am sharing information.)

Objective:

• Students will collaborate with others by sharing information discovered through professional readings.
  
  
• Students will evaluate information shared on the WIKI to use (or not) in their personal philosophy of middle school and in their ideal middle school presentation. 

Assessment:

I have a rubric that I developed to evaluate contributions made by individual students (basically the number and kind of summaries that they contribute), but the WIKI contributions will also be assessed in the information used by students in their individual philosophy and their team ideal middle school presentation.  How well students support their philosophy and their ideal middle school will be evidence of their successful evaluation of the material shared on the WIKI.

This has potential to be a powerful opportunity for students to evaluate the information placed on the WIKI by other students as well as by me.  This semester, I don't see that it is being used as effectively as it could and that will be something that I need to addresss more in the future by focusing on the WIKI contributions and their value more often during the semester.

Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy: Analyzing

The National Middle School Association just revised their philosophy statement "This We Believe".  I would like for my college level middle school methods students to explore how this document has changed from the 2003 version that was developed after the No Child Left Behind legislation was enacted.

In order to do this, I believe that an interesting activity would be to create a wordle . Wordle creates word clouds that are generated from text that is pasted into the text box.  Word clouds that emphasize the most used words in the document are generated and can be personalized by changing the format, color, and maximum number of words.

In order to compare the two versions of "This We Believe", I will create a word cloud of both versions by copying and pasting the executive summary of each and asking the students to compare and contrast the two versions.  In this analysis, I will also ask them to indicate what they think might have been the changes addressed in the newest version and speculate on why those changes were made.  This will be used as an introductory activity for discussion  of the NMSA's philosophy.  I believe that this activity will help students begin to look at the process of developing a philosophy as well...why decisions are made and how, which will help them later on in writing their own philosophy of middle school.

Objective:
Students will compare and contrast the 2003 and 2010 versions of NMSA's "This We Believe" by looking at separate word clouds showing the top 25 most used words in each version.
Students will hypothesize on what changes have been made and why.

Assessment:
For this activity, I really just want to hear the students' discussions of the word clouds themselves.  Basically this will be the hook to get students interested used for an exploratory discussion on the middle school philosophies.  There are really no right or wrong answers and I expect that all students will participate in the discussion.  I will take notes of the conversations and will refer back to them as the more complete discussion of the NMSA philosophy continues. 

Below are the two word clouds that will be used for the analysis of the two versions of the philosophy.

Above is the word cloud of the 2003 version of the philosophy.

Above is the word cloud of the 2010 version of the philosophy.

Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy: Applying

A project that I always have the future teachers my college level educational technology class do is explore web 2.0 sites to share with their classmates. Normally, I give the students two sites each to explore and then spend a class day with them basically sharing the sites that they looked at. It can get rather tedious. With this method, I also wasn’t certain how thoroughly the students actually explored the websites assigned to them.

I recently saw a presentation on the Jingproject at a conference. It is a free tool that you download and with it you can create a screen cast of what you are doing on your computer complete with narrated comments!

From now on, the web 2.0 assignment in my educational technology class will be completed and shared using Jing. In this way, I will be able to verify that the students really did take time to explore and learn about the website as they apply that knowledge in demonstrating the site they explored with Jing. A bonus is that this will also give us a gallery of video illustrations of Web 2.0 sites that can be shared as a resource with others.

Objective:

• After exploring a web 2.0 site, the student will share their knowledge of the site by using Jing to create a video record describing the website and showing viewers how to use it.
• The student will also share ideas on how this web 2.0 site could be used in a content area classroom.

Assessment:
The video will be assessed as part of the technology portfolio that students complete in the class. The grade will be based on the thoroughness of the video’s explanation of the site and the suggestions made on how the site could be used in a classroom. The successful use of Jing and an easy to understand narration of the video will also be considered in the grade.

Please watch my sample screencast that I did for you! Here is the link to my Jing screencast on Prezi.

This is so amazing and amazingly simple!

Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy: Understanding

In my college level middle school methods class, we spend some time working with Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences which later the students use to help them with differentiation in a lesson plan and in an integrated teaching unit.  Although I feel that they understand the concept when I finish the section, sometimes there is confusion evident in their teaching projects.  I feel that the activity below will help identify for me whether the students understand how to work with different intelligences in terms of how they teach their classes, plan their activities, and develop their assessments.

Objectives:

• On a concept map created in bubbl.us, the student will identify Gardner's Multiple Intelligences.
• Using a teacher supplied list of various classroom activities and assessments, the students will classify the activities/assessments by connecting them directly to the Multiple Intelligence they feel the activity/assessment best fits as well as making secondary connections that might also exist.
• After the student has completed connections, the student will then explain why they made the connections between the activities/assessment and the Multiple Intelligence(s) and include these explanations on the concept map.

This activity which I will ask students to print off and turn in, will not be graded but will be used as a formative assessment to make certain that students understand how activities and assessments can be adapted to different types of students in a class.  My main focus in looking at this assessment would be the explanations of why a student placed an activity/assessment in a certain category.  The explanation will best show me those who understand the concept and those who do not understand.  With this knowledge, I will be able to work individually or in small groups with those students who have not yet grasped the concept completely and hopefully this will help them develop better lesson and unit plans.

This is an example of a concept map that has been started using this activity.

Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy: Remembering

The focus of my college level educational technology class is to create awareness of how technology can be integrated into content area teaching and to provide students opportunities to learn about resources on the internet. Because of my focus, we do a lot of hands on activities and discussion of how different digital resources might be used in a Math, English, Physical Education class, etc.   The text book used in the course is supplemental and has valuable information that is important to know, much of which is the vocabulary.  I am not someone who sees a lot of value in strictly pen and paper assessments and because I want the students to get hands on experience with technology and to think about how technology and resources discussed in class can be used in their own teaching, I don’t have a lot of objective, fact based assessments.  Because of this, I am not certain that students truly get the most basic concepts or understand when I use certain terminology.  I currently give quizzes which are part objective and part case study based.  Many students do not do well on the vocabulary/objective based section of the quizzes.  Ultimately, I am not certain that they are working on being able to know those terms.

Recently, I found out about Quizlet, a website which allows a teacher to create a list of vocabulary/definitions relevant to his/her class topic.  Once generated, the terms can be used to create flashcards and games for review as well as a quiz based on the vocabulary entered by the teacher.  This website will allow me to share a resource with my students for their own future use as well as require them to interact with the vocabulary in a fun, interactive way prior to their quiz.

Objectives:

• The students will review the vocabulary relevant to the chapter currently being studied with immediate feedback.
• The students will experience the use of a website that they can make use of in their professional career.

The week prior to a quiz, the students will be directed to the quizlet website where I have developed a vocabulary list for the three chapters that will be on the quiz.  The following link takes the reader to the vocabulary list for Chapter 1.  (Quizlet allows the teacher to add to and edit vocabulary lists that are already developed.)

Chapter 1 Vocabulary Quiz

Assessment:  Because quizlet.com does not have the functionality to allow teachers to see the results of their students’ scores on their quiz, I would require that the students take screen shots of the activities they complete and most especially the quiz they used to review.  These screen shots should be placed in the student’s technology lab portfolio.  Basically, the assessment will be scored on whether it has been completed or not since the objective is stating that the students will just “review” the vocabulary.  I do anticipate (hope!) that the students will also score better on the vocabulary sections of the quizzes as a result of this activity as well.