As we implement strategies in our teaching that gradually release responsibility to our students, consider digital tools and applications that will move them through the various levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy. This week I’m sharing the work of Andrew Churches and Kathy Schrock on Bloom’s Level of “Understanding”.
Understanding is defined by Anderson & Krathwohl as constructing meaning from different types of function be they written or graphic. According to Andrew Churches, key verbs used in the Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy are interpreting, summarizing, inferring, paraphrasing, classifying, comparing, explaining, exemplifying, advance searching, Boolean searching , blogging, journaling, sending tweets on Twitter, categorizing and tagging, commenting, annotating and subscribing. On his Edorigami Wikispaces site, Churches describes possible activities in which students can participate for each Understanding verb. For summarizing and explaining, students may participate in word processing, mind mapping, web publishing, simple blogging activities, and simple page construction on collaborative documents and wikis. For showing and telling, students may utilize word processing, presentation applications- on-line and desktop versions, graphics, audio tools such as Audacity sound recorder or podcasting tools, video tools and mind mapping. For Advanced Searching and Boolean searches, student may learn to use advance searching techniques on Google and other search engines and databases. For blogging and journaling activities, students may participate on controlled social networks like our own School Loop or Edumodo or on Facebook or Twitter or other such social networks (where allowed), nings, and blogs. For cateogorizing and tagging activities, students may use applications like Delicious. For activities that involve tagging, comments and annotating, students may use noticeboards, discussion boards, threaded discussions, Adobe Acrobat Reader, and blog readers like Google Reader, Firefox, and Zotero. For subscribing activities, students may use RSS aggregators such as the ones mentioned above.
Kathy Schrock suggests using the following Google tools to promote understanding for Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy: presentation, drawing, groups, news, Advanced Search, documents and translate. For Web 2.0 Apps Kathy Schrock recommends, Diigo, Google Reader and Google Advanced Search. Check out Kathy Schrock’s Bloomin Apps site where she has an abundance of information on applications to use with various technologies such as smart phones, tablets and computers.
(The ideas in this blog belong to Andrew Churches and Kathy Schrock. I am just sharing them with my teaching staff to give them ideas of how to use digital tools in their lessons.)