Before you read this, perhaps you’d like to explore the Visual Blooms wiki, the Blooms Rubrics wiki (looking at Rubric # 6 which is the only one we’ve worked on so far), and the Professional Practice wiki (which describes teacher levels of technology use and levels of expertise.)
It would help as well as be familiar with the edorigami wiki and Andrew Churches’ paper on the Digital Taxonomy.
This is addressed to a group of folks who have been thinking with me on these issues, some of whom are meeting tonight in Texas to discuss it face to face. 🙂
Paul, Michael, Scott, Mike G., Mike F, Cris, Eduguy101, Becky, Glen, Barbara, et.al.,
(@paulrwood, @mwacker, @woscholar, @MikeGras, @fisher1000, @cristama, @eduguy101, @BeckyFisher73, @gardenglen, @porchdragon, @barbaram)
I like the Church article, because it attempts to tie digital tools to each Bloom’s level, which is what Mike Fisher’s Visual Bloom’s wiki does as well (the triangle at the visual blooms wiki.) However, Michael W. is right. . . we need to go beyond that paper. Scott asked me what a rubric for “Create” would look like—he didn’t ask for a rubric for a tool, which is what Andrew Church did in his paper and on the edorigami wiki.
I don’t want to judge my kids on how they use an IWB—whether they can control it or not, and how they interact with it (which are the areas of the IWB rubric.) I want to know how their understanding of the world changes because of the content with which they have engaged ON that tool.
If you look, though, at the fourth navigation section on the wiki , edorigami at the link called “Pedagogic Skills, IWB’s and Technology “ that addresses more what I’m thinking, in some ways. The researchers were looking at what kids and teachers did with the tools and seeing the impact on education.
As Michael suggested, though, they didn’t go far enough, in my opinion.
Their stages:
1. Supported Didactic
Essentially normal teaching practice using the IWB – I would liken it to “learning about the technology”. Little student interaction but some use of commercial products like presentation tools, spreadsheets.
1. Interactive
Lessons start to include different stimuli or learning styles – visual, auditory etc. IWB is a part of the classroom rather than a novelty, Teacher is confident in basic usage. The teacher is developing advancing technical skills – “Learning with Technology”
1. Enhanced interactive
The technology is an integral part of the lesson. Teachers vary use and approaches to using technology. The IWB provides opportunities to challenge students and “enhance active learning” “Learning through technology”. By this stage, students are familiar with almost all the functions of a interactive whiteboard and can take appropriate care of it without any guidance. They are allowed to use the IWB for writing, drawing, illustration, problem solving etc. At this stage a teacher uses all possible whiteboard applications from floating toolbars, infinite cloner to smart recorder. He also becomes proficient with whiteboard accessories like visualizers, interactive panels, student response systems etc.
ARE VERY AKIN to the ACOT stages of technology use I describe at the Professional Practice wiki. It is all about the teacher’s technology USE and how that affects learning, very similar to David Berliner’s Teacher Expertise descriptions, also described on that wiki. It is NOT about the learner and what they are learning, or what they are doing differently to IMPROVE or change learning. Those stages and the accompanying suggestions for support came right out of Teaching With Technology: Creating Student-Centered Classrooms by Judith Haymore Sandholtz, Cathy Ringstaff, and David C. Dwyer.
The create rubric on the other hand attempts to describe a creator, a person who is operating at various competency levels of creating. The tools are superfluous, as tools can be used in different ways and at different levels, depending on HOW one is using them. The examples shown center on what the students are doing in the process of creation, not what they are using to create. It’s about how they are applying Blooms’ levels, and how they are remixing and changing the information they are using to create something new and unique (or not so new and unique.)
Does that make sense?
So, for me, it’s not about which tools as much as it is about how the learner uses the tools and the outcome in the areas of learning, understanding, and assimilation of that knowledge into their repertoire, so that they can use it to go deeper in the next conversation/activity/experience.
I ask Paul and the dinner friends to toss this into your Texas conversation, and those of you who aren’t in Texas tonight, join our wikis to talk with us!
Until next time,
Paula