EDU625: Blog 1
- Rosa Conti
- Nov 13, 2022
- 9 min read
Updated: Nov 15, 2022
Integrating Technology into Learning: A 3-Part Reflection Series
In this course, I am exploring ways that technology can be used to create valuable learning experiences. Part 1 of this blog series offers my impressions and insights from the first three units of this module.
KEY ISSUES + CONCEPTS
Related to digital tools, I have talked about how digital media makes our lives better and how technology has leveled up the education industry with the use of digital collaboration and video tools and emerging learning technologies. However, I have not yet discussed using Bloom's Revised Digital Taxonomy, social media, surveys, and mind maps in learning, and I will do that here.
While I am well-versed and comfortable using technology and digital media, I am not a classroom teacher. Therefore, as new topics related to serving learners are introduced each week throughout this M.Ed. program, and inside this course, my understanding, ideas, and personal philosophies continue to change and evolve, which is a good thing.
My learning included the following topics in the first three weeks of this course.
BLOOM'S REVISED DIGITAL TAXONOMY
My son, an Esports curriculum designer, introduced me to the Depth of Knowledge framework a few months ago. This offers a charted visual understanding of “how deeply students must know, understand, and be aware of what they are learning” (Francis, 2021, para. 14) to demonstrate their learning. Having no real-life experience in lesson planning, I was thrilled to have this reference tool to help create assignments throughout this program. So, imagine my joy when I learned about Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy (McNulty, 2021) two weeks ago, which creates a hierarchy of learning activities in a digital environment.
Building from the 1956 original works of Benjamin Bloom (Armstrong, n.d.), a former student of Bloom’s embellished his learning taxonomy to better suit the needs of students in a new world of digital learning. For example, whereas Bloom listed “Knowledge” as the first level of ordered thinking, the revised version lists “Remembering,” supported by the idea that one can’t know something until one can remember (e.g., recognize, describe, retrieve, etc.) it.
While the reading assignments in this course helped to describe the value of Bloom’s Revised Digital Taxonomy, two things helped to further drive this learning home for me. First, when creating a learning activity designed for middle and high school students using OCEARCH’s online Global Shark Tracker, I took the initiative to compare it to Bloom’s Revised Digital Taxonomy to identify which categories my mock students would experience upon completion of my assignment. This helped me to see the value of this taxonomy experientially.
Also, a few days ago, I further discovered the helpful infographic shown below (Sneed, 2020), which additionally offers examples of how these digital activities might look. In my weekly discussion post, I stated that no “Applying” would occur in my shark tracking assignment, but this image showed me that “calculating” is a form of application, and, therefore, it would indeed be one of the middle ground thinking skills required (on a scale of “LOTS: Lower Order Thinking Skills” to “HOTS: Higher Order Thinking Skills”).
SOCIAL MEDIA IN EDUCATION
I am thankful that the Internet was new and not well developed when I raised my son and that I had the hindsight not to post personal information about our lives on social media platforms. I am still determining whether incorporating social networking into learning offers more value than risk, as I have been leaning away from social media in recent years. I need a lot of convincing that the idea of young children intermingling with each other in a public forum of strangers is good, even if it is in the name of education.
However, I concede that using social media in learning can offer favorable and exclusive benefits that would be challenging to achieve without the experiential encounters of online activities. For example, I discovered private educational sites that cater to kids’ blogging, such as Edublogs, Kidblogs (now called Fanschool), and others, such as Fakebook. These sites impress me because it’s essential for kids to have digital literacy. These outlets sound like innovative entry-level and safer ways to afford these opportunities.
I was also inspired to learn that social networking allows more students to be “heard” due to the time and turn-taking constraints in the traditional classroom (Wankel, 2011); this is something I hadn’t considered before. I also like the idea of shy students having an outlet to express their thoughts and ask questions in a social network (I was a shy student, so this hits home for me). For these reasons, and likely more to discover, I believe social networking can enhance learning – under the right conditions. My main concern will always be safety. My manager is our global company’s Chief Information Risk Officer, and I am exposed to quite a bit of constant learning regarding cybersecurity safety. Even so, I still pause and question my online activities because the Internet is vast and ever-changing, and kids are much more vulnerable. As the grown-ups in the room, we need to always proceed with caution and think of the what-ifs of every online learning activity put in front of children.
Another thought to consider is using social media as teachers to create material, as did my undergraduate writing professor. William Lemon (Post University’s 2021 Faculty Award Recipient) made weekly YouTube videos for our class that offered an overview of upcoming topics and gave his thoughts and ideas, as this video illustrates. I can think of several cognitive and emotional benefits to using social media in learning in this way.
SURVEYS + MIND MAPS
I had three big takeaways when studying surveys and mind maps:
There is a difference between a survey and a questionnaire.
Surveys can be used as learning tools.
Mind maps are outlines illustrated in a visual format.
The difference between a survey and a questionnaire depends on the data collected. For example, a survey asks for categorical answers (e.g., Agree/Disagree). In contrast, a questionnaire includes open-ended questions and ones with numerical measurements (e.g., daily, weekly, monthly, etc.) (Phillips et al., 2013). I issue surveys at least once a month in my work, but I realize now that they are actually questionnaires because they have open-ended (freeform text) questions. I have never heard the term “questionnaires” used in my business, so it would appear odd for me to begin using the correct terminology now.
Because I use surveys in my corporate environment to seek feedback after events or solicit ideas for projects, I had no context to know that surveys could be used in another way: as a learning tool. For example, surveys would be an excellent tool for writing prompts or issuing homework assignments (a plus: attachments can be embedded for further elaboration).
I have read many definitions of mind mapping over time, and the one I like best is that it helps to “manage the big picture and the small details” (Murley, 2007). I am a visual learner and like arranging data to make sense of it. I create outlines to assemble my thoughts (daily) and have used a mind map tool for a personal book writing project (several times), but I never considered the two related in any way. When using MindMeister, I discovered that one could toggle between a mind map and an outline. In other words, the data is the same but arranged differently to cater to learning styles. I simply love this.
NON-TRADITIONAL RESOURCES
After COVID arrived, I read about many museums, libraries, and websites that offered "educational viewing." For example, one could enjoy a virtual tour of the National Museum of Natural History, watch a "Panda Cam" on Atlanta Zoo's live stream, or, my favorite, witness Stonehenge in real-time via a live webcam. While these likely existed before the pandemic, I suspect their popularity exploded during the global quarantine.
This class was the first time I had considered using resources such as these to create learning materials. Days before sitting down to create a learning activity using the aforementioned shark tracker, I struggled to see how this could be done. In other words, because the data was so straightforward (e.g., there is a shark, this is his location, this is how much he swam, etc.), it took a bit for me to think of how I could create a challenge from the data – until I remembered Bloom's Revised Digital Taxonomy. We cannot assume that learners see what we do. For example, to enter the first category of "Remembering," I created a task for the learner to "search" for a sea animal. To escalate to "Understanding," the learner needed to "tag" its location, etc.
This Learning Challenge – along with the examples of my classmates – made me feel confident that I could more easily create a lesson using non-traditional resources and websites that offer innovative learning technology.
CREDIBILITY
We are taught to question everything posted on the Internet for its credibility, and rightfully so. Still, I believe some resources are in a class of their own and should not be arbitrarily pooled together with everything else on the web. For example, educational institutions (.edu), NASA and government-affiliated websites (.gov), and non-profit organizations (.org) can usually earn instant credibility by their reputations alone. Next in line, I would be apt to trust websites that offer real-time data or webcam viewing of areas such as ocean and aquarium life, zoo animals, weather, forecasting, botany, rainforests, water quality, volcanoes, earthquakes, etc.
However, no website is infallible, and even with the best intentions, information can include bias or be falsely quoted, outdated, out of context, or missing data. Next to reputation, there are things to look for when determining the credibility of a website, such as:
A padlock in the URL field (or “s” in the https:)
A recognizable media outlet or publisher
Proper spelling, grammar, and formatting
Cited resources
No exclamation points, tildes, or advertisements
Professional aesthetics and headlines
MY OVERALL EXPERIENCE + OBSERVATIONS
My biggest challenge over the last three weeks was exploring the time-based and real-time website resources and trying to understand how to use them. Admittedly, I could only catch on to a few of them. This could be my lack of scientific background or the poor way in which the home pages were designed and needed more straightforward and explicit instructions to reach all audiences. I most enjoyed learning about Bloom's Revised Digital Taxonomy; this will stay with me for a long time.
Also, some of the discussion topics felt rudimentary at first because their answers felt obvious to me, but by the requirement of exploring them, I found I learned more about my opinions and beliefs than I had known. For example, asking "What is Learning?", "How does it happen?", "How do we know it's happening?" and "Who's responsible for ensuring learning happens?" felt like make-work questions – until I did the mental work and stretched my mind to find well-thought-out answers. I often realize that when I think I know something already, it usually means I'm about to encounter a learning moment, as happened here.
QUESTIONS
A few questions arose over the last three weeks due to making sense of new topics.
Without directly asking students for their input or ideas, are there any extrinsic or intrinsic markers to tell if students are genuinely engaged and excited about what they are learning?
When conducting corporate compliance training, even if employees pass the interactive quizzes, does this really ensure learning?
Do child learners really need a social media platform to learn the valuable skill of blogging? Aren’t discussion boards within LMSs just like blogging, albeit with a much smaller audience?
Are there best practices to employ so people don’t feel “survey fatigue”?
CONCLUSIONS
In closing, I have inherited a few new tools and personal ideologies from this course so far. For starters, Bloom’s Revised Digital Taxonomy can be used not only for teaching others but also for evaluating my own learning. Teachers and caregivers should share the responsibility for children’s learning, while adult learners should accept responsibility for their growth and education. Using social media in learning is not a black-and-white decision; if presented in the proper context, it can be a safe and valuable platform to expand knowledge. Surveys can be a helpful and useful tool for teaching others. Mind maps are a great way to reach visual learners and are just a rearranged form of an outline. Non-traditional resources, such as data-based and real-time websites, are less intimidating than some might think; they offer experiential learning in a way that nothing else has before. And lastly, every online resource should always be questioned for its credibility, even with reputable or recognizable names.
In this video, Dr. Derek Muller, Physicist and Filmmaker, discusses how traditional methods of learning and instruction are being challenged as technology advances.
References
Armstrong, P. (n.d.). Bloom’s taxonomy. Vanderbilt University. https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/blooms-taxonomy
Francis, E. (2021, June 16). What is depth of knowledge? ASCD. https://www.ascd.org/blogs/what-exactly-is-depth-of-knowledge-hint-its-not-a-wheel
McNulty, N. (2021, September 15). How the best teachers use bloom's taxonomy in their digital classrooms. https://www.niallmcnulty.com/2017/11/blooms-digital-taxonomy
Murley, D. (2007, January 23). Mind mapping complex information. Elsevier. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=958633
Phillips, P. P., Aaron, B. C., & Phillips, J. J. (2013). Survey Basics. Association for Talent Development.
Sneed, O. (2020, March 17). Integrating technology with bloom’s taxonomy. Teach Online. https://teachonline.asu.edu/2016/05/integrating-technology-blooms-taxonomy
Wankel, C. (2011). Educating Educators with Social Media. Vol. 1st ed. Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
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