Bloom's Taxonomy

I love the phrase, "climb to a higher level of thought" as a way to describe the use of bloom's taxonomy by educators. I have always been a strong supporter of the use of Bloom's in great classrooms. Encouraging students to acheive those Higher Order Thinking Skills is something I try to encorporate and foster in my classroom on a regular basis.

I feel revived when I look at the new taxonomy. I especially like the change from nouns to verbs when describing the different layers.

When I was first introduced to Bloom's decades ago, we didn't have the technology that we have today. It is so easy to find wonderful sites filled with explanations and ideas so you can successfully and effectively implement Bloom's in your classroom. There is help out there for anyone looking to improve their teaching. There are ideas, lessons and projects to use at every level.

Here are links to the two sites I found the most useful:
http://eduscapes.com/tap/topic69.htm

http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/index.php?title=Bloom's_Taxonomy#end

Skype

Anyone walking into my family room on Friday night would have found themselves in complete laughter. My husband was eagerly helping me experiment with Skype. After creating his own account we spent hours sitting across the room from each other skyping on our laptops. Of course Skype was not intended to be used by people in the same room, it was still fun to practice. We quickly found out of state family members that have Skype accounts and encouraged others to sign up. I can't believe it took me so long to get acquainted with this useful tool.

With all the recent media coverage of the earthquake that devastated Haiti, I found comfort in seeing the families that were able to see their loved ones through Skype. How fortunate we are to have this technology available free of charge to all.

I was also very amazed to see how many Maria Childs exist throughout the world. I guess I am not as unique as I had hoped!

Itunes Search

Today I spent many hours exploring itunes in ways I never imagined. Until a year ago when I bought my son an itouch, I believed ipods were only for music. After Connor starting downloading tv shows and movies, playing games and getting online I realized they had other uses. Now, I am once again amazed to see what itunes has to offer. I had no idea that there were lesson plan ideas and explanations for lessons. I began my search by first entering second grade lessons which yielded no results. I then tried k-6 lessons, which was also a dead end. The third time was a charm, math lessons. There were several hits to scroll through. I found that the Podcasts (Video Math Tutor), were all above the level I was looking for but some of the clips were beneficial. The two best clips came from Michigan's MI Learning and Florida Department of Education. There was a virtual math manipulatives clip which shared a screencast on how to utilize the Illuminations.nctm.org site. It had step by step instructions that could prove quite beneficial in a primary classroom. It had exploration lessons and activity sheets. There was also a link to edutopia.org that would be great for intermediate grades. When I tried searching for individual lessons such as money or inferring, I found the disappointing results. Once again the clips were above the grade level I teach but definately great for older grades or even adults.
Overall, I was very pleased with the beginning of my exploration of itunes.

K-12 Online Conference

Tonight I went to the K12 Online Conference. I decided to check out the "Little Kids, Big Possibilities" Presentation. It appealed to me because it was designed for teachers of students under 13. I really liked that I could work on this while in the comfort of my own home. This could be a problem if you are easily distracted. It was nice being able to pause the laptop when I needed to attend to my own children.
I found this presentation to be beneficial. There were several ideas and sites that peaked my curiosity. This is a wonderful presentation for fourth or fifth grade teachers. I highly recommend it to intermediate teachers.
I experimented with a few of the sites that were introduced. Click on the link below to see one of the things I did.
http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/1448177/Maria%27s_




"Comic Creators" was one section of the presentation that I found most interesting for my second graders. However, when I went to each of the sites mentioned I had trouble creating one. I will need to do more research to get these working.

EtherPad and Scriblink

I recently explored the site EtherPad and Scriblink. I wish I would have had these programs at my fingertips when I was working on my master's degree. They would have made editing much easier. I imagine sites like this are wonderful tools for authors and their editors.
I really like the idea of EtherPad. I imagine I could find a way to incorporate this into a lesson for my second graders using their sixth grade reading buddies.
I know that they would enjoy Scriblink. They could each work on an assignment using laptops. I am thinking this would be great for teaching transition words and phrases. We could write our directions for building a snowman, add transition words or phrases, then underline them. We could look at each others pieces and circle the different transition words that they used.

Screencast

I created my screencast using my morning message. After making the first one, I decided that I really like the idea. This is great for days when you have a substitute.
I can also see using this for math games and activities. I can't wait to try it again.
Click on the link below to visit my first attempt with screencasts.
December11 0607.wmv

Getting Started

I am still having a difficult time trying to find a great way to use a blog in a primary classroom. I spent countless hours searching the web for ideas that I could use. Unfortunately, all I could find were for fourth grade on up. I am still optimistic that I will come up with something, even if it is as simple as creating a place to "publish" my students' work.
I did come across a site that appeared much more "kid friendly"; thinkquest.org. I'm currently looking into how to make this work.