The Beginning of Mobile Learning Communities

What does a classroom look like when every kid has a technology device in their hand?  What can be done in that class?  How do we manage a class such as this?  Is it effective?  Does pedagogy change?  Is a tablet or a laptop more effective?  All of these questions and more is what we hope to discover in our 1:1 laptop/tablet pilot!

This is an exciting time in education because we are moving away from the traditional classroom of teachers and students to a community of learners.  With this paradigm shift comes many shifts in education.  The teacher is now a facilitator and a learner.  The students learn from each other and also facilitate their own learning.  Pedagogy shifts from recalling and remembering facts to evaluating, analyzing and applying content to their own lives.  Students and facilitators are no longer confined to the 4 walls.   Their community now includes 7 continents and a few planets.

Feel free to join us in our adventure of creating this environment for our students.  Join us as we climb to the higher elevations of Bloom's. Join us as our students soar to limits unknown.  We look forward to sharing our ah has and uh ohs.  We also would love for you to join our community and sharing tips or best practices you have experienced in your classroom.  I am so excited to learn this year with our community of learners.  You can follow the community's blog at www.wscommunityoflearners.blogspot.com

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Create!!!!!

I am a big fan of encouraging students to create to demonstrate their knowledge and understanding. Creating is a High Order Thinking Skill in Bloom's Taxonomy.

Here are some resources I have pulled together on Bloom's Revised Taxonomy and ideas for how it is being used in various places. :

I love the stuff Kelly Tenkely writes and creates for her blog (iLearnTechnology.com). She is a huge fan of Bloom's. Kelly is so helpful and willing to share. She lives in Colorado and is opening her own school this year. We have gotten to be friends through twitter and blogs. Here are some of her resources:
Bloomin’ Peacock *this is one of my favorites
Bloomin’ Pinwheel
Umbloomra
Bloomin’ Tree

Bloom’s Taxonomy Live Binder

Here are some other resources I found that may inspire other ideas:

Bloom's Revised Planning Framework
Exploring Batteries using Bloom's Revised

Fractions with Bloom's Revised
Making Movement with Bloom's Revised
Bloom's web 2.0 wiki

Bloom's Digital Taxonomy Wiki

As I searched through my blog to see what I have written about concerning Bloom's Taxonomy, I found it has been a popular topic for me too!

Bloomin' Resources (even when it is cold)
Technology is Bloomin'! (great storybird creation included here)
Blooming Orange
Blooming Butterfly

image from http://www.flickr.com/photos/41598237@N00/3352954780/

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Blooming Resources (even when it is cold)

Having discovered Kelly Tenkely's blog iLearnTechnology was like finding a gold-filled treasure chest. Getting to know Kelly through her blog and on twitter (@ktenkely) has been even better. Steven Anderson and I both attended a webinar she did last week about thinking and teaching creatively at the Knowledge Learning Place. Resources and sites she shared were posted to a LiveBinder called Thinking Creatively with Kelly Tenkely. The recording of that session will also be added to that LiveBinder when it is ready.

One thing that really stood out to me from that webinar was Kelly's Digital Bloom's Taxonomy LiveBinder. I am a big fan of Kelly's creations that go along with Bloom's Taxonomy (peacock, umbrella, tree ...). In the webinar, she said that she created one and then students suggested the ideas for the other Bloom's images. I think the one that I like the most right now is the Bloomin' Digital Peacock!

Digital Bloom's Taxonomy

In Kelly's Digital Bloom's Taxonomy LiveBinder, she shares digital tools that can be used with students to help them Remember, Understand, Apply, Analyze, Evaluate, and Create. Both that LiveBinder and her Blog provide lots of great resources for you to check out!

image from http://www.flickr.com/photos/53611153@N00/3423709188/

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Bloomin' Creations ...

Recently I have been quite impressed with the various representations I have found online of Blooms Taxonomy.
Kelly Tenkely's blog ilearntechnology.com has several (including some digital resources):

• Bloomin' Tree
• Bloomin' Pinwheel
• Um-bloom-ra
• Bloomin' Peacock

Just today I came across another great resource related to Bloom's Taxonomy. I was very fortunate to find a Storybird creation that uses questions to help introduce the idea of Blooms Taxonomy to children. Storybird makes it possible to do so many things with collaborative storytelling and writing. This Blooming Questions Storybird was created by Jane Hewitt who also has a great blog (but that is for another post). I saw her name on the Storybird, so I went to twitter and searched for her. Once I found her on twitter, I found a link to her blog that contains all kinds of neat projects she has done with students.

Go to this link to read/play the story below: http://storybird.com/books/blooming-questions/

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