Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy in the Saudi EFL Classrooms

Bloom’s taxonomy of learning objectives is used to define how well a skill is learned or mastered. It identifies three domains of learning; cognitive, affective, and psycho-motor each of which is organized as a series of levels. Within the domains, learning at the higher levels is dependent on having attained prerequisite knowledge and skills at lower levels. During the 1990's, Lorin Anderson, a former student of Bloom's, updated the taxonomy to better fit educational practices of the 21st century. He changed the six major categories of Bloom’s taxonomy from noun to verb forms. Also, the lowest level of the original, knowledge was renamed and became remembering. Finally, comprehension and synthesis were retitled to understanding and creating. Bloom’s revised taxonomy helps to plan effective instruction and challenge students to move from the most basic skills (remembering) to more complex learning which leads to higher order thinking (creating).

Bloom’s Taxonomy is not evident in Saudi EFL classrooms, because teachers do not apply the whole levels of Bloom’s taxonomy in teaching context and students may just using the first three levels. Teachers should give the chance to students to analyze and evaluate also to become creative. As a future teacher I would use Bloom’s Taxonomy with my students, so they can operate and  improve their critical thinking and their cognitive skills in order to become more creative and innovative.

Evaluating Websites

We have chosen a website for ESL and EFL kids learners. The website is http://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/en/. LearnEnglish Kids is the British Council's website for children to learn English as a second or foreign language. This site has free resources for children to use at home, either independently or with family members or friends. The resources have been created and developed by teachers and professionals who work with children; who are learning English. They have been designed to help children learn English while having fun, or while learning about something else. The purpose of this website is clear which is being able to learn English and have fun at the same time. It's quite obvious from the educational information that this website provided as well as the various games and activities that can make children amused. There are no misspellings or grammatical error; everything is well written by the author of this website. The text size is pretty much clear and easy to read. The choice of website color is brilliant and attractive; in a way that can grab kids, parents, and teachers’ attention. The graphics are relevant and they are serving the purpose, organization, and style of the page. Also, the links are well-chosen by the author of this website, and they work correctly. Everybody deserves a fast web experience; this website for sure will minimize your load time. The most important thing is that the page load quickly without facing any problems and there is no ads to bother you. This website is wonderful and everyone should use it because it supports different languages such as Arabic, Chinese, French, etc; and provides useful and powerful materials that can help you to improve your English learning. It provides parents, and teachers with information, videos, resources, and articles that will help them to improve their kids’ level of understanding. What makes this website interactive is that you can share ideas, ask questions, and give your opinion about anything related to the content of this website. As a result, we found that the website was beneficial, interesting, and easy to our students and they can use it alone without help of the teacher, moreover, it covers all the skills we need.

By: Queens

Wordle in EDU 401

The role of WeQuests in learning a foreign/second language?

A WebQuest is an inquiry-oriented lesson format in which most or all the information that learners work with comes from the web. These can be created using various programs, including a simple word processing document that includes links to websites. It is clearly structured into 5 components, which include an introduction (why do this activity), tasks (what is supposed to be accomplished), process (how to go about it), evaluative, and conclusion.

WebQuest has a major role in many important areas in TEFL/TESL field like activating critical thinking, student-oriented activities, enquiry-oriented language use, cooperative and collaborative learning and Project-based learning. It improves the students’ critical thinking. Students will be encountered with lots of issues that they have to analyze and solve. They have to gather information, analyze, decide the suitable one, ask questions and summarize what they find. This will help students to become autonomous learners.

Webquests tend to be student-oriented and collaborative, with students engaged in constructivist activities resulting in shared learning experiences and new knowledge based on enquiry-oriented language use and Web research skills.

Project-based learning (PBL), is one of the enduring approaches to education that supports the use of webquests, is focused on the learner constructing meaning and knowledge from an assigned activity. It gives a variety of learning styles and multiple forms of intelligence have a real world authentic orientation.

WebQuest is a great tool to be used in TEFL/TESL field. It makes teaching the language more interesting and enjoyable. I think I will use it with my future EFL students, because WebQuest promotes high-level thinking and problem-solving skills and that’s will help the students to explore issues, make them autonomous learners, and collaborate with each others.

How would I use blogs, wikis and delicious with my students?

With the vast development of technology, it becomes something more creative and interesting in a huge part in our lives. So, to keep up with this development, we have to develop our methods in teaching by using these technologies and get benefit from it in a way that makes education more interesting and enjoyable. 

When I become a teacher I will use different types of technology tools to help me teach, interact and communicate with my students effectively.  For example, I would use blog, wiki and delicious to enhance my students skills.

First, I will explain to my students what are these sites and their importance. After that, I will help them to creating accounts on each of them. Then, I will start using them to improve the skills of my students in reading and writing.

Blogger is a blog-publishing service that allows private or multi-user blogs with time-stamped entries. Blog is one of the very good and useful tools for students. I will use Blogger to post different interesting topics to them and they have to read and reflect on these posts, this will show me how they understand what they read and got the idea behind it. Also, this will help them to learn how to improve their writing skill by making them think critically and expressing their opinions and thoughts, and how to communicate in each other’s blog.

Delicious is a social bookmarking web service for storing, sharing, and discovering web bookmarks. I would like to use it with my students. It will facilitate sharing and organizing important links that we come across when we are surfing the net. I would post them with good materials for reading and writing that are available online. Delicious will definitely be a helping tool inside and outside the classroom to expose students to the language.

Wikispaces is a hosting service “sometimes called a wiki farm”. It allows the easy creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor. Wiki allows teachers and students to work closely together on a topic and help the students to be more collaborative in the learning process. For example, I will give the student a project. They have to divide themselves into groups and make a Power Point Presentation that reflects what they have learned, and the winners get a prize. This will help them to be more collaborative and to have the spirit of competition.

The Possiblity of Reaching Bax’s Normilasation in our national context: Why is it possible?When is it possible/reached/achieved?How will it be reached?

Stephan Bax argues that, "Our aim should be to attain a state of `normalization' in which the technology is invisible and truly integrated"

In the article of Stephan Bax we found that he discussed the development of the CALL through the past, present and future. Also, we found the three phases of CALL (Computer Assisted Learning Language) which divided previously by Mark Warschauer.

These phases are Behavioristic (consisted of drill-and-practice materials in which the computer presented a stimulus and the learner provided a response), communicative (is based on the communicative approach where the focus is on using the language rather than analysis of the language), and integrative (starting from the 1990s, tried to address criticisms of the communicative approach by integrating the teaching of language skills into tasks or projects to provide direction and coherence. It also coincided with the development of multimedia technology (providing text, graphics, sound and animation) as well as Computer-mediated communication (CMC)).

These phases were the basic points that Bax used in his argument to answer the three main questions which are; where has CALL been?, where is CALL now? And where is CALL going? And he explain the goal of CALL through his theory of normalization which means any kind of technological innovation and refers to the stage when the technology becomes invisible, hardly even recognized as a technology, taken for granted in everyday life.

Bax suggested we will achieve normalization when computers are used every day in our classrooms of learning language by students and teachers. He also suggested that to achieve normalization we have to identify what are the criteria we need to reach normalization. Second step is to evaluate what each teaching context need for its practices according to the criteria we'd identify in the first step. The last step is to try our best to adjust what we use now in teaching so we encourage normalization.

In Saudi Arabia most of the schools and universities follow the traditional way of teaching, but nowadays with all these development, many schools and universities improved their educational system, they started to use computers, smart boards and projectors in the classroom. To achieve normalization in Saudi Arabia, we need to educate the students and parents about technology and how useful it can be in classrooms or anywhere else. Also, teachers need to be encourage and motivated to use it, and above of all, to believe in its benefits. It is not difficult to achieve normalization in Saudi Arabia; we just need time, knowledge and changes in our educational system.

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