Bloom's Digital Taxonomy Pyramid

We use the revised version of Bloom's taxonomy in teaching our candidates how to write objectives and plan for instruction and assessment. As they plan, we also want them to think about all the tools appropriate for instruction, including technology. The Bloom's Digital Taxonomy Pyramid makes thinking about technology tools in this context a breeze. For each level, direct links to a number of web applications that can be used to support instruction are included.

(The above work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Author: Samantha Penney, samantha.penney@gmail.com)

Even if you don't teach, you'll find something here of interest. As a word lover I'm crazy about Visuwords, Wordnik, and Ninjawords. The visual learner in me loves Creately and Gliffy.

How about you? What are some of your favorites?

Better Than Free Rice - Check Out Hoongle!

I'm always bragging about my students in this space. That's because they're awesome. Well, UR students in general are amazing. Here is the latest venture by some thoughtful UR undergrads. It's called Hoongle.

Hoongle is a socially conscious Internet search engine. For every search you do, 20 grains of rice are donated through the UN World Food Program to help end hunger.

Here's how it works. When you perform a search using Hoongle, your search is routed through Google. So the results you see are identical to Google’s. The difference is that when your query originates with Hoongle, Google shares a portion of its revenue. This income is donated (less necessary operating costs) to the United Nations World Food Program, which carries out operations around the world to deliver food aid to those in need.

Here is a little inspirational math.

20 grains of rice x 2 searches a day x 365 days =
14,600 grains of rice.

You can learn more by visiting the Hoongle blog. Together we can make a difference. Go Hoongle!

Thinking About Visual Literacy - Notes From a Workshop

Dear Blog Readers,

I spent the day yesterday in a series of workshop on integrating technology into undergraduate education.

Today I am spending the day in a workshop on visual literacy. I am learning a lot and finding some really interesting resources for my teaching. Here are two you may want to explore on your own.

Periodic Table of Visual Literacy
http://www.visual-literacy.org/periodic_table/periodic_table.html

WordCount - WordCount™ is an interactive presentation of the 86,800 most frequently used English words.
http://www.wordcount.org/main.php
Make your guess as to the top five words before you click.
Here's where you'll find some of the my favorite words.

• abstruse - 46,891
• gossamer - 46,065
• wanderlust - 69,638

Where do some of your favorite words rank?

Alright, back to work. Stay tuned for an update during our next break.