Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy in the Saudi EFL Classrooms

Bloom’s Taxonomy is taxonomy of cognitive objectives that classified in a 6 levels of intellectual behavior as a ways of learning and thinking.  In 1990’s Lorin Anderson (Bloom’s student) revised the taxonomy and made a number of changes to fit educational practice of the 21s. 

Blooms’ Revised Taxonomy is associated to critical thinking in that it makes the students to move from lower-order thinking skills to higher-order thinking skills that involve logical thinking, analyzing, applying, evaluating and creating.

Bloom’s Taxonomy is not evident in Saudi EFL classrooms. Bloom’s Taxonomy is necessary for teachers to use it . I would use and highly recommend EFL teachers to use Bloom’s Taxonomy in their classrooms to develop and strengthen the students’ thinking skills.

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 learning 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 you 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 fit in with 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, 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?

 What is a Webquest??
Bernie Dodge of San Diego State University the originator of the concept of the Webquest, defined as "an inquiry- oriented activity in which some or all of the information that learners interact with comes from resources on the internet, optionally supplemented with videoconferencing.


The role of the teacher is basically to design the Webquest for the students or s/he can give them a ready made Webquest. Then, the teacher role will be as a facilitator when the students start doing the tasks that are on the Webguest.


The role of the students is that they will be doing most the work. So, this will require the students to think critically and most of the time students will be working in groups and this encouraging collaborating work. Webquests tend to be student-oriented, with students engaged in constructivist activities resulting in shared learning experiences and new knowledge based on enquiry-oriented language use and Web research skills.

Webquest is an example of the kind of tasks that  project-based language learning supports.

I believe that learning should be fun. So, as a future EFL/ESL teacher I would definitely use Webquest and recommend it to other EFL/ESL teachers because it's totally interesting, enjoyable and promote critical thinking and collaborative learning.

“How would English language teachers use blogs, wikis and delicious with their students?”

Technology now-a-days is a huge part of our life. It's a tool to communicate and deliver the information easily. So, It's really recommend for English language teacher to include technology in their teaching. One of the useful way to included it is to use social websites Like: blogs, wikis and delicious.

Blogs: 

In my opinion, using blog is useful for improving students' writing and reading skills, how?. For writing skills, teacher can give students some of the home-works that require them to post in their blogs like, express their opinions and ideas by writing in some topics that are chosen by the teacher. For reading, teacher may used for this skill by posting articles and asks them to read and reflect, so the teacher will know if they understand what they read or not.

Delicious:

This website is fantastic. The teacher can post a good online materials, like: links, videos, activities and games that help the students to understand and learn some lessons. The teacher can also used it to ask the students to share useful links that are related to their lessons.

Wiki:

Teacher can use wiki to ask students to upload their works in it, like: PowerPoint presentations. Teacher can used it too to upload a beneficial materials, assignments and students' grades. It's a very useful tool for students to interact with their  teacher and with their classmates.

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

In the article Stephan Bax discussed the development of CALL, the history of it, how it's now and how it will be in the future. 

He also discussed  the phases of CALL which were divided by Mark Warschauer into three phases: Behavioristic, communicative and integrative. Bax used these phases as a basic point to answer a three main questions which are where has CALL been? where is it now and were is it going?.

Bax explained the goal of CALL through the concept of normalization which is the stage when a technology is invisible, hardly even recognized as a technology, taken for granted in everyday life. So, he suggested changes in order to make CALL reach a normalization stage in teaching. 

Bax said that CALL will reach that stage of normalization when computers are used every day in our classrooms of learning language by students and teachers.

In Saudi Arabia, most of the schools and universities improved their educational system and started to use computers, projectors, and smart boards in the classroom but the problem is that most of the teachers and students have lack of knowledge in how to use these technology. So, in order to achieve normalization, first we must change in educational systems and make the use of technology as tool to improve learning. Second, teachers should trained properly to use technology effectively. Finally, teach students how to use social web sites and used as a tool to communicate with their teachers and their classmates but  that doesn't mean to depend all on technology and remove from consideration the role of the teacher and the students in the classroom.
However, I believe that Saudi Arabia has the abilities to achieve normalization but all what is needed is time, knowledge and changes in the educational system and we will succeed if we want to make it happened.

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This is my first time in blogging world and I've made it for Edu401 course.