The Padagogy Wheel and Bloom's Digital Taxonomy

The Padagogy Wheel, created by Allan Carrington, and Bloom's Digital Taxonomy are going to be excellent resources for teachers who are beginning their careers in the world today. The two resources can be used together to help teachers incorporate the world of technology in to their classrooms and to benefit their students in the best way possible. 

Bloom's Digital Taxonomy is a tree of "HOTS" or "Higher Order Thinking Skills" and "LOTS", which are "Lower Order Thinking Skills." This tree shows how teachers can best engage their students in the classroom to help them learn as best that they can. For example, at the top of the list is "creating," this means that students will learn the best when they have the opportunity to learn in a creative way. Teachers can use this in their classrooms by focusing on ways for students to be hands-on and make their own decisions about how they learn. A few examples that come to mind would be: Book Reports, acting out the scene in a book, or doing an art project related to a lesson.

The Pedagogy Wheel is a model of all of the different technological resources than can be used to learn in different ways. A teacher will begin by choosing an overall "goal" for their students, such as evaluate, analyze, apply, remember/understand, and create. The wheel is then sectioned off in five ways and includes activities that teachers can use, and the different applications that can be sources for learning with technology for students. 

These are going to be excellent resources for me when I am a teacher because when I am struggling to come up with a lesson plan or in need of a project for my students, I can look for a way to teach that will best benefit my students and different sources of technology that I can use to teach them. There are so many applications today that it is hard to determine which ones will be useful and educational, and which ones are junk. Having this wheel is going to be a benefit to have at my fingertips.