Digital Taxonomy: Evaluating and Creating

Abstract

In a previous column (Skiba, 2013), I introduced the concept of Bloom's Digital Taxonomy and how one can use different technology tools to help students understand and remember concepts. This column offers additional tools that you can use to engage students in the classroom and online. Specifically, I focus on the use of videos to facilitate students' ability to evaluate and create.EVALUATINGAccording to Krathwohl (2002), Evaluation refers to making judgments based on criteria and standards. Mayer (2002) further explains that evaluation included] the cognitive processes of checking (which refers to judgments about internal consistency) and critiquing (which refers to judgments based on external criteria). He goes on to state, Critiquing lies at the core of what has been called critical thinking.Videos can be used to spark discussion, serve as a basis for debate, or inspire the generation of new ideas and hypotheses. Videos on the Internet are abundant, and, indeed, the growth of YouTube videos is astounding. I am a TED junkie and have been using TED videos for many years in my online courses.TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) began in the 1980s as a conference that spreads ideas worth sharing. Speakers were invited to the first TED conferences and given 15 minutes or less to give the talk of their lives. Today TED is a not-for-profit devoted to its catch phrase: Ideas Worth Spreading. The initial TED concept has spread to create a host of conferences: on medicine (www. tedmed.com), global issues (www.ted.com/pages/tedglobal), women (www.ted.com/pages/tedwomen), and youth (www.ted.com/pages/ tedyouth). The great thing about TED talks is that they are available for use through under the Creative Commons license Attribution- NonCommercial-NonDerivative (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/), which allows noncommercial entities, such as educators, to use them freely and easily.So, let's look at some videos that might be useful to spark conversations or debate on the pros and cons of an idea, technology, or treatment, or lead to the writing of a position paper on a particular topic. One of my favorite speakers is Hans Rosling, a professor of global health at Sweden's Karolinska Institute, whose presentations are both entertaining and challenging. Rosling makes data come alive, statistics no longer boring. His videos can be used to challenge your students to think about data, health disparities, and global health issues. His first video in 2006 caught my attention (www.ted.com/ talks/hans_rosling_on_global_population_growth.html), and I have been following his work since. I particularly like the Magic Washing Machine (www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_and_the_magic_washing_ machine.html) to spark conversation in a class on global issues.The TEDMED (www.tedmed.com) site has a wealth of videos and materials you can use for your courses. Not only are they astonishing, thought provoking, fun, inspiring, imaginative, and controversial, but you can file them by categories such as entertainment, health care, medicine, wellness, community, or design. (See Sidebar for a sample.)What you will also find on the TEDMED site is the Great Challenges Program (www.tedmed.com/greatchallenges), whose mission is not to solve complex problems, but to provide a venue for conversations from a variety of disciplines and perspectives. Here are some of the 20 challenges: The Role of the Patient, Managing Chronic Disease, Caregiver Crisis, Eliminating Childhood Obesity, Faster Adoption of Best Practices, Impact of Poverty on Health Care, and the Future of Personalized Medicine. Within each area, there are numerous questions that can be used to challenge your students. Have them read the responses and begin to participate in conversations that address the challenges facing health care today.And if that were not enough, there is now TedEd (http://ed.ted. com/about), which has ideas for creating lessons using the videos. …