Using SAMR and Bloom's Taxonomy to transform learning through ICT

Choosing Technology to enhance and transform digital pedagogy.

Technology for technology's sake is a trap for new players.  There are so many different educational technology tools and apps and so many persuasive sales pitches out there, how can individual teachers choose technology that will enhance and transform teaching practice?

Two commonly used frameworks that can be used by teachers to understand how they can improve digital pedagogy.  Bloom's Taxonomy.  Often Bloom's Taxonomy is shown as an upright pyramid with the very pinnacle of the taxonomy being creating.  I like this depiction because it shows the lower levels or remembering and understanding as a proportion of balanced learning, but they are still important foundations of learning on which we can build such skills as creating, evaluating and analyzing.

Bloom's Taxonomy

And SAMR which shows four stages of integration much like rungs on a ladder.  I love this depiction because I can relate to the analogy.  If we are boating, we can see a lake, but only the above, water area of the lake.  Once we snorkel we can see below the water and we can investigate those parts of the lake that are shallow and accessible.  To scuber, we need to learn some more skills and take more risks, however, we can interact much deeper in the lake.  If we go into a submarine, we are redefining how we are being in the lake because we are no longer getting wet, we are no longer needing to wear a mask or dive weights and we have a lot more technology around us such as the information in a submarine such as shown to us by the guages.  The submarine redefines what we can do in the lake and who we are in the lake.

We can join the SAMR and Bloom's taxonomy and they complement each other as shown in this very simple diagram.  Even though SAMR has only four stages and Bloom's Taxonomy has six, they still have the notion of lower order thinking or use of technology and higher order thinking or use of technology.  In both cases, the middle section is regarded as a threshold.  There is a little bit of lower order bad and higher order good in some of the articles, which I don't agree with.  I will discuss this in a bit.

SAMR & Blooms Taxonomy Side by Side

Some authors try to show certain apps or software ad different levels of the SAMR, for example in this diagram of the SAMR showing iPad apps.  I argue that it is the use of the app that is at each of the levels and not the app itself.  For example, it would be possible to not utilise all of the functionality of an app shown at the modification level and for a teacher to use this in an augmented way.  There are so may apps on the market that I wouldn't even begin to try to evaluate them all, I would be looking for an industry article that rates them and I would base my choices on the industry article.

I found the 'questions to ask' scenario to be quite useful in identifying each of the levels in the SAMR and also keeping the teacher focused on what learning and thinking can be achieved through using the program.

In Bloom's Taxonomy, the lower level of remembering is the basis for all human learning.  When working with exceptional students who have some limitation to their memory ability, it can be seen quite clearly that this limitation inhibits their ability to learn.  However, even though we do have Bloom's and SAMR up together, the substitution of ICT at the bottom of the SAMR is where teaching has begun with integrating technology into the classroom.  However, substitution, is not an important initial step and teachers will soon skip substitution in their classrooms and begin with augmentation.  I hope that in the classroom of the future we also skip the augmentation.  In other words, we would not expect to see scaffolding from augmentation to modification in a classroom.  However we would expect to see scaffolding from understanding and applying to analyzing synthesizing and critiquing in Bloom's Taxonomy.  I think that the reason why we wouldn't expect to scaffold learning in the SAMR model is because the students whom we are teaching are already born into reasonably ubiquitous computing environments.  My own children (now 10 and 13) were born into a world of computer games and iPads and first started to use them when they were 7 or 8.  I now regularly see parents of children as young as 1 year old watching an Pepper Pig while they eat dinner at the Bowls Club.  Those children have been born with the smart phone, Youtube and Netflix.  I am not saying there is anything wrong with this ;-) I was born into the era where the TV babysat me and I learnt all of my early literary skills from Seasame Street and had way more stories read to my be Benita and John from 'PlaySchool' that I ever did from my own parents.  It is just an era and as pre-service teachers we just need to work out how to think positively about that and turn it into an advantage.

Note to self:  Need to wait for a few more blog entries to go up on this topic and then write a couple more reflections.


References
Bloom's Taxonomy image adopted from:
https://carleton.ca/viceprovost/assessment-of-learning/learning-outcomes/blooms-taxonomy/

SAMR technology integration image adopted from:
http://lingomedia.com/stages-of-edtech-the-samr-model-for-technology-integration/

SAMR model of iPhone apps image adopted from:
https://www.edsurge.com/news/2015-02-06-a-guide-for-bringing-the-samr-model-to-ipads

SAMR Questions to ask image adopted from:
http://teacherpress.ocps.net/teachingwithios/samr-model-apps/

SAMR and Bloom's Taxonomy side by side image adopted from.
https://www.commonsense.org/education/blog/samr-and-blooms-taxonomy-assembling-the-puzzle