Week 2: Reflections

This was a truly busy week full of a variety of tasks. The highlight was the web searching activity that opened my eyes to numerous sites, serach engines, and portals besides Google. I enjoyed the Noodletools way of classifying the sites according to purpose of search. I learned about new ones such as the Glean Comparison Search which I thought was very useful and can be used by students in more than one of the courses I teach. Another successful web search was to Quoteland.com that I couldn't easily leave, for it had many interesting quotations that one can trace by topic or author. The tech tips were straightforward and interestingly put in a lucid process that if any novice follows can succeed in the search. I already shared both with a colleague who teaches research writing.

The readings were good refreshers; it was nostalgic reading about Blooms' taxonomy after many years of having seen it as a student in an Education course. What I enjoyed most was an online taxonomy that did not exist during my days and a modified list by Anderson and Krathwohl (2001), with examples of observable or overt behaviors corresponding to each.

Also, the ABCD approach can be very practical in the quick paced world that we live in. The ABCD reflect the basic necessary ingredients of any objective. Moreover, the naming of the approach using the first four initials of the alphabet is indicative; those components should be the basis of any lesson plan.

The last task this week was mind boggling! It was later productive, for it made me think of how I can use technology to add motivation and stir up my students' reading and writing skills. I hope I can benefit from this course to help me succeed in engaging them in the learning process.