Assessment of Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy

Mackenzie Smith

Rowan College of South Jersey

EDU 105-47

Ms. Jennie Cusick

April 14, 2021

 Abstract

Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy is a key model that holds importance and value to educators. With

this special model, educators are able to create meaningful lessons with the input of technology.

It is evident that with the infiltration of such technologies, students utilize their experiences and

develop higher-order thinking skills. Times are changing and technology is becoming more

popular each day. Since humans have such a deep connection with technology, it is promising

and critical that educators come to terms with updated styles of presenting information to their

students. It is well noted that using technology in the classroom helps students engage in their

work. The following will be a discussion assessing the use of Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy in the

classroom.
 Assessment of Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy

According to the video regarding the topic of discussion, Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy was

first created in the 1950s by educational psychologist Benjamin Bloom (“What is Bloom's

Digital Taxonomy? YouTube”). It began as the following, in order from the lowest-order

thinking skills to the highest-order thinking skills: knowledge, comprehension, application,

analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. The three lower levels were the most basic levels of

cognition, where lower-order thinking skills were challenged and facilitated. The upper three

levels consist of higher-order thinking skills, which included abstract, critical metacognitive

creative thinking. Later during the 1990s, this platform of Bloom’s Taxonomy was updated by

David Krathwohl and Lorin Anderson (“What is Bloom's Digital Taxonomy? YouTube”). The

upgraded list is as follows, in order from the lowest-order thinking skills to the highest-order

thinking skills: remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, and create. Bloom’s Digital

Taxonomy is essential for educators to identify students’ levels of thinking. Here, technology

guides instruction and engages learners. All in all, Bloom’s Cognitive Taxonomy is a scale of

increasingly complex levels of thinking where students evidently can demonstrate as they learn.

For the purpose of this assessment, an educator who teaches English could use Bloom’s

Digital Taxonomy to further engage and assess their students. Say that this specific English

educator were to teach a lesson about poems- the facilitator could use Bloom’s model categories

to instill new knowledge within their students. To begin, for the lower three steps: remembering,

understanding, and applying, the educator could use online tools such as Quizlet, Diigo, and

PowerPoint to help students captivate the information they have just learned. Quizlet will

facilitate “remembering” by allowing students to recall and memorize certain terms or key

elements of poems by using repetition while studying flashcards. Diigo will allow students to
engage in “understanding” by enforcing students to link articles, critiques, and evaluations of

poems being read in class. PowerPoint will encourage students to “apply” their knowledge that

they have learned so that they are able to present their findings to the class through a

presentation. These three online technology tools are assigned as promoting and assisting

students’ lower-order thinking skills. Moving on to the upper three categories: analyzing,

evaluating, and creating, these steps are the most crucial part in order for students to fully learn

the information to their potential. For “analyzing”, educators could use Survey Monkey as a way

to understand where each student is within the lesson and how comfortable they are with the

lesson’s information that is being taught. As for “evaluating”, students could collaborate with

other students on classwork assignments dealing with the topic of poetry through Google

Hangouts. “Creating” could lead the educator to assign students a final project where students

are able to choose a platform such as Screencast-o-matic, to create a voice-over where they read

a poem of their own that they have created. All digital platforms that have been mentioned

previously are great tools that surpass the criteria on the “Rubric for eLearning Tool Evaluation”

document. It is important that educators carefully choose the most beneficial and safe online

resources for students to use.

Like stated before, the educator could assess the students on poetry by creating projects

that require the use of PowerPoint or Screencast-o-matic, rather than traditionally assigning an

exam to complete on paper. Using the two online tools will further motivate and engage students

in the topic of discussion. Educators will be able to evaluate and rule whether students have

learned the material through the depths of the students’ presentations and projects. The specified

educator could potentially pick and choose which assignments will best be beneficial to

incorporate the use of technology throughout the lesson. Not every assignment needs the use of
technology. The educator will determine which steps of Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy will further

need the facilitation of the use of technology.

To conclude, Bloom’s Taxonomy is vastly important to many educators and their

incorporation of technology in class. Using this model as a guideline is extremely crucial and

beneficial to both the educators and students. Establishing limits and strengths within the system

will allow for the ease and control of lessons throughout many school ages. It is evident that as

educators, new ideas and strategies are shared across the board in hopes of helping one another.

Together, educators can impact greatly the lives and futures of many students through simple

infiltrations as discussed.
 References

“Blooms Digital Taxonomy.” PDF file.

Antsey, L. M., & Watson, G. P. L. (2018). Rubric for eLearning Tool Evaluation.

https://teaching.uwo.ca/pdf/elearning/Rubric-for-eLearning-Tool-Evaluation.pdf.

YouTube. (2016). What is Bloom's Digital Taxonomy? YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqgTBwElPzU.