YOUTUBE HIDDEN GEMS: Here's to that rare moment when you get caught in the black hole that is YouTube and actually come out for the better. We were initially sucked in by this snazzy animation on the future of online and BYOD learning from Blackboard. Describing the "Active Learner," it's full of odd yet interesting tidbits like "53% of [those ages] 16-22 would rather give up their sense of smell than their phone or laptop." Even more interesting is that the video seems devoid of any cheap marketing tactics (unless we've already been subliminally had), but the high production quality hints at the major player tugging the strings behind the curtains.
From the vortex of active learning, we arrived at "BYOD in the 21st Century" by Canada-based Marc-Andre Lalande. The Cartman-like animation in the suggested videos section was a must-click, but the video swiftly lays out the benefits and limitations of BYOD in appropriate trekkie fashion (think "the Bored" instead of "the Borg"). We came away impressed enough to check out the rest of Lalande's collection which took us to our final destination: "Aiming Higher: Bloom's and Vygotsky in the Classroom."
As the title suggests, Lelande and friends make a commendable attempt to merge Vygotsky's ZPD and the Revised Bloom's Taxonomy into a single pedagogical practice. The claims in the 10-minute video are admittedly unproven but the central premise merits at least one test in the classroom. In short, Lelande and colleague, Judith Cantin, suggest that while students attempt to build deeper understanding for a given learning target, they should remain in the ZPD. But the activities they undertake to get there should be familiar and preferably from a higher level of Bloom's. Don't take our word for it; watch the video.
