The Taxonomy for the Technology Domain

Copyrighted 2003 by Dr Lawrence A. Tomei  and IDEA Publishing Inc.
Reprint in any form or media without permission is strictly prohibited

 

Introduction

Many educators accept teaching with technology as perhaps the most important instructional strategy to impact the classroom since the text book. A Taxonomy for the Technology Domain offers an equivalent view for using technology to enhance student learning. Of course, the very nature of a taxonomy reduces in scope whatever  is being categorized because of its tendency to artificially place items into all too convenient “pockets.” However, the benefits for teachers who understand the advantages of classifications greatly outweigh the obstacles.

Research shows that teachers who use a classification scheme to prepare instructional learning objectives tend to produce successful student learning outcomes (Kibler, Barker, and Miles, 1970 and Krathwohl and Bloom, 1984). The classification system proposed for the Technology Domain includes Literacy, Communications, Decision-Making, Infusion, Integration, and Tech-ology. Each step offers a progressive level of complexity by constructing increasingly multifaceted student learning outcomes at each level of activity.

Levels of the Technology Taxonomy. Technology for Literacy (Level 1.0)  represents the simplest level of technology-based learning. At this level of the taxonomy, literacy is defined as "the minimum degree of competency expected of teachers and students with respect to technology, computers, educational programs, office productivity software, the Internet, and their synergistic effectiveness as a learning strategy.” The first rung on the technology ladder establishes the most fundamental literacies and basic technology skills necessary for the technological learner.

            Technology for Collaboration (Level 2.0) is defined as "the ability to employ technology for effective interpersonal interaction." Effective uses of technology by the learner include appropriate uses include technology for written and aural communication, the professional exchange of information, and interpersonal collaboration. Skills at this level of the taxonomy are evidenced by sharing information in written form (word processing, desktop publishing), by participating in and interpreting interpersonal dialog (via newsgroups, list servers, and chat rooms), and by responding to directed personal interchange (electronic mail).

Technology for Decision-Making (Level 3.0) refers to the “ability to use technology in new and concrete situations to analyze, assess, and judge.” Included is an assumed mastery of the concepts and skills from the previous two levels and involves both teacher and student in the applied learning situations. Making decisions using technology requires greater student understanding of technology than either of the previous stages. Helping the learner acquire decision-making skills via technology includes such important tools as spreadsheets, brainstorming software, and statistical analysis packages. 

Technology for Infusion (Level 4.0) recognizes technology as a powerful strategy for discovering and exploring academic content. This level is concerned with the “identification, harvesting, and applications of existing technology to unique learning situations.” Here, teachers and students analyze the instructional value of otherwise disconnected technology-based instructional materials and select those appropriate for classroom learning. Infusion elects existing printed, audio, visual, multimedia, and web-based technologies in addition to the more typical category of educational hardware, software, and networking and incorporates those resources into the classroom.

Technology for Integration (Level 5.0) “is concerned with the creation of new technology-based materials, combining otherwise disparate technologies to teach.” Appropriate technologies are identified and harvested (similar to the previous level). However, at this level, the goal of integration is to develop new, previously non-existent, instructional materials to enhance learner understanding. As an example, new content materials may be created by gathering a brilliant chapter from one text book, a movie clip from an educational video, and scanned map images from a contemporary atlas and producing a never before seen student workbook on the holocaust. At this level of the taxonomy, component technology-based elements are assembled to promote a degree of understanding not possible with text books, videos, or images alone.

Tech-ology (Level 6.0) refers to "the ability to judge the universal impact, shared values, and social implications of technology use and its influence on teaching and learning." Tech-ology is a contraction of “tech” (technology) and “ology” (the study of); therefore, the final stage of the taxonomy addresses the study of technology. Many related issues necessarily come to the front when considering the effect of technology on the individual student, the school, the community, and society as a whole. Multicultural issues, for example, include the increasing disparity of computer access between the wealthy and poor; the availability of information between the computer "haves’ and have-nots;” copyright and fair use laws; censorship on the Internet; and, legal and ethical behavior when using information obtained using technology.

 

Action Verbs. The following list of verbs are commonly found in learning objectives created for technology.  At the literacy level, teachers use learning objectives which promote an understanding of computer terms and concepts, the operation of computer hardware, and the use of basic computer applications. They use action verbs that involve general awareness and use of simple technologies.

Teachers seek evidence of collaborative skills by asking students to share information in written form (word processing, desktop publishing), participate in and interpret interpersonal dialog (via newsgroups, list servers, and chat rooms), and respond to direct interchange (electronic mail). Decision-making technology includes such important tools thinking and learning tools as spreadsheets, brainstorming software, statistical analysis packages, and virtual tours.  Teachers at this level design, develop, and apply various technologies as practical tools for student self-learning.

Infusing technology requires teachers and learners to analyze available technology resources and select those that match learning strategies with specific lesson objectives. To successfully integrate technology, teachers identify content-rich hyperlinks and combine this information with visual and auditory presentations, textual matter, and other technologies to create entirely new lesson materials. In his landmark research, Howard Gardner (1993, 1999) developed the idea that there is not a single “intelligence," but rather seven: visual/spatial, musical, verbal, logical/ mathematical, interpersonal, intra-personal, and body/kinesthetic intelligence. Classroom teachers, using various technologies at this level, benefit from his investigations by selecting technology-based formats that best suits their students’ individual learning styles. 

And finally, the predominant influence of the taxonomy is the value technology contributes to our society.  At this level, teachers introduce technology-related issues focused on the importance and applications of technology that allow students to appraise, argue, assess, choose, compare, and defend.  For example, journals and newspapers expose the disparity of computer access between the wealthy and poor (May, 2000). Teachers might initiate classroom debates about the availability of information between the computer ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots.”

As with the previous domains, the following list of verbs present student intellectual activity at each of the respective levels.  However, in this domain, the action verb alone is less imperative; rather, to effectively represent their level of activity, it must act upon a target technology. Examine Table 1 closely.

 

 

Table 1. The Technology Domain

 

 

Learning Objectives. The taxonomy for the technology domain, like its predecessors, includes a progressive level of complexity from simple to complex, first to last, general to specific. The six interconnected levels of literacy, collaboration, decision-making, infusion, integration, and tech-ology offer a fresh notion of student learning, one based not on knowledge, emotions, or physical skills, but on technology and its impact on the teaching-learning process. Below, Table 2 offers several illustrative examples of successful learning objectives at each respective level; a much more detailed examination of each level of the taxonomy follows in subsequent chapters.

 

 

Table 2. Example Learning Objectives in the Technology Domain

 

 

Relations Among the Technology Taxonomy and the Other Domains

 

            In his second book on taxonomies, Handbook II: Affective Domain (1964), Benjamin Bloom and contributing authors Krathwohl and Masia compared their first two taxonomies for the cognitive and affective domains. In so doing, they uncovered internal reliability for their hierarchical levels and significant overlap in their relationships. With the utmost modesty, the Taxonomy for the Technology Domain is added to this comparison (Table 3) to reveal whether it, too, bears some similarity to its prominent predecessors.

 

 

Table 3. Relations Among the Taxonomy Categories of Three Domains

 

 

            As with the previous attempts to compare domains, certain levels provide the most apparent relationships. For example, Level 1 (Technology Literacy) supports the basic set of skills and competencies needed to be an effective instructional technologist, similar in many ways to the elementary Knowledge and innate capacity for Receiving stimulus upon which cognitive and affective learning hinges. Further, Level 2 in the technology domain (Collaboration) corresponds nicely with the Responding level of the affective domain; whereas, Level 3 (Decision-Making) seems consistent with the cognitive Application level. At Levels 4 and 5 of the cognitive domain, the relationships between Analysis and Synthesis seem roughly equivalent to their technology counterparts of Infusion and Integration. And, certainly at the top level of Evaluation in the cognitive domain and perhaps somewhat less at Organization in the affective sphere, the Tech-ology level calling for a study of the value of technology to society seem particularly cogent.

 

 

Conclusion

Literacy, collaboration, decision-making, infusion, integration, and tech-ology objectives offer a new perspective for immersing technology into classroom teaching. The sooner this taxonomy is adopted the sooner teachers and learners can begin to rely on a new vocabulary of action verbs to classify technology-based learning objectives and the sooner instructional technology will mature into a successful teaching and learning strategy in its own right.

 

References

 

      Bloom, B. S., Englehart, M. B., Furst, E.J., Hill, W.H. and Krathwohl, D.L. (1956). Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: the Classifications of Educational Goals.  New York: Allyn & Bacon/Longman/Pearson Publishers.

 

      Bloom, B. S., Krathwohl, D.L., and Masia, Bertram B. (1964). Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: Affective Domain.  New York: Allyn & Bacon/Longman/Pearson Publishers.

    

Gardner, Howard.  (1993). Frames of mind : the theory of multiple intelligences.  Boulder CO: Basic Books, Inc.

 

      Gardner, Howard.  (1999). Intelligence reframed : multiple intelligences for the 21^st century. Boulder CO: Basic Books, Inc.

 

      Kibler, R.J., Barker, L.L., and Miles, D.T. (1970). Behavioral objectives and instruction. New York: Allyn & Bacon/Longman/Pearson Publishers.

 

      Krathwohl, D.L. and Bloom, Benjamin S. (1984).  Taxonomy of educational objectives. the classifications of educational goals.  Handbook I. New York: Addison-Wesley Company/Pearson Publishers.

 

      May, Meredith. (2000, January 18). Push on to get home computers to poor students. San Francisco Chronicle, page A-13.

 

      Tomei, L. A. (2001).  Writing learning objectives using a taxonomy for the technology domain. Duquesne University, School of Education. Unpublished manuscript.