Wow! It's been a hectic week. I managed to juggle work, studies at varsity, a camp and web skills. I have also come to believe that my new motto in life is "this too shall pass". I've had two days leave this year and I think it's begining to catch up. At least I can say that I've learnt a few new things this week.
Our assignment on the ABCD method, I found quite interesting. I have never encountered it in the past. I must say, what I have done was to re-write some of my work's objectives in the ABCD method and found it very user friendly. What I have realised is that we have the core ingredients (objectives) but not always in the right order. The ABCD method makes it much easier. Many times, especially at my work I realise that people write objectives, using government jargon and acronyms, that actually mean nothing. I found writing affective objectives much harder to write because they are not easily measurable. The writer of the article I read, referred to Bloom's Taxonomy. Although various taxonomies attempt to explain the affective domain, I prefer to use Krathwohl's taxonomy (1973,1998), because it closely resembles Bloom's (1956) well-known taxonomy of the cognitive domain, but focuses on the affective domain.
And, yes, I have searched the web, this week like never before. I have always been satisfied with Google, but now that my eyes have opened, I've come to realise that I have been suffering with "Google-itis". What I have learnt, is that the more you refine your search the better the results. It's a paradigm shift, since I have discovered other search engines, I still find myself sometimes going to Google (we become conditioned very easily, thank you Pavlov) it's an automatic reaction. I think, it's a case of finding the best search engine for your specific need. Some work for some people and others don't. I found the following search engines helpful, some, more than others;
http://www.twurdy.com, http://www.infomine.ucr.edu, http://www.education.iseek.com & "sweet search"
For study purposes at the University of Pretoria, I use http://www.sabinet.co.za or http://www.ebscohost.com
You are welcome to visit my work and study websites, if you please.
University of Pretoria: http://www.up.ac.za
Department of Education: http://www.thutong.doe.gov.za & http://www.education.gov.za
My second week of webskills has come to an end and I am looking forward to next week.
Hi Georg
ReplyDeleteNice post. I agree, that the ABCD objectives are "user friendly." That is a nice way to put it. And I too have seen poorly written or meaningless objectives filled with jargon and buzzwords. Anyway, we have used these at our department at UO with some success.
Robert