Ben McMurry

I've been working at the Center for Teaching and Learning for a little over a month now. I only go in for 1-2 hours a day. I'm working on some exciting projects. The one I am enjoying most though is the construction of some type of learning taxonomy for affective aspects of education. Bloom's taxonomy was a great start. The cognitive domain has been built upon, improved, and used since its inception. The Psychomotor domain is used quite a bit in performance areas. The affective domain is the neglected child. I've been working with Richard Swan. I've been finding categories to include in this taxonomy. So far, we have Empathy, Moral Reasoning, Integrity, Discipline, Humility, Charity, Drive and Aesthetic Ability. I'll post more as it begins to fill out, but I think this is off to a great start.

This is the last in my TESOL series reporting on the 2009 conference. One thing that I did differently this year is that I spent more time networking and more time in the Electronic Village. As far as networking, I met some big names in CALL, like Phil Hubbard. That was good. I spent a lot of time talking with publishers. Part of this was me hoping to get a job offer somehow. I actually think that I wouldn't mind working for a publishing company. In the Electronic Village, I spent time talking to other tech gurus. It was fun. One of the highlights for me was the Hardware Fair. I finally got to get my hands on an OLPC. Great Idea, but I wasn't two impressed. It looks like a good idea for children in countries with poor economies. Really, wouldn't we be doing them a favor by providing something that has a more prolific OS. Even Ubuntu might be better. With the dropping prices in computers and the growing popularity of the netbook, the OLPC and Classmate may soon be a thing of...

I recently recieved and email from a former student. He is taking a class that is helping students explore various careers. One of the assignments is to interview someone in a profession you might be interested in. He asked me a few questions, and I thought it might make for an interesting post. 1. What do you do? I teach English as a Second Language, develop ESL Curriculum, and train student teachers. 2. How did you get interested in this type of work? Get started in this job? I have always been interested in language. I have always known that I wanted a job that would require langauge skills. When I came home from my mission, I took a Spanish class. The teacher was also and ESL teacher and told good stories. That got me interested. Later, I met my wife who was an ESL teacher. I observed her class, and I was hooked! 3. How long have you been doing this kind of work? 5+ years 4. What are 3-5 of the most common activities you do on a typical day? teach, grade, write curriculum, email, t...

I've been taking a class for fun this semester. We've talked about Flash & ActionScript, and now we are talking about JavaScript & html. I was interested in developing a good and easy tool for my students to record video where I could give them feedback. When I was talking about the idea, Peter Rich , a professor in the IP&T department here at BYU , suggested I look into Viddler . I did, and I love it. For the last three weeks I have been using Viddler in my Listening & Speaking classes. We went to our wonderful computer lab and I helped them all set up accounts. We made a group for the class and did some practice recordings. I have had them do three assignments so far. Our current curriculum for Listening & Speaking has task-based objectives. The assignments so far have been to record an invitation to a party, talk about your future plans and goals, and talk about a past experience. After the students have recorded their video, they give themselves feedba...