REFLECTION

As I furthered my knowledge about how people learn, what I found surprising was that the ways in which we learn does not change. If one is a visual learner, they remain a visual learner therefore always processing information in the same ways since their learning began. As with audio visual or tactile learners, the way a person hears, sees, or touches something is processed in that way. I do understand that people can have multiple learning styles which put them at an advantage when storing information into memory. I analyzed myself as a learner throughout the readings and found that I have always studied and processed information the exact same way as long as I can remember regardless of subject matter. My sense of self was deepened and has allowed me to become comfortable with how I learn because I had found myself trying out different learning strategies and they weren’t compatible with how I normally do things or learn things.

In regard to the connection between the learning theories, learning styles, educational technology, and motivation, I understand that there’s relativity amongst them all through positive and negative reinforcement and feedback. In the learning theories, there had to be an action taken in order for a consequence to occur whether it was negative or positive but it reinforced learner or unlearned behavior. The way in which a learner responds to reinforcement dictates their learning style. Educational technology is an extension of the learning styles because of the vast amount of applications, software, and devices to enhance the way we learn, instructional designers can tailor-make a course for an individual if need be. That ability to address individual learning styles through theory and technology makes the flow in regard to motivation more approachable, it takes the guesswork out of it for the instructional designer. There are so many options with these factors together as a whole that the learning experience is enhanced a great deal. My learning thus far will help me to appreciate the many differences in learning I may come across in the field of Instructional design. I will put myself in a position to learn from those who learn differently and use their knowledge to foster knowledge in others as I build instruction to cover their main objectives of learning.

Connectivism Reflection

As I created my mind map I wondered if others who’d view my map would see the connections that facebook.com, myspace.com, and other social networking sites listed in that node have to my personal learning. For those who don’t see the connection, this explanation is for you. 


In my profession as a teacher, we rely heavily on one another for support through encouragement, mentoring and most of all-INFORMATION.

Facebook.com (one of my faves) offers a new teacher the ability to stay connected all over the country with teachers, veterans or newbies who can use each other as a springboard of information. “Picking each other’s brain” is a great way to add to your instructional style and share resources. I reached out and received a great deal of neat ways to keep my students engaged and having fun at the same time.

Although facebook.com is for fun for most people, there are opportunities for us to teach each other. My personal learning network supports the central tenets of connectivism because of the community of diverse learners that contribute on the social networking site.

My network has taught me that it’s OK to “steal” others’ ideas and implement them into my instruction in the classroom therefore making me much more effective as an educator.

The best facilitation tool for me thus far has been pod-casting. It gives me that “in the classroom” feeling without actually being there and I can rewind if I need something to be repeated. Im not sure what its called but its like a demonstration video which shows you exactly how to use certain software tools such as the mind map associated with this blog post. It was very accurate and it extremely helpful to me in regard to completing this assignment. Overall, I have to say my favorite tool is anything interactive where I can touch and interact with the software and demonstrate what I’ve learned with others.

Connectivism

My Overview and Critique of 2 Instructional Design Blogs/1 Resource site

Ideas.blogs.com

This blog contained articles and discussions that browsed subject matter such as the benefits of online learning and using technology as a way to develop new learning outcomes and how virtual classrooms can be more student centered and collaborative. There were several articles about the different delivery methods, one in particular addressed how the introduction of cable television alone in the classroom was not enough. The proper introduction of cable TV in the classroom would have consisted of appropriate instructional technology along with the cable TV to ensure proper content delivery.

Teachersfirst.com

This site has a unique collection oflesson plans, lesson units, and web based resources educators are sure to find very useful. The site itself is intended to save educators time by gathering the best web resources to support student learning.

Wordpress.com

This blog site contained critiquesof Instructional design programs, reviews of new training programs, training assessments and training results evaluation. Overall, the blog consisted of entries geared toward increasing effectiveness and efficiency in regard to learning tools.

Ideas.blogs.com is very informative from the pedagogical side of e-learning and other web based technologies. It is a great resource to use when looking to find out about the newest developments within the field of instructional design. It also lists links to other sites the reader can use to investigate the newer practices discussed on the blog. I find that this site would be very valuable to me in my future endeavors within instructional design because remaining current in your field is a great asset to have.

Wordpress.com was quite entertaining to read as well as informative. The blog has a featured blog and many other bloggers appear writing about different aspects of the instructional design field whereas ideas.blogs.com had one featured blogger. The site differed in regard to its layout and you could get to the blog posts much quicker than the other sites I visited. The downside of this format was it wasn’t categorized so if you were looking specifically for a topic you’d have a hard time finding it. Still useful but it’s going to be a toss up whenever you visit the site.

Teachersfirst.com was chock full of really great units on just about every subject a teacher could dream of. I especially liked the fact that the lesson plans and units came with activities that were group based and could be used with an interactive whiteboard, which just happened to be my favorite piece of technology to use in the classroom. The site wasn’t as user friendly as I had hoped but the content is well worth an educator taking some time to browse and implement the plans and units into their curriculum.