2. Learning Preferences
In the beginning of the class I took the learning preferences
survey. What I remember from the survey is that I was a visual,
verbal, sensing, active, and reflective learner.My learning
preference quiz scores were active-7, sensual-9, visual-5, and
sequential-3. The learning preferences that I was not so strong
in were intuitive, global and sequential. My thinking has
changed because I have learned what my strong points of
learning are and what my weak points are. It has helped my
learning overall now because I know now that I mainly a visual
and active learner. Knowing this has benefited me a lot because
I know the ways of studying that will benefit me the most. This
has definitely made a huge difference on my personal learning
success. The ways I use to study did not help as much yet after
knowing what my best learning preferences were I have started
to apply those preferences when studying and I have seen
nothing but positive results.
Nicholas Duenas
3. Learning Pathway
The learning pathway that I choose was the learning
warrior, which quests were about the deeper knowledge
of mobile technologies. I believe that I had gained some
deeper information about mobile technologies. To begin
the quests I knew a lot of the material because I have
been using mobile technology for a while. I learned most
of the material from personal experience over the years. I
never changed my pathway from a warrior because I was
excited to see how depth in mobile technology could get.
Although I knew a lot of the information about mobile
technology I was curious to see what else iphone, ipads,
and tablets could do for someone. For instance some new
information I learned about what as that ipads could open
PDF documents and also I learned about the devices
such as kindles which are made for reading books.
Nicholas Duenas
4. Learning Activities
The Podcasts activities were some of the activities that I
did not think helped my learning of the subject. I think this
did help in a way with the broader learning of the material
because it had visual and sensing activities. This is not
my best way to learn yet I still feel that I grasp the concept
of the overall material. The Podcast activities covered
various categories such as science, physics, history and
others. The activity that I think helped with my deeper
understanding of mobile technologies was the iPod & mp3
level 2 activity. This activity went into deeper information
of what iPods and mp3s could do. For example
predict, use, evaluate part of the activity that focused on
the flashcards that could be used on handheld devices
such as iPod, Zune, and others. I could use these on my
iphone because it gives you the ability to use the
flashcard apps.
Nicholas Duenas
5. Exploration of Technologies for
Learning: iPod/mp3
For the iPod/mp3 players quest I decided to explore it through my strong learning
preferences. For the level 2 activities there were many different apps that showed me
what iPod and iphone were capable of doing. In some of the blog posts my classmates
responded with comments that told me about apps that I could use in my other classes.
For example there was a response in particular that I found helpful because it was in
regard to my anatomy class. My peer told me to look up an anatomy app which I found
extremely helpful because I was struggling in anatomy at the time. I decided to
download the app that was a for flashcards. A problem with searching “flashcards” was
that there are so different “flashcard” apps so this makes it difficult to choose a certain
one. The app I chose was “flashcards +” really helped out with my personal learning.
Quizzing myself with these flashcards has become convenient and more fun way to
learn because I get to use some of my learning preferences, which are active and
visual. My visual and active learning preferences are used while I make the flashcards
and also when I am quizzing myself with the flashcards. The flashcards are helpful
because it allows one to learn visually and also you interact with the app so that would
be the active learning preferences for this activity. In my personal opinion I feel that
Podcasts would not help my learning because I need visual pictures with audio to
understand the material. Some students may benefit from podcasts though because
they are auditory learners. Overall I know that I learn better when I have pictures and
audio together. The apps of the iphone turned out to be helpful in my favor and also the
learning methods of the flashcards helped my visual and active learning preferences.
Nicholas Duenas
6. Exploration of Technologies for
Learning: iPad/Tablets
Ipad and tablets has become another learning tool that I have
found useful to use when studying. Unfortunately I do not own
an ipad or tablet yet whenever I can come across one I try and
use it for my studying. In the student center they provide ipads
to use but they are always taken. I like ipads because they have
a touchable big screen which helps when I need to look at
detailed 3D models or pictures for the class. When studying for
anatomy I would rather use the ipad because it has a bigger
screen whereas studying on the iphone limits someone to so
much because of the size of the screen. Honestly I think that
ipads and tablets are for people who can afford them. They are
just luxury devices that only some people have. When it comes
to studying I think that having an iphone with the flashcards+
and anatomy apps will be just as beneficial as having an ipad.
ipads are honestly just bigger iphones when it comes to using
apps nothing else.
Nicholas Duenas
7. Exploration of Technologies for
Learning: Microblogs
Another learning tool that I found I could use when it
comes to studying is mircoblogs. Learning that
microblogs are used as learning tools would have never
crossed my mind. I knew that Twitter was considered a
microblog yet I never thought one could actually use it for
educational purposes. Twitter lets a user use 140
characters to talk about whatever they want. The idea is
to get straight to the point. When using twitter I feel that I
am a more active and intuitive learner because when
using twitter my classmates used tweets to find clever
acronyms and sayings that helped us learn the order of
muscles or the certain bones structures on a bone.
Although during the activities I found that twitter could be
used for educational purposes I found that twitter is a
more social networking site rather then a learning social
network.
Nicholas Duenas
8. Synthesis
The most mobile technology that I found most beneficial
was the quest that helped me with learning more about
my iphone. I have had an iphone for two years now yet I
have only used the device for phone
calls, texting, games, and using the Internet. The mobile
activities have helped me get an overall view of all the
things that an iphone is capable of doing. If I were to pick
one learning tool out of all the devices I would choose my
iphone. I would choose this first because it is a user-
friendly phone which provides apps that allows one to
study in between class, on the bus, or on some free time.
The iphone can be turned into a very useful learning tool if
one knows which apps to download and how to use those
apps to their advantage. Personally I find that my iphone
is a very convenient thing to carry around because of the
way I have customized my phone.
Nicholas Duenas
9. Synthesis Cont.
I am certain that I will continue using my iphone for leisure
and study purposes. The reason why I like iphones is
because I feel that it helps me learn with my visual
learning preference. Downloading learning apps, anatomy
apps, and flashcards apps has helped with my learning
preference. Some of these apps are designed to be fun
while one learns and this benefits me because I would
rather be playing these app games instead of reading a
boring small font textbook. With the flashcard apps I was
able to practice and quiz myself with anatomy terminology
engaging my visual and active learning. In addition to that
I was also able to engage my visual learning with the
anatomy app that let me see the human body in 3D. With
the help all of these learning tools it helped with my
learning pathway as warrior.
Nicholas Duenas
10. What’s Next…
I will definitely keep using my visual, active, and etc
skills that I have learned in the mobile technology
quest. In my personal usage I will probably use
active and visual learning were the most used in this
semester although I feel that verbal learning is just
as important as visual and active. If one can verbally
teach someone else that means they actually know
the material and understand it. These learning
preferences has surprised me with how well I can
apply these concepts to other classes, for example in
my anatomy class I use active, verbal, and visual
every time I am learning about a new bone structure
or muscle. Using these learning preferences has
helped me excel in anatomy and in other classes.
Nicholas Duenas
11. What’s Next Cont..
After learning about how much an iphone is capable
of doing I definitely will keep using this technology for
my studies. I will use the flashcards for other classes
that I will be taking next semester and I have found
other apps that can help me with organizing notes I
take in class or classes that will guide me with
physiology; a class I am taking next semester. I will
definitely be using the studying game apps in other
class also because it is an entertaining way to learn
material. As forMicroblogI will not be using them for
learning purposes. Possibly in the near future I may
consider using twitter as a job finder or political
newsfeed yet as of right now twitter is staying as a
social network site.
Nicholas Duenas