Learning Log Post #1
Thinking about my learning in the past, I would have to say that what I have learned over the years is it is easiest for me to learn if I get involved. I am not a good memorizer. Can I do it? Yes. Of course, I can and have done a lot of memorization in my life, but it is not my strongest suit. What I found I was always good at was connecting the dots and relating and remembering the story behind the problems. For instance, in history classes remembering the general who led the charge? Not usually. However, I remembered the way that they won the battle. How cool was that? It has always taken strategies and intent for me to study and remember the correct term or name. The bigger picture has always been my first love.
It took awhile for me to figure out that in order to explain the bigger picture, I would need to remember and be able to come up with those words. I am sure I will always be a work in progress. However, now I recognize the importance of those pieces faster and try to put them into the story in my head more often. Any time I can work on a project of some kind or discuss concepts with others it helps me make a more definite and permanent connection. This even flows into my personal life. I will remember a face and be able to ask that person about their child’s big performance and check on their spouse’s aunt’s health, but I will not remember their name.
When thinking of this in terms of the three metaphors of learning (Mayer, 2005), the information acquisition form is almost entirely wasted on someone like me. If you use the response strengthening you have a little better chance, because I will try to get my reward. However, your best chance of having me remember it is what we are doing now! Making me work with it and build the memory a more solid foundation. Knowledge construction learning makes complete sense to me. Even for those that do have the amazing memories. They can come up with the words or names, but often do not have the ability to fully understand the ramifications of that definition they can spout out. At least, not until they have had to defend it or do the experiment and see the concepts working for them.
When I picked my theme for this “blogworld” I have created, the heading for this blog was already there. It had a different meaning and no real content, but I left it until I knew what to do with all the previous templates. Then I started thinking about this first learning log and thought that it could not really have a better title for me! I believe that connections are so important in learning. When I first read in Multimedia Learning that you should not put much text on a slide, I was appalled (Mayer, 2009). It was hard for me to put that into practice. I tried it and I was surprised that pulling a word or two that was the focus of the discussion on the screen seemed to work for me. It actually helped me remember the word, because it formed a connection to what the speaker was talking about and was easy to take in.
Technology Designed 