Mobile/Personal Learning

Diane Luu

Kevin Kelly

ITEC 299

December 4, 2012

Mobile/Personal Learning

IPods/mp3 Players at the very least are able to play audio files and record audio files. This may prove helpful during class lectures, or for reading your notes aloud to yourself and then listening to it for reinforcement. Some are able to record videos as well; a complementary feature to the audio files alone. Some are also able to go online, which is useful for references, but not necessary in my opinion since the screens are generally too small to actually study off of. It helps accommodate learning preferences that don’t correspond well with my preferred strategies. I am an active learner and perhaps that can be incorporated by sharing files with other students and listening to our notes.

iPads and tablets are helpful in studying and for references. The variety of apps that incorporate the touch screens help for interactive learning. With these we can record and listen to audio and video files, as well as browse the web. I find it useful with active learning since we can interact with others using platforms that allow me to do so such as uTalk. It also helps me as a visual learner since I can zoom and pan using the touch screen. I like to use the apps to quiz myself after I think I have studied enough as well.

Microblogs allow learners to connect with each other in real time, and in short concise messages. This is useful for learners to get to the point, and expand on it if necessary, using tools like Twitter’s hashtags. I like searching by trends also, and the character limits allow me to go through a lot of different posts in a short amount of time. This really helps my active learning preference by connecting me to more people than I generally would in a classroom environment. I also get to see what different opinions people have beyond my peer groups, creating more diverse responses.

The technology that interested me most is iPads and tablets. Ever since the iPad came out, I have been exploring ways to use it for education. This class taught me about how to incorporate multimedia, apps, and social networking on my device to help me study. I found it surprising that microblogs can be used for education since I previously only use it to interact with my friends outside of education. Incorporating education in this technology makes for integration of classroom and real life. I don’t find iPods and mp3 players useful for me as a learner. I can’t follow audio files as closely as I would by visually exploring the material. I will explore iPads further because I feel like there are a lot of possibilities for what it can do for me. It also integrates microblogs and iPods since I use it in posting my microblogs and it essentially can do what iPods can (minus the portability).

Again, I think the iPad worked best for me because it accommodates all of my learning preferences most efficiently. Most importantly for me, it accommodates visual and active learning. Through using the apps, I was able to use multimedia for learn visually and interact with others. I like studying diagrams, charts, and virtual models. Also, sharing this with my peers make for a more comprehensive study. With my iPad, I will share notes with people in my class and beyond my class. Since I can search by topics, I will be able to get a lot of information much faster.

I think I will continue to use the learning strategies that I have been using, since they work best for me. I think in our day and age, visual learning is prevalent (especially though advertisements which tend show instead of tell). In learning at a job, I will have to incorporate all learning strategies. I plan on being a teacher, so I have to learn how to use as many methods as I can in order to accommodate my students’ needs. In any classroom, active learning is important, along with a balance between sensory and intuitive, and visual and verbal.

In the future, I plan on using tablets for incorporating more reflective learning. Right now, I think I am more of an active learner, but I think I need to think critically and let the material resonate with me. I think this is very helpful in graduate school, where a lot of the material will be theory-based. However, I will continue to use my iPad to be active as well since I will be working with a lot of people in my job. I will continue to use to microblogs for non-learning purposes, but I doubt I will use it for my job. It is helpful to do research on trending topics, but I don’t know if I want to use it with young children. Maybe that will deter me from using it in the future as well.