Synthesis quest(multimedia)
- 1. Nicole Love, Polo Morales, Mohamed Saber
- 2. 2. At the beginning of the semester my scores for the learning preference survey were fairly okay as far as me being able to accommodate different learning styles other than those I am comfortable with. My scores for the following learning preferences go as follows: Reflective – 1, Sensible – 11, Visual – 1, and Global – 1. At the end of the class, I have definitely become less of a sensible learner. I have now begun to open my mind to theory or rather the creativity of others based on the different and creative questions my classmates have posted in their forums. Trying to answer their questions I definitely had to do some research and creative thinking to understand their position. When it comes to my other learning preferences – reflective, global, and visual – I have learned how to interchange between having visuals and there being verbal communication, global and sequential, and lastly, reflective and active. I’ve learned how to listen more closely, slow down to learn things in steps to get the big picture, and be more active in discussions to share my ideas rather than quietly reflect to myself on how things connect. -Nicole Love
- 3. 2. Active 3 I usually have to practice something multiple times before I understand it fully. This explains me being more on the active side. Sensing 3 I tend build my confidence when I understand why what I'm doing is important. Visual 4 I tend to memorize something when I see it rather than hear it. Sequential 1 I tend to break things down and start from the bottom to completely understand something. These were my thoughts and learning preferences from the beginning of the semester. As the semester went on, I noticed that the survey was very spot on as far as how I learn. I may be more sequential than initially thought though; I notice that when I have large daunting projects, I tend to break them up piece by piece to tackle it. The rest of my preferences have stayed the same. -Mohamed Saber
- 4. At the beginning of the class my learning preference scores were as follows: Active = 11, Verbal = 1, Sequential = 7, Sensory = 1. Now, as I approach the end of the semester, I feel that the only score that changed for me was verbal. This semester was the most challenging to date; I spent more time writing this semester than I ever did in the past. For this reason, I had to prepare good outlines and summaries of the topics covered in my class. This process began with reading new material, listening to the Professor’s lectures, and converting the information into my own thoughts. Now I’d say my outlook on learning is more analytical in the sense that I’m constantly looking for ways to incorporate new learning methods into my study routine. -Polo Morales
- 5. As a group, I think we’ve all developed as better prepared students. Nicole has learned from others and made changes to her learning preference to become a more active learner. Mohamed has analyzed his working style and realized he’s actually more sequential than he thought. And I have taken this semester as an opportunity to improve my verbal skills. We all believe that knowing our learning preference on a point basis allow us to really think about those scores and challenge them. This has motivated us to try new learning styles and determine which actually suit us. So now that the semester is over, we’ll continue to try new learning styles and always challenge what we believe is true.
- 6. At the beginning of class I chose the learning sage for a broad knowledge of multimedia technologies and was able to get a broader knowledge of the multimedia technologies. Furthermore, I did change my pathway to the learning warrior and learned how these technologies can help teach myself and peers about a specific subject. It’s a great way to have text, images, and or videos at the same time teach one and to learn. Our different pathways can help us as a group because we can teach each other what we know about the technologies. One person is the researcher; the other is the developer, and lastly, the one that implements the activity by using the technology. We all are learning and teaching each other what our peers may not know. Nicole Love
- 7. Multimedia is a part of nearly everything we do today. So as a learning sage, I definitely did my best to get a broader sense of how things work. Time has changed our perspectives on these industries as well. Newspapers were huge in the early 20th century, but now they are a dying source of multimedia. This class was successful in helping me learn more about the different aspects of multimedia and different outlets by which they can be used. Now many newspapers have digital versions to stay afloat. This keeps them in business. I kept my learning preferences the same because I really enjoyed learning about the different forms of media from a broad perspective. Mohamed Saber
- 8. At the beginning of the semester, I chose the “Learning Warrior” path to help me improve my performance this semester. I believe this was the best option for me at the time and I still hold this belief. I learned how to effectively use multimedia technologies to improve my performance in the classroom. I was successful in gaining a broader knowledge of multimedia technologies sites like YouTube.com. By using YouTube.com I was able explore subjects that I was interested in. Additionally, this site gives its users recommendations for other video that relate to the video the user is viewing. The multimedia technology that helped me attain a deeper understanding of it was the screencast. Each week when a new screencast was introduced I was able to view a short video that compressed a lot of information into a short video. Altogether, all sorts of multimedia allow me to learn information at much faster pace than otherwise possible. I believe this is the reason why I am addicted to Youtube.com, because it allows me to learn so much in so little time. Polo Morales
- 9. Overall, I think we’re all convinced that multimedia plays a crucial role in our everyday learning routine. Because of multimedia, we’re able to process more information at a much faster pace. And through sites like YouTube.com we can explore or topics that help us expand our knowledge even further. These benefits combined really make multimedia one of the best innovations of the 21st century with respect to learning. By using videos, we’re able to hear, see, and read. All of which trigger our minds in different ways. And if we had to choose a specific technology that helped us the most, we all agree that it was the videos; we watch videos as a learning tool every day and can’t imagine life without them.
- 10. Screen cast was the best multimedia technology I explored to enhance my learning. After watching the screen cast about American Sign Language, I searched and watched screen cast teaching the Arabic Language – to touch up on my pronunciation and to re-learn the alphabet, numbers, and how to develop sentences. The screen cast technologies accommodated my sensible and visual learning preferences. I watched a screener made by a retired professor teaching me how to properly write the letters and numbers within the Arabic Language and at the same time learning about the Arabic culture. It accommodated my sensible learning style by telling me and showing the correct ways to write in Arabic and the correct pronunciation. And it accommodated my visual learning style by showing me the correct way to hold my calligraphy pen so that I am making the correct strokes to complete a letter or word. Nicole Love
- 11. For my multimedia essay, I found a flashcard application. This helped my sequential learning tremendously. This gave me a pathway to break down information that was normally a very big topic and broke them down into smaller bits of information. I really enjoyed it and used it for many tests and for finals; I will also still use it. I found out this app from the discussions of another quest and I benefited so much from the app that I wrote an essay about how I planned it could help me and how well it did help me. When I read the book for my classes or look at the HW, it isn’t as simple as with the flashcard app. I recommend it to anyone who is a sequential learner. Mohamed Saber
- 12. My favorite multimedia technology is by far the educational videos that incorporate text, video, and sound. I’m an avid user of YouTube.com which is, in my opinion, the best site for finding such videos. For example, when I’m looking for information regarding a historical figure I can most likely find it on this site. This technology accommodates my verbal and sequential learning preference because of the speech and chronological order of the information. As an example, when I research a documentary on an athlete, I can see a film that a narrator that goes through the life of the athlete from the begging to the end/present. This makes learning about the athlete a lot easier that simply reading a biography. -Polo Morales
- 13. As I analyze our group’s favorite multimedia technologies, it seems we all have different opinions. Nicole was a fan of the screencasts; Mohamed was a fan of a flashcard application; and I was most fond of the videos that incorporated speech and text. With that said, I don’t think we can select a multimedia that doesn’t really work. We believe all types of multimedia technologies are useful in their own respect. Furthermore, we keep an open mind to learning about all multimedia technologies if we believe they can improve our understanding of a subject. For this reason, we’ll continue to explore any and all multimedia technologies that can address our needs. Since multimedia is very similar across all its forms, we feel that every multimedia technology is good for each of our learning preferences. Nicole has benefited from the screencast technology because it accommodated her sensing and visual learning preferences. This was accomplished though the clear instructions that showed her how the information can be applied in real situations. Mohamed benefited from using his favorite flashcard application that accommodated his sequential learning preference. This was accomplished by allowing him to organize his information in a way that made it very easy for him to follow. And I enjoyed viewing videos that incorporated speech and text. This technology accommodated my visual and verbal learning preference by using both to keep me engaged and focused on the information as it came on screen.
- 14. Now that the class is over, we’re thrilled that we were able to learn valuable information that can help us improve as learners for the rest of our lives. We all see the benefit of using multimedia to expand our knowledge of the business world since we’re all pursuing a career in business. From the screencasts to the videos, they all help us learn in shorts periods of time. For example, if we’re trying to learn about new accounting regulations it’s likely we can find a video that summarizes the topic for us and saves us the time of reading the lengthy documents. All of us look for ways to use our time in the most efficient manner, and that’s why multimedia makes sense. Again, we stress the importance of learning in shorter periods of time. This is why videos are a vital tool for our educational and professional endeavors. We also think videos are the best form of entertainment and we believe life without them would be very dull. We don’t believe we are likely not to use a specific multimedia technology in the future, but if we had to avoid one, we’d avoid screencasts. They remind us too much of lectures. And after school is over, that’s the last thing we want to be reminded of. But overall, we believe that we’ll continue to be avid users of multimedia technologies in our personal and professional lives.