NICHOLAS DUENASSYNTHESIS PROJECT:

MOBILE LEARNING

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. 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 for Microblog I 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