Nicholas DuenasSynthesis Project: Social/Collaborative

Learning

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.

Learning Preferences

Nicholas Duenas

In the beginning of the class I decided to choose the learning warrior pathway because through this I felt that I could gain a deeper knowledge about social networks and massive multiplayer games while working with others. Through the social/collaborative activities I learned how to connect and interact with people online through games, and some social bookmarking and networking sites. My classmates decided to create a group on the site specifically for anatomy on the networking site Facebook. In this Facebook group people posted lecture slides, pictures of models, and answers to compare our online quizzes. This helped socially as a learning guild because this semester I have spent countless of hours working in study groups. I learned to how to communicate well with others and also I learned how to work independently with the information I gained from the study groups. I know I can work with others and still remain with my learning warrior status.

 

Learning Pathway

Nicholas Duenas

The learning activities for this social/collaborative learning were both interesting and fun. The activity that I found most interesting was when we had to try out all the different MMOG games. These games were very entertaining and you also learned some educational information. At first I thought MMOG games were only games such as World of Warcraft or Starcraft yet these activities showed me that MMOG games can be used for educational purposes. This gave me a deeper understand of how MMOG can be fun to play yet also educational at the same time.

 

Learning Activities

Nicholas Duenas

For the technology quests I decided to explore social networking sites, social bookmarking sites and massive multiplayer games. Out of the three the social networking sites have helped me the most in this semester. Through Facebook I was able to communicate with my class through this site. This became a social learning for me by discussing and sharing information with classmates about certain classes over Facebook. At times we would have discussion on certain wall posts about anatomy and other times we would Instant Message one another for help about certain questions for the online quizzes. I feel like these quests benefited my learning preferences the most.

Exploration of Technologies for Learning: Social Networking

Nicholas Duenas

The next technology quest that I explored was social bookmarking. In this quest I learned a lot yet I hardly applied what I learn to my classes this semester. Coming into this class the only social bookmarking site I knew of was Delicious and still I did not know how to use it that well. The thing I found interesting about social bookmarking sites were that one could save tagged websites based on certain keywords. The site also let the user share their tagged websites with others which could be helpful for students that know how to use these social bookmarking sites correctly. I feel that this quest was the least effective towards my learning preferences.

Exploration of Technologies for Learning: Social Bookmarking

Nicholas Duenas

The last learning technology that I explored was the games and massive multiplayer online gaming. I found this type of learning fun and effective. Most of the games that I found did not relate to what I was looking for. I was hoping to find an anatomy online game in which I could discuss muscles, bones and etc with other anatomy students yet I was unsuccessful in finding a game like that. If I were able to find an anatomy online game I would have been able to actively learn with others. Conversing and engaging in conversations about anatomy while playing a game about the human body would definitely be a fun experience.

 

Exploration of Technologies for Learning: Games and Massive Multiplayer Online Gaming

Nicholas Duenas

The most interesting learning tool I found in these quests was social networking. The site Facebook has introduced to a new aspect of the site that I never thought I could use for learning. The groups feature benefits students by being able to keep in contact with classmates outside of class. Massive multiplayer online games did not help me much when I tried using it as a learning tool. When I tried these games I ended up focusing more into the game rather then with the people playing online with me. I would like to explore the learning tool of social bookmarking more because I feel that it can become a very useful learning tool if I ever understand how to use it.

Synthesis

Nicholas Duenas

After this class ends I will continue to use my active and visual learning preferences. Many of the learning strategies that I used can be used at my job or outside of school. The learning tools that I used and will be using the most are the social networking sites. With these sites it allows individuals to share information and receive information faster then before. Back in the day people had to send mail to one another and wait for that information whereas today people can hop on Facebook to type out some information and press a send button. The information will be sent over the internet and will receive the information instantly. The next thing for learning tools is start using social bookmarking just like how people use social networking sites.

What’s Next..

Nicholas Duenas

I definitely will keep using social networking technologies after this class. I have learned that I can communicate with other classmates over social networking and this has become a cruel part of my learning outside of class. People can use social networking to share information, catch up with old friends, or to meet new friends. As for non-learning purposes, games and massive multiplayer online games could be used. I would not call these two learning tools because people mostly play the games during free time; these games are not for educational purposes. If I were to avoid a learning tool in this exploration it would definitely be social bookmarking. I find the sites confusing to use and it is not a very user friendly. The main reason why I do not suggest using social bookmarking sites for learning tools is because the sites are not easy to use.

What’s Next Cont..

Nicholas Duenas