A Good Day of Learning

I learned a lot about blogging this week; I learned that I wasted a day pulling my hair out on the wrong blog page.  I found out from my good, best, best friend who I will call “D”, who in two minutes told me that somehow, I had created two different blog accounts (with the same information) and the page that I was trying to work from wasn’t the correct one.  With my new knowledge I had to fix some things but had a little time to have some fun with my page; some of you will probably notice a new look; I found out how to add a splash of color to jazz it up a little (let me know what you all think). 

My special thanks, “D” for being home and seriously saving me and share your blogging knowledge with me.  Thanks

Working on this week’s assignment I found two articles as reviewed below, here what I found:

1.  Article “Understanding a Brain-Based Approach to Learning and Teaching”, (http://www.coe.iup.edu/grbieger/classes/curr910/Readings/Brainbasedlearning.pdf) that I found very interesting, each passage the article provides a brief summary of the principle theory and then related the principal to how it applies to learning.  Food for thought for me was “Principle Two:  Learning Engages the Entire Physiology”, (which I already knew) with statement “learning is as natural as breathing” and continues on but what made me stop a second was his comment about stress management how it effects the brain and interferers with learning (which I also knew).  What I didn’t consider is that I should consider incorporating stress management ideas into the learning process.  Food for thought as to how I would accomplish in my process.

2.  Building a Circuit-Diagram for the Brain – You Tube (Jennifer Raymond, Stanford University), http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kRrarRR2kk. 

A worthy viewing, this 12 1/2 min. clip, gave a great overview of Dr. Raymond’s ongoing research of the different parts of the brain and how learning is conducted in these areas.  Her team is currently focused on the Cerebellum region of the brain and its effects on cognitive learning ability on humans.  Her presentation contain just the right amount of humor and was refreshing; informative as she explains how the brain process the information that the eye sends to area of the brain as input and how the circuits process this information creating an output of learning. 

Blog Assignment: The Doorway to Professional Learning Communities

1.  Reflections on Multimedia Design and Technology

http://intuitiveedesign.wordpress.com/2010/10/31/reflections-on-multimedia-design-and-technology/

My first Blog, Reflections on Multimedia Design and Technology was very informative and provided me with a deeper understanding of the benefits of multimedia in regards to instructional design.  The Blog addressed some of the misconception of multimedia that its common use as cool interactivity tool or game is far from the total picture of the benefits of its intended value.  The Blog outlines that multimedia actually falls in line with cognitive learning theory and understanding these principals will help you to understand why some presentation medias work with your lessons and others don’t have the desired outcome you intended.  The Blog’s main point is that multimedia is a very useful tool and when understood and used properly can improves the effectiveness of your presentation as she puts it creating a “robust learning opportunities”. 

I think this site will be very helpful as a resource ongoing because of her insight into multimedia, I would be able to join in her blog asking questions and get her opinions on different perceptive of out of the box techniques used by multimedia’s.

2.  Anne Cauley’s Blog:  When They Won’t Give an INCH: What Trainers Need to Understand about Culture Change

http://annecauley.wordpress.com/

My second Blog, When They Won’t Give an INCH: What Trainers Need to Understand about Culture Change was very informative as well, it provide me with some more information as to why change is hard to accomplish, as she titled “The Stubborn May Sabotage”, the Blog goes into more detail as to why change fails due to the level of the desire to change.  Even though the Blog is mainly addressing “Trainers”, I felt it had some relevance to instructional designers in that, if we design something different then our customers are use to seeing their may be resistant from them. This Blog would be useful ongoing if this accurse because we (agents of change) are pieces of the bigger picture of change. 

3.  Pathway to Personal Learning

http://dbgregory.wordpress.com/2010/10/24/pathway-to-personal-learning/

My third Blog, Pathway to Personal Learning provides an overview of a former or a current instructional design student’s discovery of the different learning theories and how she/he applies these theories to her/his own learning styles; continuing to a Blog regarding her/his reflection of the whole experience, identifying what she/he has learned.  This Blog provided me with some clarification; helping me to put things in perspective as to what each learning theory broken down means to me.  This Blog was well written and would be very helpful as a resource ongoing to help me with questions regarding learning theories applications.