ITEC 299 Synthesis Presentation Donald Hout

My Motivation

• What motivated me to ultimately take this class is actually having enough units for full financial aid and being able to live on campus with 12 units or more. At first I really didn’t know what this class was and thought it was a joke at first because of the title itself but little did I know that I would learn a lot from it so I could use it further in my future classes.

My Learning Preference

• Finishing the learning preference survey in the beginning of the semester informed me with my learning strengths and weaknesses. My scores were a 5 on active, 7 on sensing, 7 on visual and a 1 on global. Even though the results didn’t surprise me, it still gave me a good confirmation of which ways I learn the best.

Thoughts on Learning Preference• Some general thoughts on learning preferences

are that like most learning concepts the preferences give you the idea of of how you learn most efficiently. I believe that every student should take a preference quiz so they all can understand what their strengths and weaknesses are in the classroom.

My Learning Pathway

• The pathway that I choose at the beginning of the semester was a Learning Sage. I choose this because I knew myself as a learner and as a person would rather want to know a little of everything besides a lot of only a few things. As in the forums many people regretted choosing a warrior because they didn’t have the chance really to expand their learning through all the technologies and instead only focused on a few.

Activities

• Some activities that I believe helped me learning through out the class are the mini-lectures and the quizzes themselves. For the mini-lectures it gave me a broader sense of what that technology was and how it works through a basic term. The quizzes helped me test my knowledge of that topic and even if if I was wrong the first time I was was still given chances to redeem any wrong questions.

The Top 3 Technologies

• My favorite/ top three technologies were iPad’s & Tablets, Games and MMOGs and the use of iPods & iPhones. These were my favorite because I myself a techy kind of guy so When I saw that these were some of the technologies that I had to learn about I was very excited to get to know more about them. iPad’s & Tablets was top of the list because I already own a iPad myself and going through activities with it was interesting and fun. Like the tablet technology Games & MMOGs, I felt very confortable with it since I have already been experienced with playing some of these games presently and growing up. Lastly iPods and iPhones were interesting I got to to learn how much you can expand the iPhone/smartphones to learning which also made me excited to use this technology in my studies.

Synthesized Experience

• For me one of the best ways that I experienced a technology was with the iPad and all the educational apps that are contained in the app store. Apps like Evernote helped me get organized with all my classes from separating quiz dates and even now getting together different notes ready for my finals. The best past about it is that is syncs with all my devices including my smart phone and laptop which is great for someone like me who is always on the go and out. Other technologies that I believe that helped me experience learning in a new matter was running through Games & MMOGs. It surprised me because I didn’t think that was really a video game that helped college students with their studies by little did I know that there were games like EVE online where you can actually learn how to sharpen your management skills which is great for someone in the business field. Some technologies like screencast and podcast seem to the least likable to me due to the fact that I’m the type of learner that can’t just sit there and listen to a lecture.

Synthesized Personal Learning Practices • What I have always know my whole life was to go to school, take

notes, come back home then repeat the next day but what I learned in the past couple years was that they’re so many ways to go about learning. This day and era are educational system is going through a transition of moving from paper to digital. A lot of classroom across the country have already incorporated tablets into the lectures to give a more interactive experience. I have always tried to keep up with the latest technologies and I am excited about how it is finally taking a huge turn towards the educational department. Companies like Apple have made huge strives towards integrating their technology into the classroom. I’ve learned how to fully take out the potential in most technologies so that I could incorporate it into my studies which has really helped me. I am so immersed into now that it’s hard to think to work out it which can be scary. 10 years from now everyone can have tablets instead of the traditional paper notebooks that we all come used to. For now I can say personally that I have come to terms with learning technologies and I understand to a good extent of how each one works with the learning process.

In the near future…

• I will try and use most of what I learned in this class towards my futures classes. Some of these things are the use of iPad technology and how to research through the internet. A lot of this can be brought back to a lot of our mini-lectures and how they explain the basics of getting through that technology. A lot of it has taught me to go back to quizzes to remind yourself of what you exactly learning in the course. Also the activities of forum discussions were helpful since it gave us the opportunity to learn and comments on others. It also gave us feedback with people going through the same activity instead of one teacher going through it. All in all this class will helped me learn through many different ways from researching to just understanding what technology I am using at the time.

Feelings of a Sage

• My experience and thoughts as a Learning Sage were exactly what they were when I picked it in the beginning of the semester which is that I knew this who I was. I feel like it was always better to know a little about everything then a lot of a few things. Since there were so many technologies in the course, it just didn’t sit right to just be condemned to only know a few of them. Knowing more of gives you more versatility though out the whole course. That not only goes for this class but in life in general.