The students found that exploring their learning preferences through the class helped them better understand how to apply multimedia tools to enhance their learning. They both benefited from using screencasts which accommodated their different learning styles. Going forward, they plan to continue using interactive games and screencasts for learning new material and job training, but will avoid solely using presentation slides which they feel are outdated.

1. Multimedia Learning.
Nelson Mendoza (Contributions in Italics)
(908001736
Robin Martinez (Contributions in BOLD)
(911386624)

2. Describe your personal learning
preferences:
• (Nelson) At the beginning of the course, I took the learning references survey and got the following
results: Active = 7, Sensing = 7, Global = 5, and Visual = 1. Quite frankly I want to say that it scared
me how accurate I think this test was. I read the description for each one and it described me
perfectly. I am a person who likes to learn by doing, cannot just sit in class and watch a
PowerPoint, and I learn by teaching other I don’t really think my view on my learning style has
changed at the end of the course at all, in fact I think I was able to embrace it by using the various
amounts of technology I had available to me. For example, I made heavy use of my laptop and
tablet to do some side research of my economics lectures while in class to help boost my
understanding of concepts. I guess my thinking has changed in a way to better support my learning
preferences. I haven’t changed my views on my learning preferences just because I agree with the
numbers and feel like my learning preferences are relatively established.
• (Robin)When I first took the learning preferences survey it indicated that I was an active and
verbal learner my scores were ACT=3, SEN=5, VRB=5, SEQ=5. It was interesting to see that most
of my learning preferences described the way I learn concepts in most of my classes. On the other
hand, I would have say that I disagree with some of the scores I got on the survey. For example
when it came to the score for visual/ verbal preferences, it said that I learned best from
spoken, and written explanations than through the use of visuals which I feel I fall in between the
two and learn best when I have a visual and written explanations to give me a better
understanding of the material. At the end of the class my thinking about my learning preferences
has changed somewhat in the sense that after taking this class I was more aware of my learning
preferences. I was able to use them to my advantage in other classes this semester especially in
my Management class where most of what we learn in class is through verbal explanation. I
learned to retain the material better through the use of these learning preferences.

3. Summarize your group's thoughts
about learning preferences:
• We both agree that after taking this course while trying to stay particularly aware
of our previously subconscious learning preferences, it made this semester
slightly less challenging. I think that my thinking has not changed much about my
learning preferences because I was already aware of them however my colleague
does feel her attitude has changed because she was skeptical about her learning
style but feels she can now embrace it. We think that knowing your learning style
and being able to effectively utilizing it in the classroom and learning settings can
be extremely helpful when it comes down to learning new material and retaining
it, not just regurgitating it for an exam. If a person knows how their personal
learning preferences work and what they are, it can become easier to pay attention
in class, to study, and to be more successful. Otherwise you will be stuck
frustrated unable to retain information like we once were. Ultimately, we feel
that learning styles tool should be something taught early on so as to help students
who struggle in school because it really helped us in being more successful this
particular semester.

4. Describe the learning pathway you
chose at the beginning of the class:
• (Nelson) At the beginning of the semester, I chose the Learning Warrior pathway. I do enjoy helping
others a lot, which made it difficult to choose between warrior and guide, but I decided that it was
time I did some personal growth and learning myself before I ended my college term. I was able to
learn a lot about social technologies that helped me expand my knowledge in ways to learn with
others. I wanted to learn about how I could integrate collaborative websites into my group study
sessions. I live in Pittsburg and some of my group members lived closer to campus, so meeting up
wasn’t always ideal. We, instead, used sites like Google docs, dabble board, etc. to be able to
collaborate together without actually all being present. I did not change my pathway but I did
deviate a little to the learning guide because I was able to help other students set up accounts on
delicious, Virtonomics and other miscellaneous collaborative websites. I decided not to change my
pathway just because I wanted personal development.
• (Robin) The learning pathway that I choose was learning sage. This semester I was able to
successfully get a broader knowledge of multimedia technologies. I was able to use this type of
technology with all my classes, but tended to use it most in my food production class and this
class as well. My food production class lectures were delivered on slide presentations, and if we
need to view it later we could so on our own time. Our teacher would also post e book link on
line so that we could use it for our projects, which was a great learning tool and source. I would
have to say that my learning pathway did not change much since I felt it would benefit my
learning preference style more and how I would interact with these technologies in my other
classes.

5. Summarize how the activities you completed contributed or did
not contribute to your learning pathway
• The multimedia technology that helped me get a broader understanding was through the use of
PowerPoint slides. This helped me to visualize the lecture material, and look at the slides at my
own pace, and allowed me to reference back to them if I needed to. Other activities that I found
were the most helpful and helped me get a deeper understanding of how to use multimedia to
learn were screener, and also through the links in each quest that we had to rate how effective it
was. With screener I was able to understand and retain the lecture material better since I was
able to see and hear the material. As for the links in each quest, I felt these were useful in
learning because I discovered different types of multimedia sites that I could use for learning such
a slideshare. This is a great source for info on just about anything.
• Personally, I feel that the most useful multimedia for as far as learning were those that involved
anytime of visual and audio in the presentation. For example, one of the most useful tools we both
found was screener and YouTube. Being a visual learner, I don’t really need to hear the instructions
as much but its great support because it emphasizes the task at hand. Also, the availability of so
much information is amazing so having it all the click of a mouse is a great tool. The least useful
resources for me were the ones that required reading. I absolutely hate reading and multimedia
that is not visual (as in a person giving instructions and showing examples) it's hard for me to pay
attention. I tend to start daydreaming and dozing off.

6. Describe the top multimedia technologies you explored for
learning:
• The first multimedia technology I explored was Podcasts. After doing the quest for podcasts I started using it for
my online business class to see how it would differ from watching my teacher lecture online. I found that
listening to the podcasts were similar to viewing the lecture online and spoke to my verbal learning preferences.
This accommodated my verbal preference very well in the sense it required me to really pay attention to what
she was saying especially if important key terms where said. Another multimedia technology that I explored was
screencast this accommodated to my visual learning preferences. This really helped me learn a lot and wish that
teachers would actually use this piece of multimedia in all their classes. I felt it provided a better in - depth
explanation of the topics covered, and helped me remember the topics covered better since I was able to see
examples of what they were talking about. I felt that my other learning preferences were accommodate such as
active learning preferences, and sequential, but not my sensing preferences. My sequential preferences were
accommodated through the screencast since they slide and added audio were taught in a sequential
manner, which was easy to follow along with, and allowed me to remember more.
• The multimedia and screencast quests were probably the most useful and helpful. My active learning preferences
were accommodated through the links on the quest since it gave me a chance to interact with the sources, which
gives me a better way to apply these concepts to other concepts. I explored podcasts and screencasts a great deal
this semester in my economics classes. I found that they were extremely useful while taking notes in class. I think
multimedia was a huge help and contribution into my learning this semester especially since I am an active learner
and love to continue my learning exploration. I can’t just sit and take notes and read a book. It’s harder for me to
grasp the concepts. However while in class, I bookmarked a lot of podcasts, screencasts, and YouTube videos for
later use. Evernote was a big help in organizing all of my multimedia.

7. Synthesize your group's experience investigating the use of
different mobile technologies for learning
• The multimedia technologies that interested us the most as learning tools especially for our
learning were Screencast. These types of learning tool were new to me before I took this class
and have found it really useful. It offered me time-flexible learning and really enhanced my
learning process. It gave me the opportunity to go over taught material several times to clarify a
particular concept or theory which is why I like this particular tool the best. The multimedia
technologies that surprised us both were the interactive websites such as the EDHEADS, anatomy
lesson Hip replacement surgery. We had never seen or known such a site existed! It allowed us to
pretend to be surgeons and make decisions to test our knowledge. It allowed us to interact in a
fun way, and still learn at the same time. We would definitely want to explore more types of
these learning tools. This made learning fun, that in the end we understand the material very well
and we weren’t even anatomy majors. I wish there was these kinds of interactive multimedia for
other subjects as well.
• Some of the multimedia technology tools that didn’t work well for us were the multimedia tools
used to teach languages. We felt that to learn a language you would need much more than just
listening and seeing it, you would need to interact with others to practice the language because
ultimately the goal is to be able to communicate what you learn with others. The multimedia
technologies that worked best for our learning preferences (visual, and verbal would have to be
screencast especially since we both learn material in different ways. This provided us with a more
effective way of learning the material. We were able to follow along easily and helped us stay
focused on what was being taught in the video. This type of tool also allowed us to fit our needs in
terms of letting us choose when we wanted to view the material and how many times we wanted to
view it.

8. Summarize how you will use what you learned in this class
after this semester
• The multimedia learning strategies that we will continue to use after this
class are screencast, and the interactive games such as EDHEADS games.
These were the most helpful in terms of learning. We felt that these can
apply to just about any subject. Other scenarios that we see being
delivered this way are job training, where you learn certain skills kind of
like the simulated surgeon interactive game. This would a great tool for
hands on experience but without the risks involved of actually
implementing it on a real life patient.
• The multimedia technologies that we will continue to use for non-
learning purposes would be the interactive games that simulate real life
scenarios. We found these to be the most informative and fun to use .We
think that they should actually use these games for some classes so that
students can get hands on experience. Some of the multimedia
technologies that I will kind of avoid using would have to presentation
slides . These are out of date , especially since screencast are a better
way to deliver information.