Multimedia Tools and Learning

After taking the learning style inventory I learned a lot about how I learn. I was pretty well balanced for all the styles of learning. I have a balance of active and reflective learning, sensing and intuitive learning, and sequential and global learning. The only learning style where I was extremely one way rather than having a balance was with visual and verbal learning. According to my results I am an extreme visual learner, which I can definitely say is true. I have a much easier time with visual aspects rather than verbal and text.

When it comes to multimedia learning, I learn well when graphics and interactive tools are used. However, when multimedia learning involves just verbal and textual teaching I don’t perform as well. I think the reason I don’t learn well with just listening and reading is because I get distracted and bored very easily. Since I get distracted easily, if I’m just listening to something I usually tune in and out which results in me having really no idea of what’s going on. If I can stay active and see visuals I am more apt to pay attention and to retain the information. I remember in one of my classes’ freshman year we had to make podcasts and then post them on a webpage. We then had to listen to other classmates’ podcasts and reflect on them. I had the hardest time doing this. Just sitting there and listening to someone talk about a topic is hard for me to do. I had to listen to the podcast over and over again until I finally got a grasp on what they were explaining. I would have had an easier time if I actually got to watch a presentation where they talked and showed visuals.

Another example of when I had a hard time using a multimedia tool because of my learning style was with Microsoft Excel. My friend called me one day to see if I could come over and help her make a graph for a project she was doing. I said that I would love to help and I was sure I could make her a graph on the computer. I was extremely wrong. When I got to her house I opened Excel and attempted to make a graph. I forgot however that to make a graph on excel you need to put in a bunch of data on the spread sheet and then highlight it all to make the graph. I couldn’t figure out for the life of me how to correctly put in the data so it would all end up in the right place for the graph. I tried calling my brother who knew how to work Excel to explain it to me but even with him trying to tell me step by step I still couldn’t do it. His verbal directions just weren’t working. Then I tried to look up on Excel help on how to make the graph, but just by reading directions still didn’t help. Finally, I went to www.google.com to see if there was some sort of tutorial of how to make a graph on Excel, and I found one! I found a lot of pages where they used pictures along with the directions to explain how to make the graph, but the best help that I found was a video of someone explaining how to make a graph while I could actually watch it happening on the screen. I was amazed! Here is the video incase anyone else has issues with Micrsoft Excel like I do!



Even though I am not a very good verbal learner, I would really like to work on it. I think that if I tried out more multimedia tools that had more emphasis on sounds and talking, I could possibly get myself to learn better verbally. I would really like to explore podcasts more. After my first experience with them freshman year I never worked with them again because to me I felt like it was pointless. I don’t think I should have given up so fast. Maybe there is someway to add graphics to a podcast if it is uploaded on a website. I won’t know all the aspects of a podcast until I actually explore the tool more. Which is exactly what I plan to do!