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Last Words

elena83 — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 07:59:34 +0000

Today is our last session and this is probably the last post in my blog. I’m not really sure that I’ll keep the blog after the seminar. Why? Well, I cannot say that working with blogs is a bad idea; blog is a great tool that enables interactivity between students and teachers. Using a blog one can share his thoughts and ideas which can be useful both for the owner of the blog and other students. But my personal biggest problem was the fact that working with a blog was a new learning tool for me and I was just not used to writing posts regularly. Perhaps I’m just a very conservative learner but such activities as reading a book, going to a library, paper-and-pen writing (yes, and not typing!) etc. are just much more integrated into my life and belong to my daily routine. Of course I do use Internet and PC for my studies but I think I seem to be not ready yet to do more eLearning than I do now. I’m afraid that eLearning might substitute non-eLearning in the near future and then we will all miss old good lessons with a teacher standing in front of the class and students writing essays…

Anyway, such a modern form of seminars brings adds certain variety to students’ daily routine. It gives much free space and flexibility, and helps to learn self-organization.

Just some good-night thoughts…

elena83 — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 20:34:25 +0000

Well, tomorrow is our pre-last session and that’s why it’s one of my last posts for this semester. I can say already that eLearning does make fun and that I’ve learned a lot of things in our seminar. Actually I’ve been telling myself everyday that I should write a post with my thoughts but I mostly forget it… I think that this is the biggest aspect about eLearning: self-discipline.

Micro-learning and Mobile-learning, continued

elena83 — Sun, 25 May 2008 11:37:50 +0000

Another aspect we’ve discussed on Tuesday was the difference between formal, non-formal and informal learning. To sum up, formal and non-formal are two forms of intentional learning with one major difference: formal learning includes such features as a learning institution (school, university etc), presense of a teacher/coach/tutor who controlls/leads the learning process and such units, as hometasks/essays/tests etc. Non-formal learning takes place outside common learning institutions and may contain unconventional learning methods.

Informal learning is an unintentional form of learning. E.g. when someone hears an informative conversation of other people in the subway and learns from it.

After all there was a big discussion and I’ve somehow lost the clue of the whole presentation because there were so many different confusing opinions and rather few key words that would have helped to make notes etc.

Micro-learning and Mobile-learning on Tuesday

elena83 — Sun, 25 May 2008 11:07:15 +0000

On Tuesday we had the first presentation: micro-learning and mobile-learning. What i’ve learned: micro-learning is a new term for an old learning concept – learning in small sequences. The idea is to integrate small learning units in everyday activities and leisure time or to refresh the learned material regularly; it is scientifically proved that we can stay concentrated during only a limited period of time; thus i suppose that this way we can achieve a better learning discipline and faster learning results. Advantage: our brain can save smaller amounts of information better that the bigger ones; it is also easier to stay concentrated if the learning unit lasts only e.g. ten minuts. The disadvantage: do we really have to be forced this way in order to suceed? Or isn’t it annoying to be forced to learn in every free minute of our lives?

An example of mobile-learning is the so-called sms-coaching. How it works: one gets e.g. in the morning an sms with certain information and several hours later a question that tests what he or she has remembered. The disadvantage: some people often keep their mobiles off or simply ignore sms and calls. Another good example is learning with the help of MP3 players etc. – this I’ve tried myself and it really works! This way one can learn anywhere, anytime. During the presentation I’ve mentioned the iTunes software; there one can download a lot of helpful podcasts in order to learn e.g. a foreign language absolutely for free!