Topic: Interaction in Learning
a)
New
Insights
Adult educators in
today’s world play the most significant role when it comes to interaction in
learning. Educators play the role of engaging with the learner, maintaining the
engagement, transferring knowledge, and helping ensure its retention. Not only
that, but through the right kinds of interaction, it may spark curiosity and
reflection in the learner. This may lead to further learning.
Engaging with the
learner means establishing a connection in 2-way interaction. Sending a message
and having the learner not just listen, but interpret and reciprocate the
message back. Then, the educator would validate the learner’s reciprocation
through an evaluation method. So long as the student feels engaged during this
knowledge transaction, the adult educator has played their significant role, as
the student will be more likely to retain and pursue that information.
b)
Trends
There are some new
trends in the field of interaction. Since more learning is being done online by
people with less time on their hands, eLearning is a great example of a trend
that is newer, and still developing. Another trend is “Gamefication”. This
involves the use of video game design elements, in a non-gaming situation.
To address the
need for eLearning, I have not only purchased a few related textbooks on
eLearning, but I have a degree in Interactive Technology. This has prepared me
to understand and design new systems of interaction, for my passion of the
purpose of learning. I try my best to continually perform research activities
to better understand users and learners, and then re-iterate design strategies
to help ensure the best optimal experience – in this case, learning.
For the challenge
of Gamefication in today’s world, many people are learning skills through video
games. I’m not too sure about the psychology of why games are so engaging
(mainly because I just like being engaged in games), but maybe it’s to do with
attaining a learner’s attention span in a short amount of time, and maintaining
that attention span. In a world with such little time available for learning,
this could be a useful medium for learning. To prepare myself for this, I used
to play video games of all sorts, and used to be in the world of “hardcore
gaming”. I can relate my past experience and transfer the skills into my
developing academic career in teaching.
c)
Web-Conference
Working with Emma
during the web conference allowed the both of us to bounce ideas off of each
other, craft a learning strategy, and learn how to work around each others’ time-consuming
obstacles of work and life, to get this project done. I’ve learned that she has
been out of school for many years, and I have been in school recently. We were
able to relate on different points, and we helped each other out in terms of
applying our best skills to this project.
