Learning is the process of acquiring new knowledge. Learning style is an individual’s natural pattern of acquiring something that is new and knowledegable. Different people have different learning styles. Some learn by reading, some by hearing, some by writing while many others do so by watching.
Learning may occur as a part of education, personal development, schooling or training. There are many styles of learning which can be adopted to make students comfortable while learning; if a student learns effectively by a specific learning style, we can call it as his own natural learning style. In olden days, we didn’t have many learning styles and we were just forced to learn with those traditional learning styles employed by our schools. But nowadays, technology is a boon to students as it helps them learn the way they like. It can help students develop their own learning styles even at a very young age. Let’s learn about such learning styles and how technology helps students in adopting those styles.
There are many categories of learning styles. Here we’re focusing on a specific categorization which is very common and widely used . According to this, learning styles are of three types; Visual Learning, Auditory learning and Kinesthetic learning. Let’s go briefly into these learning styles one by one.
Visual Learning:
Visual learners prefer to see the content to understand it. Picture based learning, Video based learning and many more come under this category. It’s a learning style in which ideas, thoughts, concepts, processes and other information are represented and associated with images, graphs, charts and videos. Anyone can remember things easily if they visualize them; this way it’s easy to focus on the meaning, reorganization and grouping of similar content. Visual learning style increases visual memory, and helps in recalling the information better. Below, we provide you with information on a few visual learning tools & resources.
Pinterest:
Pinterest is a pin–board style photo sharing web platform. This site allows users to create and manage theme based image collections such as events, interests and hobbies. Pinterest has numerous categories like Art, Design, Humor, Education, Science and Nature, Technology, Photography, Products, Quotes, Travel, Fashion and many more themes. For people who focus more on images and graphics instead of words , Pinterest turns out to be a great visual learning tool. For more information on Pinterest, you may refer our previous articles “Pinterest: A Great Visual Learning Tool” & “How Can Educators Use Pinterest?”
VariQuest:
VariQuest provides many visual learning tools such as, the Poster Maker, Perfecta, Cutout Maker, Awards Maker, Cold Laminator, Design Center and VariQuest Software – featuring thousands of curriculum-aligned templates, eDies and graphics designed specifically for schools. These tools provide students and teachers with the ability to quickly and easily create visual supports that help differentiate instructions and personalize learning for all students.
Dragonfly visual learning:
Dragonfly visual learning provides visual spatial learners a way of learning next to other than with the regular learning material available in schools. Often, the regular learning materials for visual spatial learners are insufficient. They need a more visual explanation and a bigger picture so they can understand better, where all the pieces of learning material belong within the big picture. It contains several schooling subjects; compatible with iPad. This app requires iOS 4.0 or later.
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