Google Reader

Google reader is an excellent tool for staying up to date on in various aras of interest. What I most enjoyed about this perticular assignment was that completing this assignment helped me in completing other assignements in other classes while also enabbling me to pursue personal interests as well. The blogs I followed for this assignment were http://willrichardson.com , http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org , http://www.freetech4teachers.com , http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com , http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Kindle-Store-eBooks , http://www.artofteachingscience.org/ , http://learningstylesevidence.blogspot.com/ . I enjoyed keeping up with the free books I could download to my kindle on the amason site. My favorite blog, however, was the Learning Styles Evidence blog. My favorite blog post is on this site is NLP begat VAKOG, VAKOG begat VAK, VAK begat VARK. This post helped me answer several questions I have had about the connection between Neuro-linguistic Programing (NLP) and the discussion of Learning styles among educators. In my personal experience I knew the connection to be psychology.

My initial exposure to learning styles occurred in my educational psychology class in the early 80’s. Then the discussion centered around four styles based on the current understanding of the way our brains worked. Those who were right brained were concrete learners and those who were left brained were said to be abstract learners. Individuals who craved order were said to process information sequentially and those who were not were labeled random processors of information. These four aspects were combined into the four groupings of concrete sequential, abstract random, abstract sequential and concrete random. I did not fit neatly into any one group.

Through some personal research into Neuro-linguistic Programing (NLP) I became exposed to Fleming’s VARK model (Visual, Aural or Audio, Read/write, Kinesthetic). So far on the Learning Styles Evidence blog seems so far to be a balanced discussion about learning styles (neither ruling them in or out but reviewing only peer reviewed research) found on the blog. The authors purpose is explained in the original post. His seems to be a true academic search for the truth concerning learning styles.

The Google reader is a tool which will enable me to continue to do research on my own, continue to stay up to date with new technology and trends in science and twaching science while I pursue personal interests as well. This is a potentially powerful tool.