Reflect on the Method of Loci in your blog. What worked? What didn't? How could you use such a cognitive activity, mental or visible to users, to improve the acquisition of knowledge in your designs? Write a blog entry on this.
Reflect on the implementation and evaluation: What changes will you make before implementation? Why? What did you ignore in the client's feedback? Why? What did you ignore in your peer's feedback? Why?
Method of Loci
The Method of Loci or “memory palace” assignment felt a little out of place in this subject. That being said, it is a memory technique that I don’t use and could be beneficial to me. I do have an excellent sense of direction, and I am good at visualizing things.
I have read about memory techniques like these in books like Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer. As a whole, memory tricks tend to encourage people to memorize something by being systematic and taking time to add elaboration to memories. I could understand if someone who doesn’t have an excellent visual memory or sense of direction could find this technique not very practical.
As absentminded as I am, I am not sure how much this would help in my “everyday life.” I often forget where I parked my car. Would an elaborate memory technique make me remember this better? Or would simply taking a minute to look around be the correct technique of remembering where I parked. I also have a problem with missing my keys. I have become so desperate, that I have bought tracking devices called Tiles to help find my keys and my wallet. I have been told over and over that I need to put things in their place. But this advice doesn’t stick. It is essential to understand what to memorize as well as how one remembers something.
When trying to brainstorm what to write for this blog entry, one of the complains I had, was the lack of clear objectives stated at the beginning of the assignment. The wording at the beginning of assignment five does not say anything about using a memory technique to memorize a set of principles. This seeming lack of direction was a little frustrating. Then I checked the learning objectives on the top of the page, and I saw that the objective was to “practice relaxation followed by the Method of Loci/Memory Palace technique for memorizing some information related to social constructivist instructional design.” I feel I inadvertently learned the importance of stating the learning objectives before starting to teach. I must admit, I often forget to do this in my lessons as a teacher.
Implementation of the Project
As for the implementation and design phase of the project, I have made many changes from the initial design. I have far more screenshots than I thought were possible thanks to the school district’s help desk. Talking to the librarians, I do see how technically illiterate some of these students are. Some have difficulties typing in the “$” sign into the computer. That makes the initial password which has a “$” in it something that is difficult to do.
I do feel the project itself was too simple. It was hard to get the extremely busy “clients” to sit down and give me good feedback. These setbacks are part of the learning experience, and I don’t feel bad about it. It certainly is better to learn this now rather than on the first day of the job.
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