I believe in “learning by doing.” We have to learn and do things by ourselves, so we can better learn the new knowledge, recognize and transfer them into long-term memory.

Therefore, I tried to use somewhat of constructivism, focusing  on learning how to think and understand rather than learning to memorize. I believe in hands-on experience, so I used the learning method, based on students’ questions, explorations, and dealing with information, then put them together. For example, after lecturing about many kinds of information resources which the students can search for the information they want, the students have to search the information they want by their own. They have to choose any one of information resources, and find out how they use. Me as the instructor play a role as facilitator for them to guide and give them for better solutions. After they got the information, they have to talk and share their experiences to the class, which their classmate can learn from them as well.

Due to the activity of this week, I do have a great chance to know more about Second Life. I spent about one hour for creating avatar and read the instruction, such as how to move, how to fly, and how to talk. I found the land of people who have similar native language, including bank, university, and tourist attraction places. However, I am very newbie, I could make 1 friend and explored several lands. I wonder why I did not meet other people on each land. I think I have to spend more time to play in Second Life.

To me, Second Life can be an effective learning context because it can improve learning and cognition because not only does it provide entertainment, but also it helps to practice several skills. For example, the learners can improve problem-solving skills and communication skills. Second Life helps to increase the students’ motivation. The tools to communication in Second Life can use as tools to communicate with classmates and instructor for online courses, resulting in a virtual classroom. Consequently, interaction, collaboration, and rapport between the instructor and students increases. Moreover, students can create mental images from the lesson. However, several things need to be considered, such as how to create effective lesson plan, how to teach the students to use Second Life, the time and budget, the ethical issues, and digital divide.

Second Life can hurt learning or cognition also. Due to the fact that Second Life can be harm for children in many ways, using Second Life as a learning context might cause the same way. Perception, identity and time in the virtual are concerns. Second Life might not help learning if the purpose of the lesson or the learners is not learning.

In a second situation, I told my friend (the same group as the first situation) that if you want to get an A, you have to go shopping with me. My friend looked at my face and punched me, and said “Are you crazy”. I thought in my mind “Don’t you know I am crazy?”

What I know is the person who created this site is trying to argue that “Parepin” is not good for health, but he cannot do anything or solve the problem. I do not know whether what I know is correct or not.

The problem about this site is the design. It is very difficult to read the text on each page. I had to highlight with my mouse to see more clearly in order to read what he was talking about.

Also, I had to use every link to find out the information. He is trying to believe as well as I am trying to believe him. However, I have a little concern because it is related to our health, especially when I am a mom with two kids. I think this is the purpose of the site.

“A picture is worth a thousand words”

The Detroit pictures represent how civilized it was. If these images were the present day of Detroit, I would have gone to travel those places in the pictures.

The photographers might want to use the sad theme for those pictures. Therefore, each picture looks so sad,  and lonely. If the purpose of the photos is to show how sad the photographers and Detroit people are when Detroit’s buildings, structures, or areas have decayed, their condition gradually becomes worse, they succeed their purpose because I feel very sad when I was looking at those pictures.

To me, the pictures of the ruin city convey the consequences of civilization. Something that reaches the highest point can reach the lowest point. These pictures can establish people awareness in development their societies.

“Ruins are the visible symbols and landmarks of our societies and their changes, small pieces of history in suspension”

After me and my friends made the deal that we would not use the letter “N” in our conversation. We encountered several inconveniences. It was very hard to have a meaningful conversation. The conversation was hard to follow. We had to repeat what we were saying so many times. At the first few minutes, we were very frustrated. However, this could make us laugh a lot.

This activity reminded us about Kareang, a small hill tribe in Thailand. Their verbal language has no ending phonemes. For example, if they have to say the word “rice”, they might say “ri”. I will give you the example in Thai language. The word “rong-rean”, they might say “ro-re”. This gives us a hard time to understand their verbal language in the first time, and after that we become familiar with it and understand what they are saying.

So, we ended our conversation with Kareang verbal language.

From the result, my scores in most of the tests are at the average which normal people done, so first thing that this activity told me is that I am the one of normal people, who are not be able to remember everything, who are not be able to focus on every detail, and who has the limited space in working memory or short term memory.

I also know that our our capabilities of memory are different from each other. Our performances are affected by attention level, tiredness, and stress. Therefore, I might prepare myself in order to do this activity again by paying  more attention, having a good sleep, and staying fresh.

One thing that I do not like this activity is the “spot the difference” test. I hate the game like this because I cannot find the differences. I am too lazy to find the different spot.

BBC’s memory training helped improve memory because of several reasons, which help me plan a lesson in order to help the learner be able to memorize and use information. Firstly, it starts step by step from easy to difficult. When I plan a lesson, I should begin with the easy to understand topic or activity so that I can ground the learner’s understanding before the difficult topic or activity. Also, during the activity, I will be a facilitator to help the learner learn like Andi Bell’s technigue is provided. Finally, challenging is important for the learner, which they can use the information we teach to use and solve the problem effectively.

Gestalt’s Principles of Visual Perception can explain the simulation that we can organize perceptions by distinguishing the colorful particles from the black background. All of the particles always try to complete or be in a symmetrical shape although from the beginning or after bouncing each other, which we tend to perceive particles that are close to each other as a group, problably nearby particles, and their similarity.

The digital simulation can aid human perception of concepts that involve elements too small to physically manipulate by looking at closer of the particle. If there is too small element, closer will help to recognize whether it is a part of original or not.