Week nine – The use of technology in addressing various learning styles

As individuals we are all different and therefore we all learn differently. In his theory of multiple intelligences, Howard Gardner provides us with insights into multiple intelligences which are related to individual’s personal skills and their preferred ways of learning.  It is both the role of the teacher and students themselves to identify students’ learning styles in order to provide them with the right activities which in turn help them acquire the information and the material in the best form possible. With the advancements in technology, this has become much easier since various materials that are found online, can be adapted either for offline or online use to address different learning styles.

For example, for visual or spatial learners, presentations in PowerPoint, Prezi or other forms, can be used to offer students the possibility of looking at the key ideas or pictures. Google images are a great source where one can find multiple images which can be used, either online or offline by printing them and bringing them to class, to facilitate learning.

For auditory, also known as aural or musical learners technology can provide various possibilities to help them learn. For example, songs are a great source to teach and reinforce vocabulary, grammar or pronunciation. When using songs students can either work individually or in groups either to brainstorm ideas and predict what the song will be about based on the title, to fill in the missing words, to rearrange the lyrics, etc. They can also be a great source for discussion.

There are many different possibilities how technology can be used to facilitate the teaching and learning process, however it is the teachers’ job to find the proper tools that address their students’ learning styles and which in turn help students better acquire the information and the material.

Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences: http://www.niu.edu/facdev/resources/guide/learning/howard_gardner_theory_multiple_intelligences.pdf

An online quiz to find out your learning styles and read more on learning styles and multiple intelligences:
http://www.edutopia.org/multiple-intelligences-assessment

A website consisting of videos and quizzes related to the videos:
http://www.eslvideo.com/ 

British council offers numerous songs for young learners of English:
http://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/en/songs

This website is great to learn and improve language skills through the use of music videos and lyrics:
http://lyricstraining.com/