Notions of learning

Learning techniques used by the participants included: trial-and-error (figure it out myself), ask someone (friend or parent), watching someone, researching on the Internet, asking questions on online forums or message boards. Often, the last resort was reading a book.

Jake, Charli, and Lisa stated they were visual learners.
Chris knew he had strong learning preferences for musical and intrapersonal multiple intelligences.
Joe was confident in his ability to figure things out himself, or alternatively he would ask his dad, or ask teachers during the time he was doing computers at school.
Tim was asked, “How do you think you learn best?” He replied, “Oh like hands on, practical sort of stuff like experiments and that. I probably understand it a lot better when I can like actually do it and see how everything works and that, instead of just reading about it or getting told about it, yeah.”
Tom’s first port of call to learn something was trial-and-error and figuring it out himself, or then he would ask somebody he knew, or ask on the Internet, or research on the Internet. These examples lend both Tim and Tom to be grouped as visual and/or kinesthetic learners.

Anne did not know about learning styles or preferences. I asked, “How do you think you learn best (when you’re in a classroom and there’s no computer)?” She replied, “Um, probably, oh it depends what sort of environment it is. But probably the teacher talking to us or involving us in a discussion, or reading interesting stories about it, not just textbook work, but interesting information.” This does not help one to categorize Anne’s learning preference, but this next quote does: “On the computer? Um, I learn, like [when] I have to do an essay, I think I learn more [by] looking on the internet, finding my own information then rewording it, rather than the teacher give me textbooks and telling us to write an essay [on] that information. Just because there's so much more information on the internet and so many different sites and I find it just a lot easier than flicking through a book.” This shows that Anne “makes do” with what is going on in a classroom, but she probably prefers to use a computer because of her visual learning tendency. When I asked her, about whether she was learning all the time when she was on the Internet, she said, “No. Not at all. There's a lot of times when I just go on to play games or have a, like look up celebrities or something. Very un-educational!” This points to Anne believing that learning can only take place contextually, and not incidentally.

Charli had some very mature notions of learning in terms of how aware she was of learning going on:
“So when you're on the Internet, do you think you are learning all the time?”
“I think you are always learning, no matter what you're doing, even if you're on [watching] the TV. I think you're always learning.”
“So what kind of things are you learning when you're on the Internet?”
“You're learning new things, like when you explore, like the Internet Explorer, like with properties of a computer, but when you, even when you do things that you've done before, it's still learning because it sticks with you. It's like you're memorizing it, sort of?”
“So you learn all the time on the Internet, are you learning all the time when you're at school?”
“Not always. I don't think so because when you're on the computer, you sort of choose to go on or not, but at school you have to go, so it's like you're not always in the mood, and if you don't wanna be taught, then you just, you don't let them. You're just disruptive and stubborn and stuff, so you've gotta be in the mood for it, that's why I think that computers are like more good. More people will learn from computers I think.”
“Cause they want to be on it.”
“Yeah, but then that goes both ways because sometimes like, they teach you like maths at school, but you don't like maths, but they teach you it anyway, and it's something that's probably really valuable in the future. But um, mmmm. They teach you it whether you like it or not.”

Chris believed he was learning all the time when he was on the Internet, and that he was always learning all the time at school. He pointed out that he probably was learning more slowly if there wasn’t music on or if it was in a noisy environment, or if there were lots of people around.

Jake learnt a lot from watching other people make mistakes.

Joe agreed that he was learning all the time when on the Internet: “As you read through the websites, you'll be learning something anyway, so y'know, it's um, if you go on the first page, it'll be current events, so you just quickly scan through it before you go on to something else, or if you're waiting for a website to open, yeah, you'll be reading something anyway, so you will be learning, yeah, of course.”

For Tim, it depended on what he was doing and the value that he deemed it had as to whether he was learning anything of value. When playing games, he was relaxing, and it was a form of entertainment, and he was learning how to play the game better when playing it, but he said he wasn’t “learning anything that you need in life”.