People learning motivation, one with another may not be the same. Usually, it depends on what people want to achieve from that learning. There are 2 factors that make a person could be motivated to learn:
- First, the motivation to learn comes from internal factors. Motivation was formed because of self-awareness of the importance of learning to develop ourselves.
- Second, motivated to learn from external factors, which may be a stimulus from another person, or the surrounding environment that can psychologically affect that person.
Motivation to learn will not be formed if the person does not have the will, aspirations, or realizing the benefits of learning for themselves. Therefore, specific conditionings are needed, so that we or anyone else who wants to learn can be motivated. For example, I want to get a better career in the future by continuing to study a further level (graduate level) and this is my long-term goals. To realize my long-term goal I plan short-term goals during the learning process to help improve and maintain my motivation. I also set up a strategy of how to achieve these goals within a certain time period. Every achievement that I had made, I do self-reflection and evaluation to see the weaknesses and strengths during the process of achieving and making this as inputs to determine next steps and plan a new strategy.
However, speaking sometimes (and always) is easier than actually doing it. During the process of learning, problems may arise and distract learner motivation. To overcome these problems, I usually look back on my short-term goals, make a self-reflection and find another ways to regain back my motivation. For example I’ve got a boring class, and finally made me lazy to learn the material and loss of motivation to finish this class. Then I’ve made a reflection and realized than this problem can affect my short term goals and future goals as well. So I tried to find other interesting resources related to the class and studied from these resources. This helped me to regain my motivation back. Sometimes, a person needs another person as a pacemaker or a mentor in life. For example: a friend, girlfriend, or spouse. I also do the same by finding someone / communities who can help guide or motivate my learning and achievement.
People learning motivation, one with another may not be the same. Usually, it depends on what people want to achieve from that learning. There are 2 factors that make a person could be motivated to learn:
- First, the motivation to learn comes from internal factors. Motivation was formed because of self-awareness of the importance of learning to develop ourselves.
- Second, motivated to learn from external factors, which may be a stimulus from another person, or the surrounding environment that can psychologically affect that person.
Motivation to learn will not be formed if the person does not have the will, aspirations, or realizing the benefits of learning for themselves. Therefore, specific conditionings are needed, so that we or anyone else who wants to learn can be motivated. For example, I want to get a better career in the future by continuing to study a further level (graduate level) and this is my long-term goals. To realize my long-term goal I plan short-term goals during the learning process to help improve and maintain my motivation. I also set up a strategy of how to achieve these goals within a certain time period. Every achievement that I had made, I do self-reflection and evaluation to see the weaknesses and strengths during the process of achieving and making this as inputs to determine next steps and plan a new strategy.
However, speaking sometimes (and always) is easier than actually doing it. During the process of learning, problems may arise and distract learner motivation. To overcome these problems, I usually look back on my short-term goals, make a self-reflection and find another ways to regain back my motivation. For example I’ve got a boring class, and finally made me lazy to learn the material and loss of motivation to finish this class. Then I’ve made a reflection and realized than this problem can affect my short term goals and future goals as well. So I tried to find other interesting resources related to the class and studied from these resources. This helped me to regain my motivation back. Sometimes, a person needs another person as a pacemaker or a mentor in life. For example: a friend, girlfriend, or spouse. I also do the same by finding someone / communities who can help guide or motivate my learning and achievement.
Cisco Webex: Actually, this is the best web meeting platform that I have tried, the user interface is so easy and very intuitive. It is required no download at all. Features that provided in web meeting are complete and the technology behind that features are stable and mature. The connection speed is stable and reliable. I hardly experience any lag during the web meeting session. The only reasons why I do not like WEBEX is because the company only offers 14 days free trial and its paid services are relatively expensive. Why bother to use such expensive service if there is another platform that offers the same service and can be used freely or the price is cheaper.
Yugma: the term ‘Yugma’ is from Sanskrit language, meaning “the state of being in unified collaboration”. Yugma offers a free service but with some features are disabled and only a maximum of 10 participants is allowed for a session, each participant has to register before he or she can participate. Software need to be downloaded and installed before being used. The installation process is very easy though may lead a problem to inexperienced user. Another drawback is no video call feature provided in Yugma. The speed and presentation quality are relatively good. Technology that is used by Yugma is from Skype, a well known voip and video conference provider.
Vyew: Vyew is another new comer in the web meeting market. It offers all of the features that Dimdim has offered and also provides a free service but with the limited features. The user interface is good and easy to use. In the free version, scheduling function is disabled. The users are allowed to create only one web meeting session. Voice and video quality are good but only offer one way communication (half duplex). To start voice communication, the users must push the talk button that is somewhat confusing to operate. Desktop sharing is buggy and I have experienced browser crash during the meeting session. I have also experienced slow response and lag when presenting slide show. Overall, Vyew is promising but with those bugs and limited features in free version, I still prefer to use Dimdim for my web meeting platform.
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Just like Vygotsky, I strongly believe that language plays important role for child mental development. I think that almost all parents would think the same. Nowadays, many parents put their toddlers to kindergarten that use dual languages as the medium. Their goal might be good to equip their children with language skills, but for this case I use a different approach for my child. I do not want to ‘suffering’ my children with having to learn multiple languages at an early age. Children need a strong foundation before learning a foreign language. This foundation is a mother language or in this context Bahasa Indonesia. So I want to make sure my child mastering his mother language first in order to interact seamlessly with his immediate social environment (which is family) where he can see, understand, and acquire knowledge, attitudes, and values. This foundation is also very important when he started interacting with other environments outside the family (friends, teachers, etc.) to enhance the experience and knowledge. Language is a mechanism for thinking, a mental tool. Language makes thinking becomes more abstract, flexible, and independent. Language allows children to imagine, manipulate, create new ideas, and share ideas with others. Thus the language has two main functions; to develop thinking and language skills and being part of the process of thought. Language can be used to create a variety of strategies to master many mental functions such as attention, memory, feelings, and solving problems. Mastery of language- especially mother language, is absolutely required for the child to develop optimally including for learn foreign languages.
In relation with adult life, I refer to one interesting question created by Kevin Hogan;
“What is the difference between the top 20% of people who earn 80% of the money and the 80% of the people who earn 20% of the money?”
The answers are:
- 20% of people that are experts in the field of communication. They know how to ask questions and find the needs and desires of others.
- Successful people are experts in two areas. First, in the field of their work that they are communicating very well with others. Second, communication at the subconscious level.
Once again, it all involves high language skills.
children
Seeing, guiding, and directing child’s early development is always a pleasant experience as well as stressful. It is pleasant because of children amusing behavior when interacting with the environment and their parents. But it is also very stressful because we do indeed aware that this is a critical period in child development that determines their intelligence, attitudes and behavior in the future. This is happening to me as a father of three years old and very active boy. Children at this age love to explore the environment and try something new. They tend to make the home as a playground which of course will make the home looks like a ‘war zone’. Instead of being strict and forbidding him, I have chosen another way. I tried to make the home environment not only as a place to play but also as a place to learn. For example I attached the wall with various images (animals, vehicles, common object, etc.) with its names in two languages (Bahasa Indonesia, English) so he can play on those objects, guessing names and learn to remember as well. For toys, I try to give toys that help my son to develop his imagination and creativity so I prefer buying my kids toys like puzzles, blocks, Lego or anything that requires assembly process before playing it. And the last, I give my son time to play with peers only in the afternoon which simply teach him about time management. One of the most played games is soccer. I love this game because this game introduces and teach how to socialize and coordinate with peers. I hope what I do matching to what activity suggested by Piaget for the child development during the preoperational stages.
Cognitive Model describe that memory is part of information processing. This theory tries to explain than humans have three kinds of memory as follows: sensory memory, working memory, and long term memory. By knowing how this process works, we can determine appropriate instruction methods for effective learning.
Perhaps, one of the best examples to illustrate the implementation of cognitive information processing in instruction is what I’m doing right now – writing a weekly journal. Making a association between personal experiences happened in the past and the new materials being studied today is one of the methods usually being used to facilitate the process of storing and retaining new information into long-term memory (encoding). And in order to retain that information, we need to practices (rehearsal) continuously because human brain have tendency to erase the information that are unused for certain period.
However, human’s ability to learn and remember is not infinite. This ability can be decreased due to age, disease, lack of practicing, etc. Doing activities that stimulate brain function regularly are recommended to maintain brain function in optimum condition. One of recommended activities is playing chess. Study has showed that that playing chess makes human information processing to work to the limit. This will trigger the brain to continue active which is good to preserve memory capacity and performance.
