Personal Learning Environment/Network-Wuerxiya
My personal learning environment mainly consists of three parts: a school, a life, and a social circle. As an international student, my personal learning environment through transmedia is a little different from that of the local people. In China, we use some software in Chinese to assist in learning, which is much more convenient in typing and gaining information for us Chinese. I want to take Baidu for example. It is a powerful search-software, including Baidu Knows, Baidu Drives, Map and other functions. It is commonly used in China. Here I want to explain a little bit of it. Buidu is like Google in the States. When I want to know something, I just type information at the website of Baidu. It will tell me everything in detail. However, when I study abroad in the US, I begin to realize Google is much better than Baidu, and meanwhile, all the Chinese software cannot work properly as they do in China. Therefore, I have to persuade myself to try something new. Time goes fast and so far I am still learning and gradually get more familiar with these software to enrich my life and help me with my study.
1. School
This section can be divided into 2 parts:
(1) Traditional Learning, which refers to learning from class, such as AAD 610, AAD 612, AAD 550, and AEIS 610. These subjects acquaint me with the basic concepts and expanding the knowledge through reading text books and relevant articles. It gets more comfortable to communicate with my classmates in English. Moreover, I get used to spend more time staying at the library from morning till night.
(2) Learning Resources can be available from the Internet, such as diigo, Wikipedia, Google, Evernote, TED and so on. There are a few plug-in equipments which are also of great help. I use a lot in my daily life, including dictionary, Klip.me, Task Timer. What’s more, there are also some design and writing software, such as Adobe Suite, Microsoft Office Suite.
2. Life
I really like to use my hand to create something. So I am a big fan of cooking, performing and painting. My life is basically filled with my “hands.” I enjoy using Apps to find recipe, listening to music, watching TV shows, and taking photographs. Apps include Yelp, Google Map, iCook, Xia Chufang, VSCO, Tune Master, Xiami music, and Bilibili.
3. Social Circle
As an international student, I have to use apps to keep in touch with my family and friends in China. I usually use Wechat to do a video call and post my life photos in Eugene for them. Other apps I use frequently are Webo, Instagram and Facebook.