This blog post was written by Amy Braddock. Amy is the Assistive Technology Specialist for West Fargo Public Schools in West Fargo, North Dakota. Amy has a BS in Special Education: Developmental Disabilities and Physical Disabilities from Minnesota State University Moorhead. Check out Amy’s blog at: http://amysassistivetech.blogspot.com/.
There are many research articles and theories to be found about different types of intelligence and learning styles. I have found that am a kinesthetic learner with strength in musical intelligence. With all this research available, many different ways of presenting materials have come forth. Now in classrooms instead of a teacher or professor at the front of the classroom lecturing, you will see a teacher or professor projecting on a screen using interactive whiteboards and various means of presenting the information.
For the visual learners out there, there is a wonderful tool available called Visual Thesaurus. Visual Thesaurus is a way of mapping out a word with synonyms and antonyms. It breaks down each word into categories: noun, verb, adjective, and adverb. Each word can be clicked on to hear the word spoken aloud (great for the auditory learners). Each word in the web can be clicked on to start a new web with synonyms and antonyms. The synonyms and antonyms are color coded which helps to distinguish one from the other.
Visit http://www.visualthesaurus.com/ to try it out. You can click a few times before it asks you to subscribe. The subscription is a relatively low cost, and is available in an online or desktop version.
Visual Thesaurus is a new way to interact with synonyms and antonyms. Gone are the days of lugging down the 8 pound thesaurus and painfully sifting through pages to find the word you were looking for. Now, you can interact with words in a way that pleases multiple learning styles.