Mike is awesome

Ok, so I cheated - I got my partner Mike to help me upload this image. In return, he got to choose the title. Modest isn't he?!
The first thing that I took from this test was that it is flawed. As others have mentioned different day = different result. In my total lack of IT know-how I managed to delete the results twice before I asked Mike for help. This meant that I had to sit the test three times and every time was different. For me the changes weren't so much related to the day or mood but the events I recalled. For example the first time I was asked about learning outdoors the event that popped into my head was a time when I was sitting on the grass with my peers and there were prickles digging into my bum and mosquitos going to town on my legs as the teacher talked about different types of clouds. In the subsequent test I thought of camp and the team learning done while we rafting down the white water rapids! Much more fun to me:-)

The test results show that I am a visual learner which for me is a no-brainer. I am so strongly visually minded (can i say that?) that when I am registering in my mind which day of the week it is I have a vision of the names of the days all lined up (with Saturday and Sunday curving around to line back up with Monday) and then I zoom in on which day it is. The same goes for months of the year. It looks a bit like this:

I also spell by seeing the word in my head. If I have not seen a word before then I absolutely struggle to spell it but otherwise I consider myself to be a good speller (well, pre baby brain days anyway!). The results of this test show me to be quite body smart. I am very clumsy (so much so that people cringe when I am in the kitchen with knives, etc!) and I would say I am average at sport but I remember best by doing. I understand something best by seeing it explained visually and then by demonstrating this understanding I remember it. I have never been good at linguistics and I often get tongue tied. It seems I have pretty good interpersonal and intrapersonal skills. I would say yes and no to this one. In some areas I know myself well and in others I find it difficult. I can be very self deprecating and find it much easier to point out my weaknesses than my strengths. As for intrapersonal, it all depends on the depth of my social relationships. I am fascinated by others life stories but I find that in such a busy and private world we live in now, it is hard to build relationships with people that go beyond surface level.

I definitely recognise the merits of this test in bringing to light some of my intelligences and allowing me to adjust future learning and study techniques to those that may better suit my needs. It is good to know that if I don't 'get' something instantly I am not 'dumb'... just a little challenged in that domain.

I think that from a teaching design perspective these test are a good way of singling out extremes. Like those who are are visual Einstein's but are much weaker in all other areas. These are the types of students who will struggle if their needs are not met. That's what is so awesome about the prospect of ICT's dominating the classroom - hopefully everyone can be happy!