Using your favourite metaphor, describe the most important lesson that you had learnt in your EIR journey.

I guess this is my last post of my EIR blog. I really enjoy EIR very much despite i need to wake up early for lesson. The most important lesson i learnt in EIR is that we get to use all the search facilities and the feature. I would write down here so everyone who read my blog will know each search facilities. Google could help you search the Web, Usenet, and images thus allows me to go to a wider range of variety of websites be it personal and organizational websites. Scholar allows me to find articles from 1991 to current year and search articles written by a specific reporter that is specialized about gambling. Meta Search Engine allows more of the web to be searched at once than any one stand-alone search engine. Subject directory are categorized by topics into subcategories which will narrow your search, thus you would find your materials effectively. I think we should make use of all the search facilities instead of one.

I think i will describe myself as a processor. I would say that before joing EIR i am a Platinum 1 processor where i run everything very slowly just like the speed of my research. I could take 1 day to finish my research. But after learning everything about internet research, i can proudly say that i am not Platinum 1 anymore. I can research faster using different type of search facilities. Thanks to EIR and of course our lecturer faridah:)


Write a paragraph summarizing your findings on your research topic.

After days of researching, I found out that Youth gambling is similar to adult gambling in that it is an activity that implies an element of risk, where money or something of sentimental or monetary value could be won or lost by the participant. Youth problem gambling also causes disruptions in major areas of life (psychological, physical, social, and educational/vocational).

Labels: Reflections

How has Twitter (micro-blogging) enhanced your learning of EIR? Compare this with your blogging experience using Blogspot. How can you use Twitter and Blogspot for research purposes?

I feel that twitter doesn't help me much in enhancing my learning in EIR. Compare twitter with blogging, i prefer blogspot because i have found some bloggers post their life experience which can include in my topic. Twitter's concept is interesting but i don't think it will help in education even though some schools in china had already use twitter for e-learning.

But I think I would use twitter in the future for research purposes. Every day i would go to a design magazine for the latest update of new building. They do have a twitter group. This means that i could use twitter to check for the latest update and comment from other people. Email will be sent to me when there is an update.
Not only twitter, they do have web feed which i able to put in my blog and while blogging i can get the latest update of their articles and thus increase my knowledge.

Labels: Reflections

HELLO PEOPLE!!!! In this post, I will write about my dream holiday!!! The place i decided to go would be Dubai. Why Dubai? The post below would explain why.


Taken from Wiki
"Dubai (in Arabic: دبيّ‎, pronounced Dubayy) is one of the seven emirates of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). It is located south of the Persian Gulf on the Arabian Peninsula. The Dubai Municipality is sometimes called Dubai state to distinguish it from the emirate. Written accounts document the existence of the city for at least 150 years prior to the formation of the UAE. Dubai has attracted world attention through many innovative large construction projects and sports events. This increased attention, coinciding with its emergence as a global city and business hub, has highlighted labour and human rights issues concerning its largely South Asian workforce. Established in 2004, the Dubai International Finance Centre was intended as a landmark project to turn Dubai into a major international hub for banks and finance, rivalling New York, London, and Hong Kong."


The picture below is Dubai before 1990I guess that no one including me would want to go Dubai during 1990. In the year 2003, Dubai slowly having skyscraper along the streets.This is the street of Dubai in the year 2003. The two pictures above is nothing compared to the furture Dubai. It is completely different from what Dubai would look like in the next few years.


This is The Dubai Waterfront. When completed it will become the largest waterfront development in the world. I guess this would be more beautiful than Marina Bay. There is a island that looks like a palm tree would be a attraction to me. New Dutch dredging technology was used to create these massive man made islands. They are the largest artificial islands in the world and can be seen from space. Three of these Palms will be made with the last one being the largest of them all. Dubai also own a "world island". 300 artificially created islands in the shape of the world. Each island will have an estimated cost of $25-30 million. The Burj al-Arab hotel in Dubai. The worlds tallest hotel. Considered the only '7 star' hotel and the most luxurious hotel in the world. It stands on an artificial island in the sea. Other than having the tallest hotel in the world, Dubai will have the FIRST UNDERWATER HOTEL, HYDROPOLIS.Hydropolis is entirely built in Germany and then assembled in Dubai.

The latest complete project from Dubai would be The Burj Dubai. It has a estimated height of over 800 meters, it is the world's tallest building. It will be almost 40% taller than Taipei 101. Dubailand is another attraction to me. The largest amusement park collection in the world is Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, which is also the largest single-site employer in the United states with 58,000 employees. Dubailand will be twice the size.Despite the hot weather in Dubai, I was shocked to know that they will have largest indoor skiing facility in the world.There are more things happening in Dubai. Well i guess you know why i wanted to go Dubai.

The website i went is http://www.dubai-architecture.info/. This website shows all the architecture in Dubai. I think this is a organisational website and the purpose of the website is show internet user the architecture in Dubai thus attracts them to travel to Dubai. The coverage provides alot of information and i think this would attracts alot of tourist to travel in Dubai. This website is very acessible thus anyone could visit this website. Even thought the website do not have interesting layout which attracts people but the pictures is enough to attract people.

Ok thats all for me. Bye:)

Labels: Dream Holiday, Reflections

What is Citizen Journalism?

Citizen Journalism is the act of citizens playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news and information. Local news written by residents of a community that had previously escaped notice of professionals is an example of citizen journalism. One good example of Citizen Journalism is STOMP.

In the lesson we have discussed whether STOMP is effective in Singapore context. Some think it is effective while some think it is not. For me i feel that STOMP is a good place for me to know what is happening in Singapore.

4th Reflections

1)Which criteria did you use to evaluate Stomp.com? Why did you choose this criteria? What lessons have you learnt from this activity?

I will choose coverage and purpose. STOMP allows people to post about what they saw or they are happy/unhappy with certain incident. The content is rather interesting as i can see the STOMPER's point of view and the way they write. Other people would also comment on the STOMPER post and we can see the difference in the way they look. Sometime the comments would make me laugh. I think that STOMP is effective because of its coverage as there are alot of interesting article written by people and you can see the different type of people would have different way of thinking.

2)How do you feel about sharing your views via Wiki?

I don't think that sharing our view in wiki would work because people may tend to edit your comment and it defeats the purpose of sharing of our view.

Labels: Reflections

HELLO!!!

Sorry for this late post!!!!

Recently busy with open house thus i do not have time to update this blog. So i am here to blog about Wednesday and Thursday.

Wednesday we learnt about invisible web or "dark matter". I realise that invisible web is not foundable by normal searh engine because of most of the data was high-quality authoritative information. Our school had provide us with alot of cool invisible web and it is free!!! Click HERE if u want to research.

Thursday is Elearning!! We were supposed to answer some question in ole-bb. I will post here so you can take a look and comment in the cbox:)


Briefly explain how Internet has enriched your social and academic life. Illustrate your answer using TWO Internet resources you had learnt in EIR.

Internet was introduced in the 1960s but only until 1990s when the development of the networking technologies resulted in increased popularity in modern human life. With the advancement of technology and the increase of Internet use, professionals-academic and businesses are more reliant on electronic resources for information, research, and data. The Internet gives an individual access to a sea of information, data, and knowledge; plus, this vast amount of information is available in a matter of seconds, rather than hours or days. The ease of access, availability, and vastness of online resources is encouraging more professionals to use the internet. Internet is now incorporated into education for most of the schools in most developed countries.

I remembered when I was in primary school; my internet was connected through dial-up connection. It was quite troublesome for me to use internet because whenever I was using internet, I couldn’t use my house phone and my friends couldn’t contact me. Many of us were still young and do not own a MSN or other messenger account. For me, I only went to game sites such as Neopets and Miniclips Thus communication through internet was difficult for me during that period of time, as internet was used purely for leisure.

But now with the new technology we have, communication through internet is much easier. Social networking websites such as Twitter or Facebook enables me to understand my friends better and also reconnect with long lost friends.

I began blogging since I was in sec 2, it was like a diary to me where I can post what is happening during that day and how feel about it. My English was not really good during secondary school, it was either a fail or a borderline pass. After a year of blogging, even my teacher said that my English improved a lot and I was happy to hear that because I knew that English would be important for me In the near future as a communication tool.


For research purposes, do you think Internet resources are the only resources that you can depend on for effective research? Justify your answer with an example.

No. Besides Internet, other resources such as Books can also be used for internet research. For example, while we are researching on the topic of Gambling, books written by famous authors regarding Gambling can be used in my research. Books are different from plain information found in the Internet as the writer also provides a certain perspective pertaining to this social issue. The more books used in a research, the more perspectives it provides. Hence books also open up people’s minds and enable readers to think deeply. This is important for my research because the information found in the books would not only spur me to think deeply, but also the readers.

However, Internet resources are now seen as the only resource that can be used for effective research as it is the easiest, fastest and the most accessible resource everywhere. It has an ease of access, unlike books which requires searching for the author, finding the pages of chapters – A tedious job.

Hence, this easier method of researching naturally eliminates the other methods of researching from other people minds, and to this day, when the word ‘Research’ comes to mind , the first solution would be the Internet.


Blog Reflection 3

1)Do you think it is more effective to search the invisible web (databases) than using search engines, meta-search or subject directories? Why?

I think that we cannot compare invisible web with other search facilities like search engine, meta-search and subject directories. I feel that each search facilities have its own feature/function. Goggle could help you search the Web, Usenet, and images thus allows me to go to a wider range of variety of websites be it personal and organizational websites. Scholar allows me to find articles from 1991 to current year and search articles written by a specific reporter that is specialized about gambling. Meta Search Engine allows more of the web to be searched at once than any one stand-alone search engine. Subject Directory are categorized by topics into subcategories which will narrow your search, thus you would find your materials effectively. I think we should make use of all the search facilities instead of one. I found out that all the search facilities I mention above, except Yahoo directory, gave me the information I needed and thus I cannot provide a direct answer as to which search facility was the most effective.

2)Will you use the invisible web (databases) for research in your own respective Diplomas? Why?

I will use invisible web when i need to find high-quality authoritative information like newspaper articles. For my course, Diploma In Environment Design, most of our projects were linked to architecture, landscape or urban planning where we can find similar projects through books and google. Articles are seldom use for our reference.

3)What have you learnt from your wiki experience during this practical?

I think information from wiki can be irrelevant or relevant on the same time due to the "open-editing" system they had. This allow anyone to edit the information whenever they want.

Labels: Reflections

Hello people!!

Sorry for the slow update. Today lesson is about meta search engine and subject directory. Let me explain what is a meta search engine.

Google, Yahoo, Bing are search engine but they are from different company. If you want to find "sunny" for example they would give mostly different results. Sometimes it is really annoying to research your projects using three different type of search engine. This is where meta search engine come in use. One example is Mamma

After you type "sunny" in the search box, you will find that the results are the results from the different search engine. Thus this save our time looking in three different search engine which could take us one day?

Subject directory to me is a more simple search engine. Normally in goggle, they would give you the direct link like www.(*&*(*.com/789789798/213213.But subject directory is different. You will find that the URL they give us is www.^%^&%&.com

Print Screen about my research using mamma and Yahoo directory


Friday is the submission of the portfolio and it contains 30%. I hope I can score well in this.

My Second Blog Reflection.

1) What benefits do you get when using different search facilities to search for resources related to your topic?

People thought that using one search engine is enough for their research but I think that using one search facility for a research is not enough. I prefer researching using different type of search facilities because it provides a wider variety of information, further aiding me to do this research effectively. Different search facilities have different features and I could make use of each feature to enhance my research.

Goggle could help you search the Web, Usenet, and images thus allows me to go to a wider range of variety of websites be it personal and organizational websites. Scholar allows me to find articles from 1991 to current year and search articles written by a specific reporter that is specialized about gambling. Meta Search Engine allows more of the web to be searched at once than any one stand-alone search engine. Subject Directory are categorized by topics into subcategories which will narrow your search, thus you would find your materials effectively. I think we should make use of all the search facilities instead of one.

2)What do you like best about collaborating on Wiki with other students who share similar research topic as you?

I like the way how wiki allow student to add/edit information in the wiki. This is quite similiar to forum. The difference is that other people could edit your information if they think it is wrong. Other than editing other's people works, wiki allows me to see what the student had done so far and i could learn from them. The only things i don't like about wiki is that some information may not be true because someone could just edit/add what they heard which can be not true.


So far i think EIR has really help me alot and I think for the next following projects, I would be more effective in time management because i would waste 1 day researching information that is not relevant to me.

Labels: Reflections

This is the first EIR lesson in 2010. Today Haziq and i were late for class due to traffic jam. Today we were taught how to search for information this sound easy but i find it confusing. My topic is Discuss the impact of problem gambling amongst youth. People would just paste the topic in google and they need to find the relevant website from the 20 result page. They will waste a few hours looking for materials ao we were taught of how to search information effectively. I would use my topic as example.

(Impace OR Effect*) AND (Problem OR Issue*) AND (Gambling) AND (Youths* OR Teens*)

It really save my time finding a relevant website and it reduce the result page to 4. Within one hour i could find alot of information from forums,blog or some organisational website. There is a search engine provided by google where u could search about scholarly literature across many disciplines and sources, including these, books, abstracts and articles. It is call Google Scholar

The pictures below is print screens of my search result.Tml lesson at 10!!! Tml we will learn about something call meta search engine.

My Blog Reflection 1

1) Were you impressed by Google's search function/features? Why?

Google is no longer stranger to me since i was in primary school. Whenever i need to research on certain things, the first website i went would be google. During that time I was impressed by the simple layout of google compared to other search engine like yahoo, msn and even now i still prefer the layout of google.

After entering EIR, I was more impressed by Google's function/features.Google Search provides more than 22 special features beyond the original word-search capability. These include synonyms, weather forecasts, time zones, stock quotes, maps, earthquake data, movie showtimes, airports, home listings, and sports scores. There are special features for numbers including prices, temperatures, money/unit conversions, calculations, patents, area codes, and language translation. A Google search-results page is ordered by a priority rank called a "PageRank" which is kept secret to avoid spammers from forcing their pages to the top thus we can find relevant information on the top page on Google.

This is quoted from Google:
"Have in mind though that even very advanced searchers, such as the members of the search group at Google, use these features less than 5% of the time. Basic simple search is often enough. As always, we use square brackets [ ] to denote queries, so [ to be or not to be ] is an example of a query; [ to be ] or [ not to be ] are two examples of queries."

You could see Google is so powerful that evern search group at google use the feature less than 5% of the time.

2) How do you feel about participation in discussion forum? Is it helpful for your research? Do you feel anxious about talking to others you do not know?

I feel good in participating in dicussion forum because I can see other people's point of view and thier life experiences which widen my research. If someone joins the discussion forum means they are curious/interested about the topic. I would feel excited rather than anxious to talk to them about my point of view in that particular topic.

3)Why must you do citation and bibliography?

From wikipedia
"A prime purpose of a citation is intellectual honesty; to attribute to other authors the ideas they have previously expressed, rather than give the appearance to the work's readers that the work's authors are the original wellsprings of those ideas."

What i do above is a citation because the text is taken from wikipedia and not written by me. In short, citation is a act of respecting other people's works which you use for your own use.

Bibliography is a list of citation in alphabetical order

Labels: Google, Reflections