melissa

Final Reflection

Well, I chose not to include this blog entry into my report as this will be the summarise version of my lessons in EIR.

One month past real fast. Still remember that during the first lesson of EIR, I had no idea what this module is about. Slowly, I get in contact with many other search facilities that I have never heard off. This really wider my knowledge in the cyber world. I guess after this lesson, in the future I will be able to save alot of time when conducting my research.

Other than the search facilities, I also know more about "The Forum World". It is fun trying out forum discussion and it really thought me the correct way of posting. With the comments by the people out there, made me realised...

1) indepth knowledge is needed before posting any question
2) engaging with the people is very important
3) IT'S A BIG WORLD OUT THERE IN THE CYBER SPACE.

Overall, I find that the lesson plan was well-oragnised. In a way that, the use of practicals do really "force" us to try out the different resources. Hence after doing the hands on practicals I am able to understand rather then just reading from the PowerPoint slides.

Im gonna miss the class & of course not forgetting Ms Faridah ; Your friendliness, approachability and your engagement with the class. (: Hope that if I have a chance to see you somewhere in IT school, you are still able to recognise me. Haha

Day 11
7th November ; Friday

Today's lesson was creating a account in the EIR wiki group. This is my first time participating in a wiki group. In the past, I didnt know that we could actually create our own wiki group. All I knew was it is a source where I could find my information needed for my research. It was fun posting up information for the specific topic as a class. It's like we will get new surprises whenever we refresh the page. Because everybody are actively participating, posting the information they found and sharing it with the class at the same time. The page just keep building up with more information and pictures.

Overall I find that today's class is meaningful. Be it in the wiki cyber world or as a class, it shows that trust and responsiblity are very important. Without trust, we will never get the accurate information from wiki.

Lesson is coming to an another. This coming monday will be our last lecture and we will be giving our own time on tuesday to finish or portfolio. It is time to prepare my reports during the weekends and prepare for submission on thursday.

Day 10
6th November ; Thursday

Oh my god. All along i thought the class test was tomorrow. Blame myself for not reading the lesson plan. Came to class this morning and was shocked to hear that test will be conducting in 10mins time. Luckily the short recap before the test from Faridah helps somehow.

After test, was all about YOUTUBE. Never have I thought that I will be actually studying about YouTube. As it is a website that I would go almost everyday. We were asked to get into groups to discuss the current situation and the future of it. Personally I feel that it is a successful and famous site is because of its variety. Comparing to another site which also features videos, crunchyroll.com, Youtube offers a wider choice of selection. As for the future, I feel that they could maybe incooperate sponsorships are advertising strategies to earn money. Users could us YouTube as a medium to advertise and pay them a certain amount of money.

Day 9
4th November ; Tuesday

Given some time in class in the morning to continue practical 8&9. Luckily Faridah came around to check our resources for the practical. The resource that I choose does not have enough information on my research topic. Hence I had to change to another resource. However comparing the 2 website,

1) http://www.mediafamily.org/facts/facts_effect.shtml (chosen resource)
2) http://cpj.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/32/2/86

I would personally No. 2. As it is an online journal and it offers more reliable resources. However due to the lack of information on my research topic, No 1 will be a better resource for me to conduct my evaluation.

My dream holiday

The Palm Island.

It is located on the Jebel Ali coastal area of the emirate of Dubai. The reason for chosing the island as my ideal place for my dream holiday is because im fascinating by the way of constructing the island. 1 or 2 years back I've got the chance to watch a full documentary on National Geograhpy Channel on how the island was built. Being in the student in the architecture field, it is interesting to me to see the process and hardwork to build a building. Lets not say a whole man-made island. The new bridges which connect the islands to the mainland is one of the largest construction projects ever undertaken by man. wow.

Reclaiming the land.

The Jebel Ali Palm is more of an entertainment destination for both adults and children, which caters to both residents and tourists.

The site chosen to know more about Dubai is World 66, Travel guide. I have chosen Coverage and Presentation and Arrangement.

From the above screenshot, I find that the arrangement of the content are well organised. The details about the ideal destination is placed in the middle of the website. As for the details (highlighted in red) are links for us as a tourist to explore and know more about the country.

Content wise, other then links telling us more about the place, there is also a map located on the bottom right hand corner of the screen. This will enable us to locate and understand more about the location we are going. Search tool is also provided to aid use in finding the place we want to visit by just typing into the Search tool box.

Day 8
3rd November ; Monday

Today lesson taught us the different strategies we could use to evaluating a website. This includes,

•Purpose
•Coverage
•Authority
•Accuracy
•Currency
•Accessibility
•Presentation and Arrangement
•Usability
•Overall Quality

I was shocked that there are actually so many ways to evaluate a website. In the past, I always thought that to judge whether a website is good or bad is base on our first impression. Oh well, I was so wrong. From the above criteria, I personally find that accuracy, currency, presentation and arrangement are more important. Firstly, accuracy will determines whether the source we are getting are reliable. Thus this ensures that we are not absorbing the wrong information. Secondly, currency ensures that the information I get will be up-to-date. Thirdly, with good presentation and arrangement of the website allows me to navigate easily in without having the fear of losing important information due to the messy arrangement.

Day 7

31st October ; Friday

Test for today wasn't good. Didn't manage to score that well as I expected. My score was 14/20. Few of the question I totally didn't know how to do. And true, I got it wrong. This shows that I didn't really spend much time and effort reading through the lecture notes.

As for lesson, we are introduced to a website called talkingcock.com. The website is catered more to Singaporeans. A source where we can voice out our commands and thoughts. It is entertaining and hilarious while going through the website.

I had chosen Currency and Purpose as the criteria to evaluate the website. At the website, there will be the Heading, Author and the DATE for each post. The date provided clearly shows that the website is updated with posts. As for the purpose, it is obvious that the website for entertainment purposes. Like I said above, it is a source for people to post any flaws that can be found in Singapore and for readers to enjoy and have fun reading it.

Lastly for the roleplay, it thought me to view different things at a different view. The role for our group is the Almighty Prime Minister =x We have a chance to "act" as a prime minister to comment on the content of talkingcock.com. Personally I feel that as a prime minster, this might be one of the way he/she could know what are the thoughts of the Singaporeans.

Day 6

30th October ; Thurday

Today wasn't any lectures nor practical during lesson. Was just reviewing our process for report one. I'm so grateful that Faridah showed us the format and content for our report. Because before this, I have no idea how and what should I include in my report.

After Faridah finished accessing my work, I realised that I didnt include some of the stuffs into my blog.

1) Link's to professional blog regarding my topic

2) Introduction to my research topic

These will be the things that I will take note off and touched up before submitting my work.

Day 5

28th October ; Tuesday

Today's lesson was on Invisible web (databases). I do heard about this from my parents saying that these are the websites which cost money to access. What I didnt know was that TP actually owns one too. I do know about TP Digital Library Portal Research. But i didnt know that it is the Database we are talking about today.

Personally, I find it very troublesome while logging in. If I were given a choice to choose between Invisible web and search engines, meta search and yahoo directory, I would definately choose search engines, meta search and yahoo directory. Firstly, it is more conviently to access. Saving time going through the process of logging in. Secondly it is free.

But I must agree with the fact that the information in a invisible web (taking TP Digital Library Portal Reaseach as an example) has more indepth and trustful information. I am quite impress with the search results. They actually gave the details like the title, year of publication, author and stuffs. Thumbs up for that! (:

Day 4

24th October ; Friday

Today's lesson and practical was on Meta Search Engine and Yahoo Directory. As usual, first part of the lesson was going through the PowerPoint slide. Personally I find that it is more effective going through a "live demonstration" then reading from the PowerPoint slides. -laughs-

After going through the PowerPoint slide, was doing the practical worksheet. I kinda like Metacrawler now. Though before today, I had no idea and never heard of this name. It was fun exploring new search engine, paying special attention to the functions and searching up and down for the buttons that I wanna find. Using my own topic, I was able to find relevant results and I am satisfied with it.

However, Yahoo Search Directory was an horrible experience. Sad to say, I wasn't able to find any results related to my topic. Though at different categories at the homepage was helpful, but it is isn't that great after typing my keywords. I guess the reason being it is sorted out by professionals and it is not computerised. Hence the results given was limted.

In a whole, I am glad that I got to know about Meta Search Engine; MetaCrawler. As it is like a bigger search engine searching for normal search engine (yahoo, google ...) this really save me alot of precious time.

Day 3

23rd October ; Thursday

Wasn't in school today due to some reason. Do feel that i miss out alot on Google and Google Scholar. Went to download lecture 3 PowerPoint slides and went through.

After viewing the PowerPoint slides, I went to try out the new features. In the past, the only feature I used in Google was only the normal search, image search and Google Earth. I didn't know and notice that I actually use the "More" search. It was shocking that it is even link to a blog. Recalling when I am doing my practical one, the only Internet resource I couldn't find was blog. Now that I finally know that there is a blog search in Google really excites me.

My first try in participating in the Discussion Forum wasn't a pleasant one. I had chosen SgForum as the website. I guess that the way i phrases my post was too short thus causing people to feel that I wanted to get my results as fast as possible. Hence I will try once more to post a new thread maybe in a new Forum during the weekends or this coming Wednesday.

Lastly, I feel that citation is very important. From the day we stepped into Temasek Poly we are told that plagiarism is a serious offence. Subsequently, we are taught of the ways to citate the source of our information. I finally realised that we must credit the people or organisation of their hardwork for gathering and putting up the information. As with proper citation, in the future when we want to find back the information, we can refer back to our bibliography.

Day 2
21st Oct; Tuesday

Today's assignment requires us to do online-shopping! Well, few of my friends do sell things online and I did went to their website to take a look. However my budget was to tide and didn't think too much about it.

But..

Its a different case now. If I'm given $500.. I will buy

New Gucci 6800 Series
Pink Grande Ladies Watch

Price:
$458.88

Shipping:
FREE shipping, US Postal Service Priority Mail®Service

Ships to:
Worldwide

Item location:
Secaucus, NJ, United States

Condition:
New

The reason for choosing Ebay.com was because this is the first website that struck my mind Ewhen online shopping was mentioned. I do heard about this website and always wanted to try out the features.

What I like about Ebay is that it neat and clear. I can clearly locate the basic information, pictures, sellers' information and other features. This is important in E-Shopping websites as buyer are not able to meet the seller face to face. Hence the information must be clear to avoid any miscommunication.

Day 1

20th October; Monday

New semester ; New module. Effective Interenet Research Tool.

From the subject introduction, it seems to be an interesting and helpful module that will teaches us the correct way of using internet as the tool for our research. Thus enable us to save alot of precious time in the future using the skills i learnt from this module. I will be looking forward the the following lessons and hope i can learn as much things as possible.

In today's lesson, we are taught of different ways of getting the information we wanted from the internet. In the past the only websites i went was only Yahoo, Google and Wikipedia when i wanted to search for information for my projects. However after today's lesson, i learnt that we are able search for information from other resources. Like the forums and even blogs. This enable us to find relevant information in the shortest among of time.

Also in the past, my views towards Wikipedia was a unreliable site. Maybe from the influences from lecturers, stating not to retreive informations from there. What i didnt know was that the main reason of establishing Wikipedia. The idea of trust and community sharing. Which i personally feel that it is something we should learn from. However it abused by inconsiderate users.

Lastly, the research topic I have chosen is "The impact of online gaming on youth." Personally i think that with the new technology, it is hard that youth do not get in contact with computers. Hence with the use of computers, many of them will be easily addicted to the computer games. So I guess I will be finding the causes & impacts online gaming have on youth.