Reflection on wiki experience and Group Discussions.

Its EIR again can’t believe time flies. Well this time in the class we were to start on our Group Discussion. The teacher went through the Necessary Guidelines before staring our discussion. Our Class was assigned the Google Being Investigated article. We quickly Form our own Groups and somehow my groups decided to appoint me as their leader. My group was assigned the opinion of our Group about Google being investigated?" and "What is the opinion of the other groups about Google being investigated".

Being a leader I assigned my Group mates to read the article first. After Reading the Article I ask my group mates on their opinions of the Article. Listening from what they have to say allows me to see their different views. Working with them makes the Group discussion more effective as two brains are better than one.

After Collating My group discussion opinions. My groups need to gather information on the other group’s opinion on the topic. In order for me to that I ask one of my group member to follow me to Group 1 so that both of us can get hear the different perspective and ideas of Group 1.  When we return to our seats we will share the Opinions with the other members. Then I will choose a different Member to follow me to Group 2. the process continues until all the Groups have been interviewed. This process allows my group members and me to interact with my other classmates since we don’t talk to them much during the class, this was the best opportunity to get to know them and Find out about their different opinions.

After getting all the required information, we summarised our opinions and the group opinions.  Since I am the leader I volunteered to post all our research and findings in the wiki.

This Group Discussion Should be incorporated in Future EIR classes as it allows the EIR students to interact with the other classmates during class. This would benefit them as it would allow them to work as a group and hear the different opinions of people.

Twitter

I have heard about twitter before but never had any interest about it. As i did not really need to use it. Since getting an android phone :P and joining Effective Internet Research. I have learn and enjoyed using its functions.
In the beginning i had my doubt as i don't really like to express myself and especially i do not want people to know whats in my mind and what i am doing now, but i realised that by expressing myself on twitter it kinds of make me feel better rather than i keep all the thoughts to myself.

Using Twitter in EIR is usefull as it allows me as a student to follow other EIR twitter students. This allows me to communicate with them and find out the topics that we might have for a common interest. Replying to their tweets will allow me understand their personal opinions on a given topic or interest.

EIR in class is essential as it allows the teacher to just post tweets on the latest topics. The students would just read the tweets and do more research . Any questions raised would just need to be tweeted to the teacher , there is no need to meet the teacher face to face. Which saves time.

Comparing this to Blogger. In blogs we tend to express ourselves more, this would lead to long post on a given topic. In twitter there is a limit to the number of words that can be sent. Therefore twitter is like an sms system but everybody who follows you can read it.

Twitter and Blogs may differ but both serve the same purpose. It a platform for us to express ourselves and share the common topic or interest to the masses.

My Dream Holiday

In Secondary School My Favourite Subject was History.Always been fascinated with Italy Culture and history especially during the renaissance period. My dream Holiday Destination Has to be Venice.

Venice is the known to be One of the beautiful places that must be visited. One thing that makes it unique is that it a floating City most parts of Venice is covered with water. Their public Transportation is usually water taxis or Gondola. They do have public transportation like buses or trains, but mostly transportation is by water so thats why most of the Community in Venice owns their own boat then cars.

I Visited City of Venice website to Find out more on Venice.
The Website is an official site available to citizens and visitors.

Based on The layout of the Site Most of the Information Is easily Accessible. I can just choose from the tabs above and get the information I want. For Example I can just choose the Tourism Tab and It will bring me to a page that shows the events, traditional events that are coming up this year.

What i need to do is just Click the the Dates And they will show the Events that will be occurring on this date
I like this Functionality as it allows me to view Events happening on certain dates rather than browsing through a long list of events.

There is also A Virtual Tour of Venice

This Allows me to View The City Without being Physically  being there.

The Map also allows me to Zoom in to get a More detailed view of the City and if I click on one of the Landmarks. It will bring me to the Virtual View

This Function is Fun as i can just walk anywhere i want and view the interesting places in Venice. I think this is the most important function for a tourist like me as i can use this to make my itinerary so that when i decide to visit Venice, it will be much Simpler.

I also like the Live Web cam  as it allows me to see whats happening in Venice now. I can Refresh the image every 8 seconds to view.
Here are Some Web cams of Venice

St. Mark's Square Webcam

 Rialto Bridge Webcam

A Tourism Website need to have a Nice design and layout to attract More users. The Venice Website meets the Criteria. Its layout is Clean the Tabs bring me to the right places. The proper information are categories into their respective pages.

Here is a Video On Venice

Second Life... To be Continued..
I went To Search for Venice in Second Life. The name of the region is called Venice Passion
I was Surprised that someone actually created a virtual world of  Venice in second life. Here are some Pictures of me interacting in Venice Passion Region.

 It looks Exactly Like Venice The region is Well Design.

Decided to Take the Hot Balloon for An aerial view of Venice.  The View from the hot air balloon was amazing.

After landing I use a Bicycle to travel around Venice.This allow me to travel faster and enter into areas that i did not see. Overall my experience in Venice Passion was interesting and interactive.

Topic 2 Practical 7 Blog Reflection on Citizen Journalism.

Sorry For not updating my blog this few weeks Readers, been busy with other school projects. I promise to update my blog weekly from now on ok  :]

Last Week EIR was on Citizen Journalism
I believe Citizen Journalism  is a Great Way for People to Share their opinions on certain news. It is always interesting to know about other people opinions as their views differ. Citizen Journalism also allow people to j share news from anywhere. This is great as news reporters may not be always first on the scene.,with the help of Citizen Journalism. news that might not appear on the newspaper or TV can be shared online. Students Who participates in Citizen Journalism will be able to interact with the community and will allow them to view the other articles that are posted by the community. The students can also share their own article online and be prepared to received feedback from the community.Students will then learn not to be biased and respect other people views on their article.With time Students will improve on their media literacy skills and be able to earn the community trust.

In class We were task to form a group and Evaluate Stomp. We evaluate Stomp Bases on Purpose,Coverage,Authority,Accuracy and Currency. I find this Activity more engaging as its a group effort. It allows me to interact with my classmates as well as discuss and make decision as a group. After that we Present our findings to the Class. As expected Different Groups have their own opinion, this activity has help me learn about other people views and perspective.

I  will share my evaluation on Stomp Accuracy and Currency  . Based on my experience using stomp. Most of their news are very current. Almost everyday there will be post on different happenings in Singapore. On their Accuracy, Stomp is known for its '"interesting news" anybody can post on the Website this makes me Question on their credibility. Lets face it anybody who signed up as a member on the site can post their own news. And with no links to support their claims how can i believe the news is real. Pictures can be Digitally altered with Software nowadays. So After reviewing my evaluation. I cant just trust any news online i need to make my own research to and ensure their credibility.

Creating My Own Stomp Based on My Topic Ethical Implication Of Cloning.
First Any news Posted on my Stomp  will need to have an option for the Citizen Journalist to add their references. This reference Would help them to Support their news article credibility. With references other user using my stomp can find out where the posters get their sources from. Encouraging my Community to do their own research before trusting the posters Article. Discussion Forum is a must as it allows my users to debate on the Current news on cloning. I would also include A brief History on cloning for new users to learn. With a Discussion Forum  I will need to choose some moderators to help me monitor the Forum and edit some comments.Lastly My Stomp would be Mobile Friendly as with the current technology more people are accessing the web on their mobile. This would enable my users to post on the fly....

EIR Practical 6 Activity 4: Rflections on Using Invisible Web Database

I have already learnt about the different such as meta search, and subject directory.  Now i am introduce to invisible web database. Since being in TP i did not know that the school has such databases. 
I decided to try out the different Search databases.
I tried out EbscoHost

I like their Search Interface it enables me to make accurate searches by using and, not, or functions to make my Search more refine.
I can also choose from different database to get better results.

Based on my search This is what i got.

I like How it indicates the relevancy of the topic to my Search query. This enables me to choose the most relevant topic from the list. The preview magnifying glass allows me to preview the page before clicking on the link. This saves me time from going to the page and finding out that the page is not to my liking. I can also get the results return in HTML format or PDF. This is essential for when i need to save the page in a particular format.


Based on my experience using the invisible web database. Yes the Invisible web database are effective than the other Search sources. In some ways Invisible web databases are similar to subject directories but invisible database has their different Web database for different Search Sources. Invisible database has Search engines for news articles like factiva, news link for local spore news,Global issues in context for world issues like business, economy etc.

If i need to Search for topics based on my diploma i know where to search. I will use TP invisible database. The database will help return me better search sources as compared to the other Search engines. I believe I can also trust the Sources in TP invisible web database as it is maintained by them. Though i will need time to utilize TP invisible database as  there are many functions available for me to use that i have not explored yet.


Recently Visited one of my Classmates Blog post
I visited Linda Blog The site feed is on the left.
I Find her blog very Clean so its an easy read.
Read her post on Google Or Google Scholar and find her opinions Differ than mine. 
This is interesting as it allows me to learn about different people opinion as my opinion may not be always right.


 


 

Week 6 Meta-Search ,Subject Directories Sitefeeds & EIR Wiki

Meta Search and Subject Directories

This week We were taught on the different Ways on Searching for our Topics. They Are Meta Search and Subject Directories. Meta-Search engine will get information from several search engines from the web and choose the best links to be return to the user. I personally had the chance to try one out.

I chose ix quick. My First impression of the GUI,very clean and easy to use.

My search Result on Cloning return me 40 links out of 11,359,645 matching results

I liked that the interface will Choose the best links And the indicate links with Stars.
More Stars means the link is more relevant.

The Meta-Search engine also does not return so many result so it much easier for me to choose from 40 links instead of browsing through  hundred of them using normal Search engine.

Subject Directories.
Same As normal Search engine but it is categorized and it is compiled by Humans.
I chose Google Directories to do my research.

Instead on just typing my Topic on the required field. I can make the Search more precise by choosing the right category. Since my topic is about cloning.I chose Science. The Science category is Separated into more subcategories example like bio, computer science etc. I did not really bother to choose the sub categories but just tried my luck and type my Topic in the Search Field.

It returned me Results 1 - 10 of about 599 within the category Science for Cloning [definition]. (0.09 seconds). The return links were relevant to my topic. I find that using Google directories was much more better than a normal Search engine. It lets me fine tune my research by searching it in the right directories.

 







Site Feed
I have Included my Friends Blogger links in my Blog. Visitors who frequent my blog will learn about my other friends who have blogs. Each of us have a different style of writing which makes it interesting for the viewers to see our different perspectives and opinions.

Eir Wiki

We Were encouraged to post our Research and findings on The EIR wiki page. I was curious and went to find out. When i reached my wiki page. I was quite disappointed with how the Page is being organised. They were no pictures or relevant diagrams. The Page was in a Mess. The contributors just posted their findings but did not even bother to align them nicely.The only thing Good that i find is that what they shared has mostly summarised what i have. So i did not post my findings but instead try to make the Wiki page more presentable.

What i Did was to include more diagrams and picture. Currently they are only two pictures. A picture paints a thousand words. Without proper images and diagrams it would make the read to generic and boring. With more time I might be able to customized the Whole page and make it more presentable to read.

I also replied to a discussion Started by

JoleenLeeTheGreat

on Ethical implications of Cloning.

I shared my opinions and views and hoped to get a reply.

OK That's ALL FOLKS... I better read the PPT slides for the EIR TEST!

Forum POsting....

We were tasked to Post our topics in A forum.

Posting and replying in a forum is a norm to me as i frequently read and post threads there. Getting replies from different people gives me a different perspective on the topic. Getting different opinions from other people matters to me as i can learn from them. Although Their opinion may not be relevant at times but it does add some humour in the thread. The forum posters Opinions are entitled as their own ,i do not have to consider them and sometimes debating with them would be interesting but in a friendly manner of course..

Here Are the Evidence of My Forum posting

I posted my Topic in  My usual Forum, Posted the topic in the chit chat corner and waited for their response.

 

This Is an example of a Humorous post by A fellow Member in the forum.. I believe Forum posting don't have to be so serious and generic. As long as the reply is relevant..

Here is the Forum Link Where I started my Thread.

BOB 
  
Citation and Bibliography. 

It is important to recognized other people contribution to the Internet, so if i were to take large chunks of information in the Internet and just put it in my report and submit. That would certainly count as plagiarism. If i were to contribute my own research on a given topic and post it online, i hope those who used my words in their presentation or report to at least give me some recognition. Previously when i did my report i did not really care about doing proper citations but after learning about citations and bibliography, it does put things in a new light.I try to put myself in the contributors shoes and that has made me change. I would surely do proper citations from now on so as to recognise the contributors work. Doing proper Bibliography in my report would also allow the reader to find out where i got my research from.

GOOGLE or GOOGLE Scholar Hmmmmmm....

We were tasked on determining which Search engine was better. Google Scholar Or Google.

Lets Compare both Search Engine

Google                                               

          

Google Scholar

As you can See both Have Different User Interface I find the Google Search interface more friendly then Scholar as Searching for my Topic was much simpler.

Now lets Compare Google And Scholar Different Functions

Google Advanced Functions

This Advanced Search Functions will enable me to fine tune my Searches So as to prevent the search engine from returning unwanted results. I can also Type in certain words that i do not want the Search engine to return. return.  I can also Search in different languages and get results in different files format. This are just some examples that i have tried out. There are various others functionalities that are available.

Google Scholar Advanced Functions

Google Scholar Advanced functions is much more precise compared to Google as I can Search My Topic In Articles from different Authors. based on their publication year. I can also Search Articles And patents from the different Category that is provided in the Advanced Search functions. There is also the functions to Search my topic from Legal opinions and journals from different Courts. I just need to choose the state that i want the search engine to search.

Usability in both Search Engine.

Google

 

The Ability To predict What i want to Search is A Great Feature in Google. I can just choose the right one from the drop down menu. There is also a feature for me to choose to make searches in Singapore or the web which is located in the left menu. I can also get results which are latest or from past years. I can also get similar Searches by just clicking on the similar button to get the same result.

This are just some of the features that i have explored in Google.

Google Scholar

Strangely The ability To predict what I type in the Search engine is missing here although Google scholar in also Google search engine. Some features that are in Google Scholar is the drop down menu that makes the search more precise. I can just choose to search in articles etc from which year since 1991 to 2010 and include citations or in summaries. There is also a feature to get the same result by clicking the related articles.

Based on my findings both have their different functions and it depends on the user preference and what kind of searches is made on both search engines to decide which one is better. For my liking I would rather use Google to search for my topic as it was able to return the result .Google Scholar although with its different features was far too complicated to me.

SecondLife Shopping Virtual Shopping

This Week We are tasked to PLay Second Life and try out the Virtual Shopping. This will be my first time attempting virtual shopping, so this would be somewhat intriguing. Being a noob, at first i did not know where to go shopping. So since Secondlife has a large community of people, i decided to chat up with a stranger and ask about shopping. She told me to use the Places tab and just Search Shopping. I just chose a random Place and teleported there.

The Place That i Teleported to

I loved the Name of the Place Something Estate Mall but Don't be fooled by the name because to my surprised this mall is very big and there was a Variety of Shopping Places to explore. The best thing is that there is music playing in the background  thus the shopping experience was not a bore.

As You can see from this picture, it explains the variety of choices.

The First thing i Spot was Cars in the Menu.Curious I Click on it and was teleported to the Car region. I think its the Best Region Ever as it is populated with Cars and Bikes. There I can Shop for Cars and bikes. I can even try them out. This was so fun as i am able to sit in luxury cars and try out their systems when i touch them. I can only do this in Virtual Shopping.  In the real world one can only dream of owning a luxury sport car.

Here are the pictures of me in the Car region.

Here I am Trying Out One of the Luxury Sports car.

I found a Place Where You can Try out Their Bikes. I thought Trying A bike mean just sitting on it.Little did i know that trying means being able to ride. I had so much fun riding the bike Making my Experience in Virtual Shopping easier as i am able to travel around in a bike but once i get off the bike. The BIKE DISAPPEARED HA HA. I guesss since the bike have not been purchased yet.

I Decided to Try out the other Regions  I went to Furniture Region there is a variety of furniture shops There. I went in A+ Lok's Low Prim Furniture ~ Lower Prims. The Name is Funny So i decided to check it out.

There is a lot of furniture to choose from I was spoilt for choice.

I Can Sit on them to to see how i look on the sofa.

Finally I decided it was time to check out their Men Clothes Region.

The Shop that interest me in that region was this Shop

The Clothes in the shop Was my kind of style. If only I can buy them for my Avatar but i needed Virtual Money which i did not have, So I can only just window shop for now.

The User Interface is Easy When i Click the Arrow Navigator I can Browse through the different Colours and types of Clothes that are available.

Here Are the Other Apparels On display.

 FEDORA!!!

 SHOES!!!!

Lastly I found a Shop That Sells Skins Shapes And Clothes, Here I can shop and will be able to Change the Physique and appearance of my Avatar.

Overall my experience in Attempting Virtual shopping was A Blast. It was a Challenging at first but i managed to get a hang of it. The experience of virtual shopping differ from window shopping in real life. First of all the ability to fly everywhere haha and the limitless Customized options in Second Life.  Second the clothes in Second Life has much more variety and it is even cheaper than buying real clothes. The Graphics and user interface is also very friendly. When i first use Second Life i was quite appalled at the complexity of the options, but after going through the options i realised it is not that hard after all. If i have Second Life Money I am Sure I will put it to Good use and Change my Avatar Appearance Completely but for now i can only window shop hehe. I would recommend this Second Life to my friends just to let them try it out since its free also. I am sure they will enjoy it, if given the opportunity. Oh Well this is the end of my blog, time to get myself back in Virtual Land.