Posting 6 :)

For our 6th posting we were asked to answer a questionnaire about blogging! Here goes!

Age: 20

Tutorial Group: *unsure*

Lecturer: Mr Afendi Hamat

1) Do you enjoy Blogging?

Yes, Because I enjoy expressing myself in my blog :).. as well as publishing it for all to see!

2) Based on your experience what is the benefit of blogging?

It helps friends and family keep in contact with my life as I keep in touch with their lives through reading their blogs

3) Do you need more assistance to set up your blog?

Yes, I would like to add music and videos to it but I'm not sure of how to do that yet..

4) Do you have any memorable/ favorite topic in your blog?

Yes, I like the 2nd Posting :) 

5) List 5 advantages of blogging for you

-Helps people keep in touch

-Helps improve writing skills

-Helps one express themselves

6) List 5 disadvantages of blogging

- People tend to be free and liberated on blogs and are sometimes not careful with what they say. In situations like these bloggers may sometimes discuss sensitive issues which might offend some readers. In that sense the liberation one experiences while blogging might just prove to be a bane 

7) Will you continue blogging after the course

Yes I would, more because I have been blogging even before this course.

8) Do you think that blogging improves your writing skills?

Yes I think it does, as mentioned in my second discussion I believe that blogging helps in the form of:

a) Creative writing

b) Improving spelling

c) Self-expression

9) Do you think that we should continue with blogging activity for the next batch of students?

Yes I think that blogging should be used as an activity for this course. This is because it is fun and I find that it is a good learning experience. Very different from the conventional way of learning :)

 

10) Will you recommend your friend to blog?

Yes I would, I would say that blogging is a good way to improve writing skills

11) Can you teach a friend to set up his or her blog?

Yes I can! 

Discussion 5 :)

For our fifth entry we were asked to look for articles on Concordance and summarize them. The following is the URL to my concordance article and my summary :)

http://www.dundee.ac.uk/english/conc2.htm

Concordance

A concordance is basically used to bring together or concord passages of text which show the use of a word. It is an index arrangement and is similar to that of a verbal index found at the back of textbooks. the difference is the index of a textbook will show words in alphabetical order but only refer to them, however in a concordance each word is shown together in the context from which it came.

this term is usually applied to literary and linguistics studies. It helps students access a piece of text non-sequentially or to study the ways in which it uses the language. A concordance can also be used as a cross-reference, for example a variable name, across all the files which make up a project.

It is very useful for studying even a piece of literature, when thinking in terms of a particular word, phrase or theme. It shows exactly how often a word occurs or even how it does not occur in this sense it can be extremely helpful in building up some idea of how different themes recur within a piece of literature and how it relates to the rest of the text. it is easier to see how often a word reappears by using a concordance. once  a person clicks on a relevant letter of the alphabet, a list of words will come up and it is easy to scroll down until you find the right one. 

In this case a concordance is like a computer, I finds thinks for you however you are left to do the thinking and analyzing for yourself. It helps keep a person on track, in this case, it comes to deeper analysis of a piece of text.An interactive concordance will also find answers to specific queries and produce lists of all instances of words or phrases, but the advantage is the speed and the fact the concordance will find all words, not necessarily possible in textual concordancing.

In my humble opinion,

Concordance can indeed be very useful in Literature, this I gather from the article above. A closer examination of a text can be done once the context of each word and how it is used is brought to our attention. That way one may never miss out on a hidden meaning to a text that could be hidden within the context of the poem or story. Surely it makes the analysis of a text much easier as every world is arranged neatly making room for mistakes very slim.

Discussion 4:)

For our forth assignment we were asked to go to the Tun Sri Lanang Library to look for articles on either Bridging Digital Divide Women or ICT E-Learning. I've decided to choose Bridging Digital Divide, however I was not able to find anything specifically related to women so I hope this does it!

Heres a summary of what I've read!

Bridging Digital Divide

Information and communications technology (ICT) is said to be a weapon against poverty. It can be used to help people in developing countries, helping them to get past development obstacles, address social problems faced, strengthen communities and so on so forth. Yet digital divide is a situation of which some people are unable to access these benefits for some reason or another. there are a wide range of projects to assist in this matter yet in order to have a real impact it is crucial that one looks beyond computers and connections so that ICT can effectively improve the lives of those who need it. Digital divide is usually measured in the amount of telephones, computers as well as internet users. It is also usually measured based on race, gender, age, disability, location and income. it is also difficult to gauge what a real impact is when there are a multitude of definitions to the problem, conflicting views, various opinions and key factors affecting it.

Bridges.org is an international non-profit organization that promotes policies and laws that foster widespread ICT use. It helps people with basic knowledge in this field to understand ICT and its practical utility. Digital divide is growing al around the world, this is because people in the "have" countries and groups are increasing their access and use at an exponential rate. at the same time ICT "Have -nots" in excluded from jobs, participation in government processes and so on so forth making them economically and politically powerless. this may pose as a threat to countries who do not address digital divide, as they may be left behind. However, the infusion of ICT can intensify existing disparities. ICT alone is not enough to solve long-standing imbalances and can make inequalities worse if not applied wisely. 

Digital divide is a complex problem and cannot simply be transplanted to developing country environments. this is because solutions need to be done based on the understanding of local needs and conditions.

What is being done?

Governments, businesses, individuals and organizations have drafted a range of valuable reports, statistical analyses to in-depth case studies. most recommendations suggest specific ground level initiatives and policy reforms. many cover wider issues that impact digital divides such as e-commerce, information society, and international trade. Major international initiatives such as G-8's digital opportunity Task Force (DOT Force)and the world Summit on Information Society (WSIS), bringing together leaders and decision-makers from around the world for a consultation process to determine the key factors and how to address them. Some organizations have done "e-readiness" assessments to determine a countries readiness to integrate technology and e-commerce to establish a benchmark for regional comparison and public and private sector planning. unfortunately suggestions that are followed up are too few. there is not action.

There are hundreds of initiatives, projects that create public centers where poor people can use telephones and computers to program using innovative technology in small business applications. Many initiatives address specific  issues but often factors are neglected that limit success.

What more is needed?

Providing access to technology is critical, but it must be about more than just physical access. computers and connections are insufficient in the technology is not used effectively because it is not affordable; people do not understand how to put it o use, they are discouraged from using it or the local economy cannot sustain its use.

Over all a pooling of resources is needed. It is important for organizations doing community ICT Projects to meet the needs of their clients as comprehensively as possible, the issues at stake in international and domestic digital divides are huge and organizations would cooperate to overcome problems collaboratively.

Donations and philanthropic programs have demonstrated the useful application of technology among undeserved populations, but in many cases they have failed to produce sustainability, widely replicable models.

Getting government policy right is also critical.

Governments play a fundamental role in creating an environments that will foster technology use and encourage investment in ICT Infrastructure. it  is also important is spreading the benefits of technology throughout society.  It has the power to mandate and to balance the needs of their citizens. However leaders need to have a realistic appreciation for what ICT can and cannot do for their countries and communities. projects may be underway in fields like education, healthcare and so on so forth but obstacles in the form of a country's policy environment may arise. 

Although there have been reports, advice and so on so forth aimed at helping developing countries, the recommendations from all this information show that there is still lack of understanding of local needs and conditions.

To cross the digital divide and to use ICT effectively to improve peoples lives, countries and communities alike must be ready in terms of infrastructure amongst other things. if the digital divide is no be narrowed, these issues must be addressed in a coherent achievable strategy that is tailored to meet local needs.

Note: Mr Afendi I was unable to upload the article onto my blog so I've e-mail the original copy to you. Sorry for the inconvenience caused :)

Discussion 3 :)

In our third discussion we are to blog about search engines. Amongst the search engines that are to be discussed are: 

- Google Scholar

- Mamma.com

- Eric Digest

- Yahoo.com

Google Scholar

I would say as the name indicates, is most useful for students, especially for university students such as ourselves, to search for factual articles related to a certain field. This in my opinion is very good source of information as the "hits" about any given topic are all researched based and are therefore reliable. As apposed to Wikipedia which has been my source of information to all my unanswered question, until of course I was told that the information posted can be edited/posted by the general public who might or might not be experts in the field of discussion.

From this one may note that the hits from "Google Scholar" would be more appropriate for assignments than what you would find using "Google". 

Futhermore one cannot use "Google Scholar" to search for random things unlike "Google" as "Google Scholar" functions more as a directory of theses, articles and abstracts from academic publishers.

This was what I found when I search for the "Google Scholar" description:

What is Google Scholar? 
Google Scholar provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature. From one place, you can search across many disciplines and sources: peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts and articles, from academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories, universities and other scholarly organizations. Google Scholar helps you identify the most relevant research across the world of scholarly research.

Features of Google Scholar

• Search diverse sources from one convenient place
• Find papers, abstracts and citations
• Locate the complete paper through your library or on the web
• Learn about key papers in any area of research

How are articles ranked?
Google Scholar aims to sort articles the way researchers do, weighing the full text of each article, the author, the publication in which the article appears, and how often the piece has been cited in other scholarly literature. The most relevant results will always appear on the first page.

Mamma.com

Mamma.com is a Metasearch engine, its function is to sift through other search engines such as Yahoo.com and Google.com to look for information regarding the topic of your choice. Hence the name "Mamma.com" is apt. It literally functions as a mother or rather "the mother of all search engines". Using Mamma.com would mean that students in search of information would be able to source for information faster,easier and more effectively. You will find that while using Mamma.com one would be able to find more information from all over the internet with just a click of a button. No longer is a search limited to that, that is found within only one search engine.

Below we have a definition on what a Metasearch engine is:

A search engine that queries other search engines and then combines the results that are received from all. In effect, the user is not using just one search engine but a combination of many search engines at once to optimize Web searching. For example, Dogpile is a metasearch engine. 

Dogpile is another example for a Metasearch engine, Dogpile's search in itself consists of information sourced from Google, Yahoo, Ask and Live Search. Why not put four search engines to work on something in the same time it takes to use one? 

Eric Digest

Eric Digest has a similar funtion as compared to “Google Scholar” and this is because Eric Digest consists of articles or rather “Eric Digests” about a multitude of topics. These reports are found to be short (1,000-1500 words) and cover mostly topics of prime current interest in education, it also covers topics like teaching, learning, libraries, charter schools, special education, higher education, home schooling and much more.

What information one would find on Eric Digest is considerably short, although references are provided for more detailed information. Eric Digest is said to target mostly educators such as teachers, administrators, policy makers and other practitioners. This is I find is the defining point, the point that separates Google Scholar and Eric Digest, the community it caters to is entirely different. While Google Scholar caters to students mostly, Eric Digest caters to those already in their professional fields. 

Yahoo.com

Yahoo.com on the other hand is indeed very different from Google Scholar as a regular search engine, this can be identified even at first glance. Yahoo.com provides users with the latest news on the economy, politics and even the latest gossip. This puts Yahoo.com at an advantage compared to Google.com. On top of that unlike Google, Yahoo.com has a whole list of links to other Yahoo websites for different categories organized alphabetically. For example:

• Addresses
  
• Auto
  
• Answers
  
• Finance
  
• Maps
  
• Music
  
• Yellow Pages 

Making your search for information easier and faster. One would not need to know the url to these individual sites as they would all be linked the the main, which is Yahoo.com. Again this is very much unlike the interface of Google, where you would need to know the url for Google Maps for example. 

http://maps.google.com/ 

Aside from that, for those who have Yahoo email accounts and are signed in, there is also a function on the Yahoo.com site that will give you a short summary of a user's most recent emails. This I find is very useful. 

Yahoo.com differs from Google Scholar in a sense that it is not necessarily for educational use only. By this I mean that one would not only find factual articles but also blogs and websites amongst other things when searching for a specific topic. All in all Yahoo.com is more for general use than it is restricted to a place for educational references. 

ahhh... with that said heres the uploaded picture requested :)