Reflection on Wiki Experience

In week 14, our tutor assigned us to form in small groups of 5. We were assigned to work on the ethics and internet group work. Our topic was about "Missouri Teen's Suicide Being Cyber-Bullied" and my group was in charge of doing “What is Myspace?” We were given an article to read and I think the event that have happened is unfortunate. I worked with the group and posted the information on the Wiki.

The experience for me working as a group is in a team, work get done faster as everyone play their part in contributing in certain area. I also get the different point of views from the other members. As an individual contributor, I have learnt that teamwork skill is important when doing group work and the trust between each other in the group is important as well.

The most challenging experience I had is to get everyone in the group to do the work together and to get opinions from other groups so as to provide us with more information to consider before posting in the Wiki. I would advise the next batch that they need to work well with each other so as to contribute useful information in the Wiki. They also need to get the opinions from other groups first and they need to think through the opinions before working on their work.

I would not really use Wiki for my research because I preferred to use search engines like Google when doing my research as they provide me with more information. I will only use Wiki as references where I can refer to get the different views from others who have posted in there. To me, Wiki is a place where people collaborate to share their opinions.

I guess this will be my last post for EIR as it is going to end soon. I am glad that I have gained a lot of useful knowledge when taking up Effective Internet Research as my CDS.

My Dream Holiday

My dream holiday destination will be a trip to Australia. Though there is recent news of flooding in Queensland which put dozens of suburbs in Brisbane and Ipswich under water.  
From I know in the tourism website, Australia is the sixth largest country in the world but has a low population density. The beach paradise is wonderful as the coastline stretches almost 50,000 kilometres and is linked by over 10,000 beaches, more than any other country in the world. Australia teems with native animals, from carnivorous Tasmanian devils to short-legged possums, sleepy koalas, powerful kangaroos to the iconic kookaburra. Wow, interesting facts!  

I would love to travel to the different cities in Australia. One of them is Sydney which offers fabulous food, festivals and 24-7 fun. From Sydney’s famous harbour, I want to sail past the Opera House on a chartered yacht. I will also want to take a scenic cruise from Circular Quay or Darling Harbour, past waterfront mansions and national parks. I will also want to take in breathtaking views of the Pacific Ocean as I walk the winding, sea-sculpted sandstone cliffs between Bondi and Coogee beach. I will also want to learn to surf at Bondi Beach and swim in the calm waters of Coogee beach.

Another city will be Melbourne. It is the second biggest city after Sydney. In Melbourne, I will want to shop till I drop on funky Brunswick Street and Chapel Street. I will also want to try out the food and wine at the restaurants, cafes, bistros and bars in Southbank and Federation Square.

The reasons why I choose to go to Australia are because the weather is cooling and nice. Their natural landscapes such as the Great Barrier Reef, Kangaroo Island, Fraser Island and the Red Centre where I can ride a camel across the Simpson Desert are unforgettable. 

Opera House At Night

Harbour Bridge At Night

Bird's-Eye View of Sydney

Sunset At Sydney

Bondi Beach, Sydney

Southbank, Melbourne

Brunswick Street, Melbourne

Great Barrier Reef

Since I am looking for multimedia website, it must therefore fulfill the multimedia criteria. The website introduces Australia through different types of multimedia platform such as videos, newsletters and media releases. This is to make the website more interesting and easy for the readers to understand.

The evaluation criteria that I used are coverage, authority and currency. I will check the coverage of the website to make sure that it provides much useful information. For example, it gives me site links which I am able to find out more activities that can be done in that selected place. This is important because readers will want to know more and clearly stated information. Next, I will check the authority of the website to make sure that the information provided are reliable. The official website that I visited is operated by the Australia Tourism Board so I do not have to worry about the reliability as it is managed by the government agency. I will also check the currency of the website. After browsing through the website, all the details such as the destinations to travel and events happening in Australia are all up-to-date.

I logged in to Second Life and went straight to Australia. I explored around and took some screenshots.

Harbour Bridge Besides The Gap

Inside The Gap

Opera House At Night

Beautiful Sunrise!

Harbour Bridge At Morning

Sydney Tower A.K.A Centrepoint Tower, second tallest structure in Australia

Wow! So Many Stores!

Talking To A Friend

Reflection for Week 11

For this week lesson, I have learnt about the citizen journalism. The term citizen journalism refers to wide range of activities in which everyday people contribute information or commentary about news events. From my point of view, citizen journalism has its pros and cons. In the evaluation criteria of the Internet resources, I have learnt the different types of criteria. They are the purpose, coverage, authority, accuracy, currency, accessibility, presentation and arrangement, usability and overall quality.

The criterion that I used to evaluate STOMP website is accuracy. The reason why I chose this criterion was because I think that the reliability of the news is a significant criterion. The accuracy of the news in STOMP captures my attention. I wondered if sources of the news in the STOMP are independent sources or abstract from other sources. I think that some of the news uploaded on STOMP has contents of biasness.

For example, some news in the STOMP website included ugly commuters not giving up their seats to the needy people. They do give some evidence of the incident by providing pictures or videos. However, the description of the situation is mostly biased. How would I know if people just randomly took pictures of someone sitting on a seat and accused him/her of not giving up his/her seats to the needy people? They should give a more reliable description instead because what I think is that these people are not sharing news. Their main purpose is just complaining and that is when the facts of the news became unreliable and thus leading to people thinking that citizen journalism is not really good.

From this activity, I have learnt more about the STOMP website, the evaluation criteria and how to apply these criteria on websites and even on my research topic. Most importantly, I have learnt how citizen journalism should be properly created.
If I were to create my own version of "STOMP" in relation to my research topic, I will apply citizen journalism in a way that it will look more attractive. I will want my research topic to be logically organised and categorised so that it catches the readers’ attention. I will also want my research contents with clear headings to be easy to read.

I will include services such as no offensive remarks and unbiased contents in my STOMP. This is to ensure that my STOMP effectively addresses the implications for teaching and learning of citizen journalism mentioned in the article. It helps to earn the readers' trust as they believe that the news they are reading are much more reliable.

Reflection for Week 6

Sorry guys for the late post.

For this week lesson, I have learnt about invisible web (databases) which is referred to as Deep Web. It contains text pages, files and high-quality authoritative information available via the World Wide Web that general purpose search engines cannot or will not add to their indices of the Web pages. An example of an invisible web is the TP's Digital Library Portal website. It requires password from the TP staffs and students to access to the information. The information cannot be accessed through general purpose search engine.

I have explored and learnt how to make use of the TP’s databases. A few of them are EBSCOhost, Factiva and Newslink. The uses of EBSCOhost are quite similar to the search engines. It has categories to navigate to the different topics. The search results generated from the EBSCOhost have high relevance to my research topic. Most importantly, information from the EBSCOhost were mainly journal articles which were detailed as I am able to view the full text documents. However, the results generated from the Factiva and Newslink, which provides me with the newspaper articles were useless as it did not provide me with relevant results based on my research topic.

I think that it is more effective to search for resources using the databases rather than using search engines because I do not have to worry about the reliability of the information in the databases as they were from worthy sources. Furthermore, it is not time-consuming to get useful information as most of the search results found were relevant to my research topic.

I would consider using invisible web (databases) for my own respective diploma if I really need to find more information than I had gathered from searching the different search engines, meta search engines and subject directories. Other than that, I would still prefer using meta search engines such as MetaCrawler to find information related to my research topic.

For my Wiki experience, I am able to learn some useful information regarding on my relevant topic shared by others from the EIR Wiki. It is useful for me because I can also share my own point of view with the others and they can also get to know some useful information.

Reflection for Week 5

This week, I learnt about meta search engine and subject directory. After using both search facilities to search for my related topic, I realised that they have their own advantages and disadvantages. I found out that using meta search engine is more effective than using subject directory because it accesses to several popular search engines such as Yahoo!, Google, Bing and Ask simultaneously. I used MetaCrawler as my meta search engine to try out for my research topic and was able to get some useful information. It has a higher relevance and more search results as compared to subject directory. Furthermore, it is easy to use.

I used Yahoo! Directory as my subject directory. Subject directory which is also known as subject catalog is compiled by human. The topics are arranged in a hierarchical way which enables users to select and browse a particular category. The information given in the websites are accurate due to human compilation. However, it does not produce many search results as MetaCrawler do. Therefore, I will definitely choose MetaCrawler rather than Yahoo! Directory as it is useful to me. Besides, I do not have to go to different search engines to search for resources related to my topic.

I feel that using site feeds in my blog allow me to link up the URL of important websites which shares frequently updated content. The benefits of using site feeds are centered mainly around how easy they are to use and how easy it is to adapt them so I can get exactly what I need. It also automatically let my readers know when my blog has been updated.

One thing I like best about collaborating on Wiki with the other students is that I am able to get useful resources from the EIR Wiki. It allows me to share and discuss information with the other students who have selected the same research topic as me. Through all these sharing and discussion, I am able to gain more knowledge.

Virtual Shopping on Second Life

I chose MIA (Men In Action) as my virtual shopping site.

MIA offered a lot of products. Some of the products that they offered are long shirts, long pants, pocket jeans, belts and even weapons. Cool! The shopping environment is quite awesome and realistic. Accessibility to the products and services offered are chargeable. However, some of the products offered are free. The virtual shopping in Second Life is actually not quite user-friendly because moving my avatar around the places for too long will give me a bit of headache and giddiness. The speed of access was quite fast and smooth. The help facilities provided were good as they provide more useful help tasks such as getting Linden Dollars, buying things and owning land. In addition, I met two people from other countries during my virtual shopping.

 

Below are all the screen shots that I had captured during my activities within the shopping site.

 

 

 

“What do you like best about this virtual experience which you cannot get in real-life?”

Erm the best thing I like when using Second Life is that I can teleport and fly to different places anytime. It also allows me to change my avatar's appearance as much as I want to, which I cannot get to do in my real life.

Comparing Second Life and E-Shopping Spree, I still prefer E-Shopping Spree that I did in Practical 1&2. It is because it is more user-friendly and convenient. I can easily find the items I want from E-shopping by clicking buttons unlike Second Life which I find a bit complicated. Furthermore, the items that I buy from Second Life are not real.

This e-learning experience has helped me learn how to use the world map in the Second Life. It also helps me widen my knowledge as now I know that Second Life allows me to create avatars to shop in the virtual shopping world.

One of the most challenging experience I faced was I am not familiar with the keys and functions as it was my first time using the Second Life software. However, after some time I managed to get familiarise with it.

Reflection for Week 3

I am impressed by the Google's search functions. I learnt about common Boolean operators such as AND which narrow my search and OR which will then expand my search. I also learnt AND NOT which restricts my search. These Boolean operators are very useful to me when I am doing my research because it saves me a lot of time and effort and gives me better search results.

Before the end of the lesson, we were asked to participate in the Facebook discussion forum. The topic is about can you imagine your life without Internet and how different your life would be without Internet. I felt excited to share my views to my classmates. The other participation in the discussion forum is regarding my research topic. It is helpful for my research because I get to know more about the topic as I get to see the different views and thoughts from others that post in the forum.

Doing citation is to acknowledge the source of information. It gives credits to the owners of the source and not to violate copyright regulations. By the way, an inadequate citation constitutes plagiarism. Doing bibliography allows me to trace back where I got my information from. It also allows others to get more details and suggestions on related work if they want to further look into the topic or to check the facts to see whether if I have used the information correctly.