Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Final Reflection
This is my last blog post for EIR reflection and I am supposed to provide a mteaphor to describe it. After racking my brain and squeezing the remaining brain juice out, the metaphor I will give is "oscar mike", which means "On the Move". To be on top of EIR to score well, you must always be on the move, and never procrastinate. Well, this is what happened to me. Whenever I decided to procrastinate and delayed completion of my work. So the workload just piled up and in the end I had a tormenting experience of rushing a report and fews days worth of reflection on a single night. Probably most of the completed assignment are done sloppy and can't secure a good grade at all. I think that this can be applied to the entire Polytechnic education, where every piece of work or assignment is graded and reflected upon my GPA. Thus, its a good idea to always be oscar mike.
Reflection on Wiki experience
The last days of EIR was a rush because of procrastination. :(:(
Anyway, I still have to reflect on my Wiki experience. I believe that the most significant and at the same time challenging experience in doing Wikis has to be locating relevant information, and than evaluate and extract key information out of seamlessly endless walls of text. Most text I used as my research materials contain many miscellaneous or unwanted information that I have to weed out before posting the refined version on Wiki so that other users can have a better experience in gaining knowledge of my topic. Thus, this reflects on how important the community spirit in maintaining Wikis.
Maintaining Wikis is a monstrous job for an individual, especially for a extensive topic with many sub-topics. With the community help, the quality of Wikis will increase as users detect and correct mistakes that I subconsciously made, or to further expand on it, making it more comprehensive. It will greatly simplify the process of gathering information from different sources if it is done in a community, rather than as a individual, and consolidate and update the Wiki. To achieve this, community spirit, especially personal attitudes towards sharing knowledge are essential. I believe that one advantage that Wikis have is that it is constantly under community scrutiny, and thus personal biasness and agenda are corrected.
One advice I will give to the next batch of students is to collaborate well with each other to maintain high quality material. The keyword is synergy. It's not a case of x plus x but rather x times x, and the results are vastly separate extreme results. work well with each other, and you will achieve so much more than what you can individually. This will not only apply to maintaining Wikis, but also future project works too.
Like it or not, Wikis is one of the best source of information available on the web that is probably the least biased due to its nature. For my course, I would have to use Wikis to obtain information that does not have agendas other than purely to inform, so that I can cross reference with information from other sources such as printed media. This is important as a printed media maybe produced with a intent to promote a certain agenda or to advertise a product, thus, certain facts would be inaccurate. Unless something else can provide a better balanced source of information than Wikis, I think I stick with using Wikis.
Anyway, I still have to reflect on my Wiki experience. I believe that the most significant and at the same time challenging experience in doing Wikis has to be locating relevant information, and than evaluate and extract key information out of seamlessly endless walls of text. Most text I used as my research materials contain many miscellaneous or unwanted information that I have to weed out before posting the refined version on Wiki so that other users can have a better experience in gaining knowledge of my topic. Thus, this reflects on how important the community spirit in maintaining Wikis.
Maintaining Wikis is a monstrous job for an individual, especially for a extensive topic with many sub-topics. With the community help, the quality of Wikis will increase as users detect and correct mistakes that I subconsciously made, or to further expand on it, making it more comprehensive. It will greatly simplify the process of gathering information from different sources if it is done in a community, rather than as a individual, and consolidate and update the Wiki. To achieve this, community spirit, especially personal attitudes towards sharing knowledge are essential. I believe that one advantage that Wikis have is that it is constantly under community scrutiny, and thus personal biasness and agenda are corrected.
One advice I will give to the next batch of students is to collaborate well with each other to maintain high quality material. The keyword is synergy. It's not a case of x plus x but rather x times x, and the results are vastly separate extreme results. work well with each other, and you will achieve so much more than what you can individually. This will not only apply to maintaining Wikis, but also future project works too.
Like it or not, Wikis is one of the best source of information available on the web that is probably the least biased due to its nature. For my course, I would have to use Wikis to obtain information that does not have agendas other than purely to inform, so that I can cross reference with information from other sources such as printed media. This is important as a printed media maybe produced with a intent to promote a certain agenda or to advertise a product, thus, certain facts would be inaccurate. Unless something else can provide a better balanced source of information than Wikis, I think I stick with using Wikis.
Reflection on Twitter/Blogs
Hmm today's about using Twitter and Blog. Tell you the truth, I seriously feel that Twitter has a lot of limitation compared to blogs. What message can you sent forth with just a line? Anyway, Facebook is a better social networking site compared to Twitter, with numerous useful functions. Moreover, its status update is comparable to Twitter, hence I believe that Twitter is less useful than Facebook.
Blog is more useful if you want to share your thoughts or opinion. Blog is sort of a journal, and you tend to reflect before you post. Thus, the post contains your reflections and helps the readers to understand you better, rather than using Twitter. Again, how much can you say in just a line?
So how blogs and Twitter be used for research? Unless I come across blogs or Tweets of professionals dealing with my research field posting about their experience, the blog contents would be irrelevant. However, blogs and Twitter are mostly used as a personal space. Therefore, I do not think that blogs and twitters are useful for research.
Blog is more useful if you want to share your thoughts or opinion. Blog is sort of a journal, and you tend to reflect before you post. Thus, the post contains your reflections and helps the readers to understand you better, rather than using Twitter. Again, how much can you say in just a line?
So how blogs and Twitter be used for research? Unless I come across blogs or Tweets of professionals dealing with my research field posting about their experience, the blog contents would be irrelevant. However, blogs and Twitter are mostly used as a personal space. Therefore, I do not think that blogs and twitters are useful for research.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Reflection - My dream hoilday
I have never been to Japan before and taking the CDS on Japanese Culture just increase my desire to visit Japan.
One of the places that I would love to visit will be the Ryokans, or the Japanese Inn, featuring Japanese styled rooms, natural hot springs and gardens. It is definitely a recommended place to escape from the hectic city life.
Being a anime mecha lover, visiting the Tokyo Otaku town is must for me. Otaku literally means anime lover. However, the Tokyo Tour Package do not include visiting the Otaku Town. Pity.
Okay, time to evaluate.
URL:
Purpose- the purpose of the website is clearly stated in the About Us section, "to create journeys that go beyond the superficial sightseeing". There is also a clear target audience of those wishing to visit Japan.
Coverage- this website is comprehensive in displaying details of various places of interest in Japan. Available tours are neatly displayed with a separate section dealing with accommodation in Japan. Thus, the coverage of the website is excellent.
Accessibility- this website can be readily access without any software requirement. Users can view the entire website without need to register. Connection to the site is stable and smooth.
Presentation and Arrangement- this website is aesthetically arranged that is pleasing to new visitors. There are menu systems that helps users to navigate the site with ease, and attracts users to explore more of the site.
One of the places that I would love to visit will be the Ryokans, or the Japanese Inn, featuring Japanese styled rooms, natural hot springs and gardens. It is definitely a recommended place to escape from the hectic city life.
Being a anime mecha lover, visiting the Tokyo Otaku town is must for me. Otaku literally means anime lover. However, the Tokyo Tour Package do not include visiting the Otaku Town. Pity.
Okay, time to evaluate.
URL:
Purpose- the purpose of the website is clearly stated in the About Us section, "to create journeys that go beyond the superficial sightseeing". There is also a clear target audience of those wishing to visit Japan.
Coverage- this website is comprehensive in displaying details of various places of interest in Japan. Available tours are neatly displayed with a separate section dealing with accommodation in Japan. Thus, the coverage of the website is excellent.
Accessibility- this website can be readily access without any software requirement. Users can view the entire website without need to register. Connection to the site is stable and smooth.
Presentation and Arrangement- this website is aesthetically arranged that is pleasing to new visitors. There are menu systems that helps users to navigate the site with ease, and attracts users to explore more of the site.
Reflection on Citizen Journalism
Today's about Citizen journalism, and in Singapore case, I'm talking about Stomp.sg. Stomp.sg is a interactive news portal by The Straits Times for citizen journalism. Basically, all the news updates are generated by members of the public and not by professional press. Thus, the public is greatly involved in the news development and updates.
As the Stomp.sg is a news portal maintained by the public for its news content, I decided to use coverage as the criteria to evaluate it.
I would say that the coverage of Stomp.sg is terrible. Most of the news generated are trivial matters of the public brought up by irritated "Stompers". For example are misbehaviour of the public, poor service rendered by a certain company, complaints of certain situation such as malfunctioning lamppost etc. Rarely news of greater importance is surfaced on Stomp.sg, such as MPs visits and interaction with the residents to improve on their experience residing in Singapore. Thus, the coverage of the portal is very limited by what the individual thinks is important rather than what the public thinks is important. This somehow reflects the mentality of Singaporean of being self-centered.
I feel that sharing information in Wiki is a excellent example of community spirit of give and take. Different users can collaborate and consolidate information together under a single webpage, and users can help to detect and correct mistakes by others. Thus, this will dramatically increase the quality of source. However, Wiki is very reliant on community spirit in order to maintain its credibility. A biased person can edit the information to suit to his agenda and corrupt the text with misleading information. As the information is available on the web on a global scale, there is a risk that unsuspecting users will hold the false information as true. Therefore, using and editing Wikis must be done in great care.
As the Stomp.sg is a news portal maintained by the public for its news content, I decided to use coverage as the criteria to evaluate it.
I would say that the coverage of Stomp.sg is terrible. Most of the news generated are trivial matters of the public brought up by irritated "Stompers". For example are misbehaviour of the public, poor service rendered by a certain company, complaints of certain situation such as malfunctioning lamppost etc. Rarely news of greater importance is surfaced on Stomp.sg, such as MPs visits and interaction with the residents to improve on their experience residing in Singapore. Thus, the coverage of the portal is very limited by what the individual thinks is important rather than what the public thinks is important. This somehow reflects the mentality of Singaporean of being self-centered.
I feel that sharing information in Wiki is a excellent example of community spirit of give and take. Different users can collaborate and consolidate information together under a single webpage, and users can help to detect and correct mistakes by others. Thus, this will dramatically increase the quality of source. However, Wiki is very reliant on community spirit in order to maintain its credibility. A biased person can edit the information to suit to his agenda and corrupt the text with misleading information. As the information is available on the web on a global scale, there is a risk that unsuspecting users will hold the false information as true. Therefore, using and editing Wikis must be done in great care.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Reflection Invisible web
Today, I learnt about the usage of the invisible web, or the databases. By definition, it is a database of high quality authoritative materials maintain by a organisation or agency. Thus, the quality of materials will greatly increase. For the tutorial, I used both TP library research database and the books24x7 database for my research.
However, I could not find relevant results relating directly to my topic e.g. my topic is USAGE of IT in the movie industry, while most of the results I found using the database are about HOW TO use a certain software in the movie industry. Thus, the use of database isn't very effective in locating relevant materials for my topic.
Most of my classmate who used the database have generally agreed that database yield better results for their topics. This lead me to conclude that different research topics or materials require different search facilities to be effectively located. For mine, it seems that Meta Search and Google Search engines are more efficiency in generating relevant results compared to the database.
One advantage of the database is that it is maintained by a organisation or government body, hence its contents are of high-quality and authoritative. materials available on the web may have varying quality. Moreover, the referencing is neatly maintained, so that we do not need to waste time hunting for the details for our bibliography. I believe that using the database is extremely useful as I can easily find a diversity of software or programming guides for my course. The guides are compiled and written by respectable figures and will greatly benefit me.
As for my experience in Wiki, all I can say that it is extremely difficult to start a new page. You will have to set the entire format of the page so that future users can easily edit or add further information. Furthermore, it is difficult to tell whether the information that I have gathered is accurate or authoritative without others to check and edit. Thus, I respect those who started new Wikis that the communities can expand on it for others to enjoy.
However, I could not find relevant results relating directly to my topic e.g. my topic is USAGE of IT in the movie industry, while most of the results I found using the database are about HOW TO use a certain software in the movie industry. Thus, the use of database isn't very effective in locating relevant materials for my topic.
Most of my classmate who used the database have generally agreed that database yield better results for their topics. This lead me to conclude that different research topics or materials require different search facilities to be effectively located. For mine, it seems that Meta Search and Google Search engines are more efficiency in generating relevant results compared to the database.
One advantage of the database is that it is maintained by a organisation or government body, hence its contents are of high-quality and authoritative. materials available on the web may have varying quality. Moreover, the referencing is neatly maintained, so that we do not need to waste time hunting for the details for our bibliography. I believe that using the database is extremely useful as I can easily find a diversity of software or programming guides for my course. The guides are compiled and written by respectable figures and will greatly benefit me.
As for my experience in Wiki, all I can say that it is extremely difficult to start a new page. You will have to set the entire format of the page so that future users can easily edit or add further information. Furthermore, it is difficult to tell whether the information that I have gathered is accurate or authoritative without others to check and edit. Thus, I respect those who started new Wikis that the communities can expand on it for others to enjoy.
Reflection on Search facilities
For today's practical I did about the use of search facilities, namely the Meta search and Subject Directory.
Meta Search engines such as MetaCrawlerWeb is very useful for my reserach due to the way it works. Meta Search engines sends queries to multiple search engine and input the top few results and compile them together. This way, Meta search engine can produce a smaller range of results and yet maintain precision and accuracy of the search results. This can help to significantly shorten the time taken to locate materials for my research.
Howver, my experience with Subject Directory isn't very well at all. Firstly, my search query did not yield any viable result, all of them which are irrelevant. Thus, I prefer Meta search engines to Subject directory.
Sharing information using Wikis is a new experience for me. Before this CDS I have a brief idea of how Wikis such as the popular Wikipedia works. Basically, users can edit all the contents of Wikis, mistakes detected by users can be corrected. Additional information can be included by users to elaborate on topic.
HOWEVER, the topic I chose is EMPTY and all I see is a bloody blank page. Looks like I am the first to provide information and its up to the next batch to view and edit my work.
Meta Search engines such as MetaCrawlerWeb is very useful for my reserach due to the way it works. Meta Search engines sends queries to multiple search engine and input the top few results and compile them together. This way, Meta search engine can produce a smaller range of results and yet maintain precision and accuracy of the search results. This can help to significantly shorten the time taken to locate materials for my research.
Howver, my experience with Subject Directory isn't very well at all. Firstly, my search query did not yield any viable result, all of them which are irrelevant. Thus, I prefer Meta search engines to Subject directory.
Sharing information using Wikis is a new experience for me. Before this CDS I have a brief idea of how Wikis such as the popular Wikipedia works. Basically, users can edit all the contents of Wikis, mistakes detected by users can be corrected. Additional information can be included by users to elaborate on topic.
HOWEVER, the topic I chose is EMPTY and all I see is a bloody blank page. Looks like I am the first to provide information and its up to the next batch to view and edit my work.
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