Last week in EIR

Life is like a journey, there are many paths to take.

I think this metaphor really sums up what this semester is about. There were so many CDS for me to choose from and I chose the path of taking EIR.

I truly enjoyed the time during each EIR class, because I could learn many different ways to research on the internet and also because I had a fantastic teacher by the name of Miss Faridah whom is always so nice and willing to help us when needed.

The most important thing that I have learnt during EIR was how to research properly on Google and the different search engines to use when researching. As there will be many different projects for us to handle next time in the working world, I feel that all these information I have learnt this semester will help me to get the sources and information that I need faster.

As for my topic on the implications of legalizing euthanasia, I have learnt that the debate on this topic will go on forever as there are clearly many different view points and ethical issues in legalizing euthanasia. There are similar amount of good and bad points about legalizing that medical procedure, but I choose to stand on the side of legalizing it.

Reason being that even though it can cause a lot of more trouble to the community, I feel that if it is controlled very strictly, it can benefit people more than it harming people.

All in all, EIR was a fantastic subject which I am glad I have taken, if I have to say which CDS that I took was the best, I would definitely say it is EIR.

Dream Location to go

One of my dreams place to go is to Manchester, Old Trafford in England.

Since young, I have been a Manchester United supporter and I feel that the stadium is magnificent. I want to be able to go there to watch Manchester United play a match and see all the different soccer stars that I support, like Wayne Rooney and Ryan Giggs. Even though I can also watch the soccer match at home on television but then it will be different to watch a match live.

I also want to have a tour around the stadium. The stadium have a very rich history and have gone through many ups and downs. By having a tour around the stadium, I will be able to learn more things about the soccer club that I love and take photos of the things there.

As for the evaluation citeria, I have chosen presentation and information as the most important criteria. This is because through the images of the tourist destination, one will be persuaded to go there by just looking through the pictures and learning about the place.

I feel that for a tourism website, the use of graphics is one of the most important factor. This is because the potential tourist would want to know how the place that he/she wants to go look like. As it is important that it catches the attention of the potential tourist especially for those who have not decided on their destination for a vacation.

The providing of the information is also important as people will want to know about the place even though they have seen the picture. Reason is because, even though the place is very beautiful, if the culture there is of no interest to the tourist, and the website did not provide the information about it, he/she will lose faith in that travel agency as he/she will feel that they have been cheated and thus the agency will lose a customer.

STOMP

Some of the criterias that I have applied include:

1) Purpose

The purpose of Stomp is to spread soft news or gossips to the general public. It is also to promote journalism within the community. Stomp has recognized the fact that the younger generation are not too bothered about hard news going around the world. Thus, they decided to start a website for people to get updates on soft news such as gossips, rumors and much more. This is seen as a great form of entertainment for the local community, especially for the younger generation. It is also another great channel to reach out to the younger population within Singapore to promote citizen journalism.

2) Currency

News that is in the website is updated regularly and discussion on forums are usually on the current agenda. The most recent news or the more popular ones are usually presented on the home page while the past ones are abit harder to find as we will have to scroll through the archives.

3) Accessibility

The website is also easily accessible to anyone and everyone. One example being the Ris Low Saga, where everyone was able to access the humuliating interview with her which then made it a huge issue within Singapore. However, to post comments and to take part in discussion forums, one has to register for an account to access such sections of the website. I think that this is an integral part of the website as it cuts down on degrading posts and if anyone were to break the rules, administrators will be able to flag such users, blocking them from the website if necessary and increasing the protection for younger users.

As for sharing views through wiki, I feel that it is a fantastic way for us to share our views and information on one page. Because unlike blogs, I don't have to search through the archives to find backdated information, it is just there. You can also add in anything if you ever feel that there are more information that can be added in.

EIR Practical 6

Generally, I feel that it is more effective to search for relevant information using invisible web database, like Academic Search Premier and ERIC, compared to using other search facilities available.

Here are the reasons why,

1) Resources are reliable

2) All hits will mostly be relevant to research questions

3) Gives lots of resources that includes Academic Journals and Magazines.

As a student of Temasek Polytechnic, I have been given access to a variety of databases. This allows me to expand my search on my research topic on these databases to find any relevant information.

However, even though all these information that I find will be reliable, the resources will be a heavy read to anyone because one of these journals can be up to 10 pages of text with the text is of a very small font! This is especially a challenge for me as it is just 10 pages full of text with no illustration, unlike other search engines like Google.

During the course of my study in Communications and Media Management, I had to make use of the Academic Premier to do a literature review for a module call Basic Media Research. I had to come up with my own research topic and then find research journals from the Academic Premier to back up my research topic. Thus, using these databases became a norm for me as I have to go on each day to find enough journals to support whatever I came up with.

I did not have much information to share on the wiki page as I haven't had time once again to research on my topic. However, I have started during the tutorial and found there are different type of euthanasia. There is voluntary euthanasia, non-voluntary euthanasia and involuntary euthanasia.

Voluntary euthanasia is that people is suffering and want to be killed. Non-voluntary euthanasia is that the people is unable to make the decision or make their wishes known. Involuntary euthanasia is that the people don't want to die but they are killed nonetheless.

Week 4

Benefits

Through the usage of all the different search facilities like the normal search engine like Google, or Meta search engine like Metacrawler or subject directories like Yahoo Directories, it allowed me to get more results when researching for the resources that are related to my topic.

Each of these search engines have their pros and cons. From all the lessons that I have taken so far in EIR, I have learnt a lot about the different strengths and weaknesses of using the different search engines.

For example, although Google gives me the most results most of the time, it might have some websites that are totally irrelevant to what I am searching for or maybe the information inside the website is just a personal view and not credible at all.

As for Meta search engines, it collects the top hits from all the other popular search engines, thus, if lets say Google misses out on anything, the meta search engine will be able to pick it up and show it in it's result.

Finally, for Yahoo Directories, there are categories for me to choose from and it also only show me about the results that are most relevant to my research question. This means that I would not really have to go through all the different results given to check whether it is relevant to what I asked for and waste time.

With all these different factors in mind, now I know better on which search engine I should use when researching for my topic question.

Use of site feeds

Site feeds allow me to keep in touch with all the different websites that I like to view, let it be a blog or a news service. It reduces the time needed for me to type in the URL of the website that I will be visiting and if there are updates from the website, I will be updated about it. Although many people feel that the site feeds is a useless tool, I feel that when a person subscribes to multiple RSS feeds, it will be a time-saver for him/her.

Collaboration with other students

To be honest, I have not really start sharing my views and information on the topic's wiki page due to lack of time from the other modules in my course. However, I have seen the work done by the previous students and I feel that I have learnt a lot of the page itself than other website that I have visited. And the best part about the wiki page is that I don't have to worry whether the source is credible! Because there are citations below to show me the websites that the people get their information from if ever I should doubt the things they say there.

3rd Week in EIR

Hi! I have been busy so did not have time to update my blog. This week, I am going to talk about what I have learnt a couple of weeks back.

A few weeks back, we learnt about the different search functions and features of Google. I was deeply impressed by what I was thought!

To be honest, I always thought that researching is all about just typing the whole question that you want to ask into the search box. But because of that, I always have a lot of websites that are totally not relevant to the things that I was searching for.

I never knew that there was actually a way to type out specifically on what you want to search! Using the “AND”, “OR” and the open and close brackets, I managed to narrow down the topic that I was researching about! It was an eye opener for me as many redundant results that were there in the beginning disappeared!

From now on, I would definitely use all these things that I learnt to make sure that all the different search results would all be useful for me and help make my work much easier!

I also participated in a discussion forum about my research topic this week as well! It was an all right for me as I used to be active in many other forums but I found the things that other people said to be very helpful in my research. Everyone seemed very kind and helpful towards me.

During the course of my studies, I had to do many reports that have requires me to do citations and bibliography. I feel that these two things are important in a report as we should always credit the person or book or paper that we took our information from. Another reason is also because of the fact that if we don’t do these two things, we will be accused of plagiarism which will make us fail instantly as well!

2nd Week in EIR

Today is the 2nd lesson for EIR

I have learnt about all the differnt types of internet websites that we can do our research from and the history of how the internet came about! The internet was created during the world war 2 by the United States of America for war. It was then revolutionised to suit the consumers after the war so as to aid learning.

The different types of internet website that we can get our research from are from Blogs, wikipedia, e-journals, discussion forums and so on. Of course we would have to look through the content of these websites first before using them as reference as not everything on the internet is factual.

We were also given a task of researching on a topic that we have chosen. I chose, the topic on
the implications of legalising euthanisia and assisted suicide.

I chose this topic as I felt that it would widen my general knowledge of all these things as I research on them through the process of learning in the EIR course.

OH! I almost forgot about this, we were given like an imaginary 500 dollars to spend on EIR, for me, i would first buy books about photography as I am quite into them and I would definitely be interested in be better at it.

The books that I would buy would be these few,

The Digital Photography Book, Volume 1-3 (Paperback)

These few books will add up to like 60 dollars.

I will also buy a few games to play on my Playstation 3, like Fifa 10, Uncharted 2, Demon's Soul and Rachet and Clank: A Crack In Time.

FIFA 10

Uncharted 2

Rachet and Clank: A Crack in Time



Demon's Soul

All these games would cost about $70 each. So i would have spent about $280 on these games. So for now, I would have spent about $340 already.

For the rest of the money, I would spend it on treating my family and friends to dinner at a nice restaurant. And of course I would invite you along Miss Faridah!