Wk 10 - EIR wrapup

TIME REALLY FLIES.
It's the end of the course of my cds!



My EIR journey was like running in a Marathon.

15 weeks ago, I was at the starting line, worrying if I could last and pull through the whole course well amidst the many other subjects/projects/commitments I have.
In the middle there were rocky paths that I struggled through, such as the stress of wanting to submit a good portfolio and etc.
However, I have also seen a beautiful sceneries along the way, which were what I have learnt through each EIR lesson every week.
From evaluating a search engine to using boolean operators and also to evaluating a website with many different criteria.

Now, the marathon has ended.
We've all submitted out final portfolio!
I do not know what my final grade for the subject would be, but I am satisfied with the process as I have learnt many skills which I would not have if I was not in EIR.

One of the most important lessons I have learnt in EIR is not to take the Internet for granted.
There is so much to appreciate and learn about it.
I have never known so much about the Google.com I see in my homepage for the past many years!

I would like to specially thank Mdm Faridah for being such a patient and nice tutor to us, and also my group mates for making this experience a memorable one.

It was a good race ran, indeed. :)

Wk 8 & 9 - My Dream Holiday!

This week's EIR e-learning activity was very very interesting and exciting because I would get to travel to a place for my very own Dream holiday!
Since it's a DREAM holiday, I would choose somewhere in this world that I think I won't ever have the chance to go to unless I possess loads of cash...

The place I have chosen was inspired by this movie I watched earlier this year...


RIO!!!

This is an awesome animation movie about a blue parrot from this place known as Rio, located in Brazil. The setting for this whole movie is based on the true scenery from the real place!

As seen in the poster, that place is full of 'life', tropical forest, sand, and the sea!
That would be one of the reasons why I chose this place, because I simply love places with beautiful natural sceneries and warm people.
I didn't know this place existed till I caught the movie back in May, and everything there seems so lively!

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Firstly, I went to an online tourism website for Rio, known as www.rioholidays.com.
I evaluated the site with the criteria of 'COVERAGE'.



The subject area and materials covered about travelling in Rio on the website are very informative and comprehensive. On its homepage, photos of sceneries in Rio are showcased. It also has a side bar of topics such as 'Getting around' which intoduces us to the various small towns etc, 'Safety' which teaches us how to travel safely, and many more such as...


'Retaurants' which shows photos of yummy food and tells us where to dine at for good food!


'Entertainment' which tells us about the fun and night hangouts of Rio!

Hence, I feel that the website provides a rather intermediate level of detail each category of information, and is rather useful on the whole.

Here are some real life photos of Rio's scenery and its beaches:


COOL YEA?

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So, I got my secondlife avatar to fulfill this dream vacation of mine and here are some snapshots of my time there:


I managed to find Rio on the Destination Guide of the secondlife website!
It's known as Brasil Rio there.


I was then teleported to the place and there were many secondlife users online in that destination!
But they were all speaking in either Spanish or Brazillian language that I did not understand..


This is the 'plaza' or meeting place, I suppose.
Many avatars were gathered in this area.


Then, I managed to 'fly' around and explore the area!


A 'Brasil Rio' banner was projected through this lighthouse.
There was supposed to be a statue of 'Christ the Redeemer' behind me but my system crashed!
So sadly, I didn't manage to take a screenshot with it :(

The next day, I went back to Brasil Rio to continue exploring the place...

The 'shopping' area!


An awesome chillax' corner with a big swimming pool!


Another cosy spot that I would love to be at.. sipping a cup of cold icy juice with a book or a couple of friends~


The view of the SUNSET at Rio is just magnificent, even in this virtual manmade world.


I ended my trip with this best view of the sunset on top of a hill!

Apparently, the placed somehow changed from my first visit to the second because the statue I wanted to get a screenshot of was MISSING.
That's a bit of a disappointment but it's already sufficient with the ocean and sunset.

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Comparing my secondlife trip to the tourism website I have found on Rio, the 'Brasil Rio' in secondlife does have a few similar areas that feels very real and is almost exactly like the real Rio. The way they animated the ocean, the sky, and hills/mountains and the way sunlight was reflected on the sea looked so real. Secondlife also had its own fair share of 'shopping' area.

The only difference would be that there were no food featured and I myself would not be able to try out the food even if there was, cos everything is virtual haha! I wouldn't mind a more elaborated beach on secondlife too~

That's all for my Rio trip! :)

Wk 6 - Invisible web search

Second EIR lesson after the holidays!

Today Mdm. Faridah introduced us to the "Invisible web" otherwise known as a database that is not visible by the public. You have to be someone that is allowed access into the website to view the contents in it, sadly.
I realised that TP has its own invisible database as well!
But its only visible to the students and staff of the school.

During the lesson today, we got to explore one of it known as 'Ebscohost', available from the library website at spark.tp.edu.sg.


This is the home page for Ebscohost.


Ebscohost provides am advanced search function that is similar to other search engines, but it is much more detailed as seen in the screen shot above.


Of course, I tried to search for information/articles that is related to my research topic (Animation industry and USA).
There were quite a number of search results on animation, however, there was no article that was specific about both factors of my research topic...

In my opinion, the invisible web databases do still benefit us.
The information stored in the database are exclusive, which might be unavailable when the search is done on Google etc.
I would consider Ebscohost for research in my course of study in the Applied Science school as it does provide me with relevant articles and journals for my science subjects such as Mircobiology.
And the source would be more trust-worthy as well as it is compiled by the school.

Thus, I would not reject the idea of researching in the invisible web database again when doing projects for other subjects. I feel that I should not underestimate the effectiveness of the database just because I am 'not in luck' this time for EIR, haha!

Wk 4 & 5 - Portfolio 1 & Site feeding

Hi everyone :)
I am finally back to this space after a few weeks of not blogging!
We handed in the first part of our portfolio to Mdm Faridah a few weeks ago.
It was required for us to evaluate a normal search engine such as Google, and compare it with a META search engine such as Dogpile.
Through the project, I have learnt so much about internet search engines that I did not know before. I did not even know that META search engines exist.
They are very useful research tools as they show search results for information from many different databases such as Yahoo!, Bing, and Google itself, all at one go. Coooool.
I think it is beneficial as it would greatly enhance our search efficiency for our school projects and etc. It's all about speed and accuracy now.

I also did a mock 'wikipedia' project on the topic of "Animation industry and the USA" together with my group mates. The best part about collaborating when doing our wiki was the contribution of ideas and the free authority of editing the information as an when as we liked. But only adding in relevant info, of course.

For the start of the new term this week, we learnt about how to 'link' each other's EIR blogs in our own blog!
This is also given the term known as 'Site feeding'.
I feel that this idea of linking up blogs can help us to save time when we want to visit our friend's blog as their webpage would popup instantly without us typing any URLs.
I can also see exactly when they update their blogs.
Thus, this enable bloggers to link popular sites or even Youtube videos in their blog which they want to share with friends and readers.
It makes things more convenient.

This is the final 7-8 weeks for EIR, will focus and try to do well :D

Wk 2 & 3 - Blog reflections

Today in class, Mdm Faridah went through with us the different purposes of websites that are existing online. They are mainly classified as Business/marketing, Informative, Advocacy, News, Personal and Entertaining categories.

I feel that it is important for us to know a website's purpose as we would know what we are researching for. It enables us to better identify if we are on the correct internet resource or not. For example, the research topic given to me is 'Trends and developments in the US animation industry", I would not be able to find information on a website that might be advertising for softwares/equipments that they are selling. Although they are related to each other, the latter would be considered as a 'Business/Marketing' website. Only 'Informative' websites can provide me the answers for my research question. Thus, having some knowledge about the various website categories are useful and help in our research in future.

Save Our Environment - www.saveourenvironment.org/ is an advocacy website as it is created to influence the public to learn how to conserve resources in the place where they live. It also has campaigns and donation options that would want to garner the public's support for their cause. In comparison, Amazon - www.amazon.com, the website I used for my E-shopping activity, provides a platform for people to promote products they offer to sell. Money transactions are made in this website from one person to another to purchase a certain product involving no cause.
These two websites obviously serve different purposes altogether and should not be mixed up at all.

The most meaningful lesson I've learn in this week's lesson would be the correct categorizations of the different websites and their purposes. I only new a few categories such as websites that provide me with current news knowledge, websites that sell things, websites with information that act as resources for my research work. However, after attending this week's lesson, I am able to identify the website with its purpose and this would definitely help me in my research work next time!