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Thursday, November 25, 2010 4th eir lesson update! Meta Search Engine vs Subject Directory. 안녕하세요! :D (Annyeonghasaeyo, that's hello in korean!) It's time for another update! My eir blog is about one month old already! Decided to give it a revamp, like the new look? Hope you do! :) In this lesson, we were assigned to evaluate the effectiveness of various search engines. What are the websites that comes to your mind upon search engines? Google? Yahoo? Oh c'mon, don't you have any other special websites besides these two? Well, fret not because I'm going to introduce some interesting and super useful search engines that you've probably never come across! Search engines like google and yahoo have their own databases of different websites. Today, I'm going to share with something called Meta Seach Engines! Unlike search engines like gooogle and yahoo, Meta Search engines return you results of your topic from various search engines! Meta Search Engines does not have databases of their own. In this case, you'll get everything relevant to your topic from almost everywhere without the need of searching one by one, from google to yahoo then to msn and so on! Isn't this like super amazing? :D This is made really convenient especially for students like us, that often have to do research work on projects. Can't wait to try the Meta Search Engines? Let me share a few with you!  MetaCrawler  Mamma It's super cool isn't it? Look at the name, Mamma, mother of all search engines, totally fits its functions perfectly! :) Next, we were also told to evaluate subject directories too! In case you've no idea what subject directories are, they list sites categorised by topic and location. This is convenient when you want to find resources pertaining to a specific topic. To show you an example, this is a search I've conducted on Yahoo Directory using my topic. To get to my topic through the categories, I clicked on Directory>Science>Earth Sciences>Geology and Geophysics>Volcanology>Volcanoes.  Simple isn't it? Nowadays, researching seems to be almost as easy as ABCs! :) If I were to compare 2, I would definitely prefer Meta Search Engines because it's super awesome! It almost seemed as if I can get anything I need there! Meta-search engine is more effective in helping me to find resources related to my research topic since it is able to collate relevant and focused resources according to my needs at one go. It is totally different from subject directory since results are based on the subject chosen with the directory, not according to whatever is typed on the search bar. 0 comments Virtual shopping spree on Second Life! Hello people! It's time for another round of update! Today, I'll be blogging about my experience on Second Life, it's a virtual interactive world, in case if you don't know :) I've spent quite an amount of time on it since it's my first time using SL. I would say the overall experience was quite good! So, what is it that I love most about this virtual experience that I can't get in real life? It's be flying!!! :D It has always been a dream for man to fly around, just like birds, freely everywhere! However, we are not equipped with that ability. This is totally not the case in SL as all characters are granted the ability to fly around! Super cool isn't it? I was totally fascinated by that! If you think flying is too slow for you, SL has the teleporting function! Yes! You can teleport to wherever you want to, that's even better isn't it? Imagine if we're able to teleport around in the real world, there wouldn't be any traffic jams and we can save travelling time! It's superrrr awesome! As assigned, we were told to do some virtual shopping by visiting some sites! Even though like I mentioned in my first post that I love shopping, I did not forget about this assignment and took pictures! Take a look at some screenshots I took while shopping!  One of the shops selling lots of skirts!   My favourite shop! Look at the range of products they're selling! It's a haven for girls!!! :D  Another awesome shop selling apparels. This experience is totally different from the online shopping I did previous posts back! One main reason is that the things I bought here can only be worn by my character in SL, while for the real e-shopping, I'm able to get the real purchased objects and use it myself! This also explains why the clothes at SL are much cheaper than in real life! :) Another great thing I love about SL is that it allows me to customise the appearance of my character! No plastic surgery required, free of charge and you can decide how you want to look like! Everyone on the streets can be super pretty and handsome in SL! It's really fun to customise your outfit my matching the clothes yourself! :D   Throughout this e-learning trip at SL, I was also able to meet people from different places! I think it's a great thing for people to have an opportunity to interact and learn new things from different people! It's always great to make new friends, isn't it? :)  One main thing I've learnt through this experience was the advancement in technology! I'm quite impressed by the options available for us, users to choose and interact with. The graphics is pretty well done too! I'm pretty sure this would be quite impossible 10 years ago? I've learnt another valuable lesson about how society is advancing and having internet access is simple awesome!!! Computers are indispensable nowadays, seriously! One most challenging experience I had was figuring how to navigate around to different places in the map! Fortunately the orientation island helped me alot and familiarised myself how to use SL properly! The connected with SL was also quite laggy as well, but overall, it didn't affect the pleasant experience I had with SL! :) 0 comments 3rd lesson! Google vs Google Scholar. Hey readers! It's me again! :D I think that EIR lessons are getting more and more interesting as I get to learn more interesting and super cool things! Let's play a game... SPOT THE DIFFERENCE!!!   Ta-da! Look at these 2 pictures here, sorry for the poor quality! Super similar right? If I didn't choose EIR as my cds, I think I'll never realise the difference between the two! Hahaha. These two websites look very similar, but they are not! Yes, obviously they are still Google search engines, but, there's more to it! The picture at the top is actually Google Scholar while the one at the bottom is the one most of us know, Google! I've always been a big fan of Google since I love how simple the template is, and returns me with comprehensive results. I always get what I want with Google. However, now I introduce to you... Google Scholar! Despite Google being really useful, I still find problems while researching for sources like articles etc. This problem can be solved now! I found out that Google Scholar actually provides a search of scholarly literature across many disciplines and sources, including theses, books, abstracts and articles. Impressive or not? At least I'm super impressed! :D During lessons today, we're also introduced to discussion forums and even took part in one through Facebook! Forums are really new to me and I never thought it could be that interesting! I get to see opinions and comments of different people , at the same time giving myself an opportunity to think further about the topic discussed, perhaps relating to something I wouldn't be able to think of by myself. Initially, it felt rather awkward interacting with someone you don't know, but as time goes by, I gradually got used to it. It was a great experience for me! I've created a forum topic about volcanic eruptions. Do drop by and share your comments! Click HERE!  Going through e-lecture notes, we've got the chance to learnt the proper way of citation and bibliography. All of us sure do know that plagarism is a no-no, and we should all give credits to whatever sources that we took references from. Learning an official way of doing that is beneficial because it's need almost everywhere, be it in school or at work. I'm sure no one would like their work to be proclaimed by another as their own! They also serve as a guide for people that want to find out more about the original work. Hope you've enjoyed what I've shared about my 3rd lesson! Check back soon! :) 0 comments E-Shopping Spree - If I have $500! :) Yes, just like what you've seen on the title of this post entry, I'll be blogging a bit about shopping! To be more precise, it'd be online shopping! Remember back in my first post, I mentioned that my favourite past time was shopping? You'll be surprised to know that even though I love shopping, I've never ever once, attempt to purchase anything online before! For the recent assignment, we were told to blog about items we would shop for online, if we were to be given $500. Honestly speaking, $500 can easily get me lots and lots of clothes, but I wouldn't bear to spend that much on clothes at one go! Instead, I'd most probably spend on electronics, since I personally think that electronics are something that still have their worth even after buying it for some time :) So, what is it that I'd purchase? Deng deng deng deng... It'll be the highly raved gadget of the year, iPhone 4!!! :D  Credits: Google Images I suppose all of us are already quite familiar with the iPhone 4, but if you don't, let me show you a video about it. Since a picture speaks a thousand words, a video should be able to speak a million words right? (Just joking! :P) I know it has been out for some time, and since there're already so many users around, it's nothing special isn't it? Well, I do agree that iPhone 4 is getting really common, but I really like it because I love to play with the apps! :D As I said earlier, I've never tried shopping online before. The main reason was because I was uncertain of the reliability and quality that the shops would provide, such as blogshops selling clothes. Thus, I'm more willing to purchase items from organisational websites, such as the Apple store! This phone would cost around $480-$500 if I were to purchase it with a phone line, which fits the budget perfectly! 0 comments Second lesson! :) Hello people! It's me again, updating my eir blog! Missed me? (Hahaha just kidding!) :D During lessons today, we were told to choose a topic so that we can learn more about researching with it for our portfolio! It was really exciting because all of us were contemplating which topic to choose, out of the 22 topics available. At the same time, we had to try to avoid choosing the same topics as other classmates so that we won't be chose to do the first topic, which seems hard to me, hahaha! :/ Luck was on my side, because I got a topic that I wanted! :) The topic I've chosen was: "Discuss the causes and effects of volcanic eruptions on society". Frankly speaking, I was really exhilarated! I'm not a science person since young, but this topic really did appealed to me! Volcanic eruptions had always been a prominent issue, quoting an example of the eruption that occurred at Iceland just a few months back. This incident caught my attention because it actually created problems like delays and congestion at airport as aircrafts are unable to operate with the volcanic ash that hindered visibility. Everything that could relate itself to aviation is mostly interesting to me! :] Thus, I'm sure this topic would allow myself to spur even more motivation and enthusiasm while researching it! :D This is a video of live footage of the Iceland Volcano I've just mentioned! All of us began the initial stage of researching straight after choosing our topic! It was rather intriguing for me since I know nothing about volcanos in the first place! After studying for about 1 and a half years at TP, I thought I'm already quite good at researching, considering the projects that I've done throughout the past semesters! EIR made me realised I was completely wrong! Previously, all I did to get the information I wanted was to simply enter the topic that I want to know more about on Google and tada, I get the lists of things I needed. EIR proved that there were more to it! I got to know that different categorization of websites could provide me which different kinds of information, from the reliability of the author, to different perspectives provided by people! To summarise, firstly, organizational websites tend to provide official information, very clear cut about the message they want to convey. This is my favourite category of websites because the reliability of the website is the highest. The last thing I would want while researching for anything is to get any information that is incorrect or unreliable. Secondly, e-magazine/journal provides more of factual information, such as news articles with general statistics provided, and also professional opinions. Indeed, the reliability of these websites are pretty high as well, but then again, we all know that articles are capable of swinging in any way. Thus, this would not be my first choice during research. Thirdly, blog! Blogs could be written by authors from all over the world! Just like you reading my blog, I'm the author of this blog as well! This brings me to the point that with different blogs, we're able to get different viewpoints and opinions from different people of various races, backgrounds and professions. This would be advantageous when we want to know people's thoughts about a certain topic or issue, but not when we want to obtain specific datas. Morever, there might be some form of confirmation bias by the author, so information might tend to be inaccurate in certain circumstances. Lastly, discussion forums. I think that discussion forums and blogs are rather similar for the fact that people from all over the world can discuss about a common issue/topic. It's a great platform for netizens to voice out their opinions or views, while readers can either take their stand or simply take them as a reference. That's my take on these different categories of websites! Feel free to leave your comments! :D Stay tuned for my next update on e-shopping spree! 0 comments |
The name is Jing Yi, Sheron. I'm 18 turning 19, birthday falls on 09April. I study in TP AMS P903, I wanna fly, to the ends of where the sky will finally lead to. Random facts? I love dogs! To be exact, I love my little doggy like crazyyyyy, he's my megalove :] I'm a die-hard fan of sweets, chocolates, icecream and stuffs. I may look fierce, but I don't bite! C: Wanna know more about me? You just have to keep reading ;D the sites. Blogger EIR-RAWKZ Second Life friends. Donovan Jun Siang other websites. twitter plurk formspring facebook October 2010 November 2010 December 2010 January 2011 Designer : Chili. x o x o |