Welcome back to my blog…

For today’s topic..I want to share about how tired, fun, enjoy and satisfy I am in doing my new job…

Being a Jaksa make me tired…

Sometimes…

People keep blaming each other, about small matter…

I also do not understand…

So…let me share about our vacation to Redang Island, Terengganu…

We went there for about 5 days…Very enjoyable and fun activities we have done there…We stayed at Berjaya Redang Beach Resort…hurm…very convenience…the scenery…very beautiful…with white sandy beaches…and…greenish sea…the best thing is the delicious cuisines there… I am really enjoying myself there…hope to be there again…

Happy blogging!

Hello everyone!

Welcome back to my blog.

This is my last posting for this semester. First of all, I want to give a very warm thank you to my beloved instructor, Datin Dr Norizan Abdul Razak for her all support and guidance until I can finish up my blog. As for this assignment, we have been asked to answer all the questions that has been posted in the e-learning portal.

1. Do you think that blogging activity improves your writing skill?

If yes what area if not why

Yes, I do think that blogging activity did improve my writing skill. In my own opinion, being able to write on my own, I am feeling really free to do so, without any obstacle because I can write about what come in my mind without afraid of being laugh by other people. Blogging also help me to develop my confidence and writing skills. There are no one dare to laugh at me if I am doing mistakes but they can give me some comments and I can do correction on my previous mistakes.

2. Do you think that blog is a useful learning experience for you?

If yes to what extend is it useful, enjoyable, practical and effective.

If not why

Yes. It is because learning how to create and maintaining a blog is really a very useful idea and a very convenient way to learn a new method of learning. It is enjoyable because we can write on whatever we want. Other than that, we can also decorate our page with creative materials such as added a slide show, pictures, background music and lot more. It is practical because we do not read a blog but we learn how to manage and maintain it in our own way and stile. As for me, blogging is more effective than studying via reading books. Blogging s more relax and enjoyable compare to reading a book.

3. What do you think that you need to know before you can complete the blogging activity successfully.

In my point of view, as a student, we need to be taught on how to create and maintain our blog before our instructor asked us to create a blog. Blogging activities are really enjoyable and everyone should try it. Next, we must at first know about how to change the layout, using RSS, how to put music videos and pictures, and lot more creative items.

4. What are your problems that you face using blog

There are a lot of problems that I have to face before I manage to finish up my blog. For example, when I first decided to do blogging using WordPress, I found it is hard to change my page layout. So, I have made up my mind to just select one of the themes that already have in WordPress. Next, I found it is hard for me to communicate with my friends using blog. I may write comments to them but they rarely reply to my comments. This is due to they are busy maintaining their blog until they forget to take note on what others comments.

5. Will you tell your friends, recommend to others about blogging?

Yes, I will recommend to others about blogging. Since one of my friend, Alin, look like really interested in doing blogging activities, so, I have asked her to do a blog on her own too. I also ask her to do blogging using WordPress because WordPress is more likely suitable for a beginner like us.

6. Now that you are able to blog online will you continue using it even after the SKBP is over? 

Honestly, I will continue blogging because I found that blogging activity is one of the best ways on how to convey a message and doing online journal can make me feel satisfied. I can write whatever I want as long as it is legal. In my future plan, I want to make my blog as my online diary as everyone can enjoy my story, my opinions and my interests. As I am really interested in reading all sorts of books like magazines (Cleo, Her World, Readers Digest, Cosmopolitan), novels, newspapers and lot more, I want to share my point of view about the newest reading materials that I have read. I also love fiction movies like Harry Potter, so, I hope that I can share my interests with other people too.

That is all for this semester.

Hope you enjoy viewing my site.

Happy blogging!

Welcome back to my blog.

As for today’s activities, we have been asked by our instructor to do some quizzes and online activities. Here are my results from the activities.

Electronic Malaysian English Competency Test – Reading Test (Set 1)

Score: 23 out of 35  - 66%

Time Taken: 44m 1s 

My experience

When my instructor, Datin Dr Norizan Abdul Razak tell us about the test, what comes first into my mind just about computer. I am not really good in handling a computer but I already have some basic needs on how to handle a computer. So, during the night before the test, I read a little bit on computer reference book that is ‘Discovering Computer 2008’. What surprise me during the test is one of the test was handled in Malay language. I began to nervous and I cannot focus on the test. Furthermore, people keep asking each other about what is the meaning of

certain items. That was really disturbing me until I cannot give my full attention on the test.

During the first test, everything was running out smoothly. Although I did not get high marks on the test, but I can understand the text although some of the article is using higher level of English. As for the test, I get 66%. I hope that I will have another chance to repeat the test.

In the second test, there are a lot of terms that I cannot recognize because I have only learned computer usage using English language. Some of the terms are:

·      ‘cakera liut’ refer to ‘compact disc’

·      ‘enjin pencarian’ refer to ‘search engine’

I think that we should know the answer for each question. Since there is no answer has been showed; only marks, students does not know which question they do it correctly and which question they answer wrongly.

So, I hope, in the future, the test will be on English language,  we can see how they mark the question, and we can do some correction.

Happy blogging!

This is my 4th posting.

For this week’s assignment, we, the students of SKBP1023, Language and ICT course, has been asked from our instructor, Datin Dr Norizan to write about concordance. As for this assignment, we have to do it in pairs. So, my friend, Soba, and I have decided to do it together. During last week tutorial class, we are in a discussion about the occurrences and uses of concordance.

The concordance is a program that looks into each word class in detail and lists in-sequential alphabets as a whole.

The concordance dialogue was with regards to the occurrences of prepositions ‘about’ and ‘above’. 

The functions of prepositions ‘about’ can be twofold.

Firstly, the prepositions are used to denote ‘on the topic of subject of’.

Examples: ‘who told me all this about my poor mother’, ‘did not often think about him’, ‘many voices about me’.

Secondly, the prepositions are added to the phrasal verbs functioning as adverbs.

Examples: ‘I tried to move about’, ‘feared that, in moving about…’, ‘when all were running about in wild alarm’.

Third, they are used to refer to ‘approximately’ or ‘not exactly’ and.

Example: ‘When I was about sixteen’, ‘by the road, but only about four’, and ‘an errand to a place about seven miles’.  

The function of ‘above’ is to denote ‘higher on a scale of measuring’.

Examples:  ‘not above half-an-hour’s walk from…’, ‘might not be above his comprehension’. 

The article of Beyond Concordance Lines: Using Concordances to Investigate Language Development written by Arshad Abd. Samad investigates language development based on data in the EMAS corpus. English of Malaysian school students or EMAS corpus used in this study was collected in 2002 and consists of close to half million words (Arshad et al., 2002) It contains written data in the form of three essays written by about 800 students from year 5 of primary school, Form 1 and Form 4 of secondary school. Data in the corpus were taken in three age groups. The article assume that developmental patterns can be implied by comparing the language use of the three different age groups and are examined by studying the language productivity and vocabulary use of the student. The amount of language produce related to language productivity meanwhile vocabulary use more to the sophistication of the vocabulary.

This article wants to show and highlight the relevance of corpus data in investigating language development without having to analyze concordance lines. The results of the concordance and analysis based on written data of the three age groups indicate some form of development in terms of language production and vocabulary range. The most important the article also wants to show that corpus data can be analyzed to inform language educators of language development.

To sum up, from the ‘Online Teaching and Learning’’ book states that concordance has been widely applauded for forms of dictionaries and teaching materials. Such examples of concordance programs include Wordsmith, MonoConc Pro and Microconcord. They are also utilized to explain how words and grammatical are constructed and to analyze language as systematic unit, not just a boring rule to follow. In the study that has been reported, the use of concordance can help us widen our language productivity and expand our vocabulary usage.

Articles on the application of concordance.

http://law.lexisnexis.com/literature/ConcordanceWP.pdf

http://llt.msu.edu/vol5num3/pdf/v5n3.pdf

Example of the applications of concordance in translation.

http://omegatplus.sourceforge.net/applications.html

Hello everyone!

Welcome back to my blog.

As for this third posting, my instructor want me to share with all of you here about the impact of using ICT/wireless technology in education. I went to Tun Seri Lanang Library and search for the information in the online database. At first, I have found it is quite difficult to master using some databases like EBSCOHOST and LISA NET but at last, I have decided to do the researches via SCOPUS. There are thousands of articles and journals that you can found in here. You should try it on your own.

What is ICT?

According to www.servicedesk.unimelb.edu.au/knowledgebase/itservices/a-z/i.html , ICT is:

Stands for Information and Communications Technology In other words, it can mean almost anything that’s new and relevant to communications. This includes the Internet, mobile telephony, satellite communications and digital television over cable or aerials.
Reference: www.iab.ie/FAQs/DefinitionofTerms/

What are the impact of using ICT in education?

As all of us now, ICT plays a very important role in todays education field. Almost every subject in schools, colleges or universities use ICT and computerized technology as the source and method of learning especially for Science subjects such as Physics, Chemistry and Science. There are vaarious impact that can be discuss further especially in education.

What is education means?

According to www.wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn - Definition in context ,

Education, short for formal education, is the organized teaching and training of students. Education is the application of pedagogy, a body of theoretical and applied research relating to teaching and learning. …
Reference: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education

PDA

ICT is very important and synonym with education nowadays and so the importance of using PDA in education. After doing some research in Tun Seri Lanang Library databases, here are some of the benefits that we can get from using PDAs in educational sector such as in schools, colleges, universities and educational department.

1. Based on the research that has been done in  Portable Digital Assistants (PDAs) in dentistry: Part II – Pilot study of PDA use in the dental clinic

·        Investigates the use of PDAs by undergraduates.

 ·        Irrespective of their ICT skills, all students in the study were able to use the devices and complete online questionnaires.

·        Security issues and the measures taken when connecting mobile devices to a wireless network or the internet are addressed.

·        Describes how the least liked features — poor battery life and memory — are now largely overcome by the newer PDA devices.

This research has been made to describe a simple technical evaluation of the access, security issues and uses of wireless networked PDAs in a dental clinic and report a pilot study investigating students’ educational use of PDAs to access a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) in a dental clinic.

As a result, this research shows that more than 90% of participants wanted PDAs as part of their dental kit. More than 75% of participants to having access to online support materials, particularly videos, being able to make notes for individual study and to keep a diary of their commitments to teaching sessions. This shows that PDA can benefit all of us. PDAs also can be use to playing games and keeping a diary.

 Reference: www.nature.com 

1. Based on the research that has been done on Personal Digital Assistants in Psychiatric Education by John S. Luo, M.D. and Hendry Ton, M.D.

There are various administrative and clinical applications for PDA use in psychiatric care and review the process for implementation in an academic medical center.

There are also a lot of articles regarding to this issue in this website. If you want to know more, you can log on to the website on your own.

In short, PDA plays a very important role in medical education. There are various functions and roles that PDA can play. For example, it can be used as a reference tool, in clinical care, and in training documentation.

Reference: http://ap.psychiatriconline.org 

BLUETOOTH

According to www.wikipedia.com, bluetooth provides a way to connect and exchange information between devices such as mobile phones, laptops, personal computers, printers, GPS receivers, digital cameras, and video game consoles over a secure, globally unlicensed short-range radio frequency. Bluetooth enables these devices to communicate with each other when they are in range. The devices use a radio communications system, so they do not have to be in line of sight of each other, and can even be in other rooms, as long as the received transmission is powerful enough. 

Most of us use bluetooth in our life especially for students and teenagers. They use bluetooth to exchange songs, videos and pictures with one another. There are various types of bluetooth.

This chart shows how bluetooth works in different places…

 There are a lot of electronic devices containing bluetooth software. For examples, telephones, phones, printers and modems. As for educational purposes, bluetooth can be use to send information like simple notes, pictures or graphs within one another in class or other places. Teachers also can teach their students to use bluetooth as one of the ways in taking notes. Furthermore, online learning is very easy to follow. Students also can save some of their quality time to do other beneficial works by just sending and receiving notes via bluetooth.

Reference: 1. www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluetooth                        

                   2. www.electronics.howstuffworks.com/bluetooth.htm                        

                        3. www.palowireless.com/infotooth/whatis.asp

HANDPHONES

There are a lot of benefits that we can get from using hand phone in educational sectors like in schools and colleges.

 First of all, if you, as a student, get into trouble, you can call your parents or police easily. As all of us know, there are a lot of ‘missing children’ problems happened nowadays. By using hand phone, parents can easily track where their children are and their children safety will be guaranteed. Other than that, teachers also can easily check whether their students have safely reach their home or not especially during monsoon season.

Furthermore, deaf and dumb students can get a lot of advantages from using hand phone. By using SMS (short messaging system), they can easily contact with their friends including their normal friends. By using SMS, they can communicate with one another without using voice. This method can bring a very good relationship between a deaf and dumb student and a normal student. On the other hand, a blind student also can make a voice call using his hand phone. This can make sure that he is safe and he knows where to ask for help in case of emergency happen.

Next, you can buy a new hand phone in a lower price now compare to the first time hand phone was published in advertisements and newspapers. Hand phone now is affordable. Even a primary school student affords to buy a hand phone.

 By using hand phone, we can communicate with each other and can easily ask for opinions, problem solving and lot more. Students also can easily contact their teachers if they need. But remember, never call your teacher during midnight!

Reference:              

  www.mobile88.com/news/read.asp?file=/2006/1/12/20060112213741&sec=news

 www.degrees.waldenu.edu     

  SATELLITE

You may refer to the picture of satellite in the beginning of this posting.

Satellite works well in educational sector as it can capture a good view of the planet Earth and many more. Students can get exactly picture of the planet. This can make education and learning become more interesting and everyone will be enjoying it.

 Other than that, satellite also plays a very important role in internet, communication and telecommunications world. Without satellite, we cannot access to the internet and wireless technology. In other words, our educational and learning system will be slow down and stuck. There will be limitations in expanding our knowledge because when we cannot access to the internet, we, especially the students, cannot get enough source of education and information.

Other than that, we cannot access to the television because without telecommunication satellite, we cannot watch the television programs. Life will be not fun as now.

Reference: www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite

 Summary

As a student, ICT gadget plays a very big role in our daily life. I do not have a PDA because I cannot afford to have one. But if I am giving opportunities to own a PDA, I will own one. PDA can make our life simpler. We do not need to bring our diary or daily planner anymore. Everything will be just in one PDA. Students, including me own a handphone. So, I think handphone is affordable and anyone can have it. Furthermore, it is very useful gadget too. In short, all technological gadget such as satellite, handphone, bluetooth and PDA play a very big role in educational sector. So, use it wisely.

Happy blogging!

References:

Journal of Information Technology Education Voloume 2, 2003, Trkman, Peter and     Baloh, Peter_Faculty of Economics_University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia : Use     of a Model for Information Technology

DOAJ-Directory of open access journals: International Journal of Education and    Development using ICT > vol 4, No.1 (2008)

Dalsgaard, Christian, Institute of Information and media Studies_University of Aarhus    _Helsingforsgade 14_DK-8200 Aarthus N, Denmark; Pedagogical quality in e-learning    , Designing e-learning from a learning theoretical approach.

International Education Journal, 2005, 6(5), 635-650.

ISSN 1443-1475 © 2005 Shannon Research Press.

http://iej.cjb.net

Hi everyone!

Welcome back to my blog. During the first time my instructor, Datin Dr Norizan mention about our second posting, I begin to get confuse of what I should write in my second posting. Nothing on my mind! As for today’s posting is about computer assisted writing, I have found a very interesting opinion from Zurina Mat Saman (zuriena.blogspot.com) which I want to share with all of you here.

“Giving an opportunity to write what you feel and what you think in blogspot is a very excellent idea. In this case, students have chances to articulate their feeling and thought freely, without any obstacles. It allows me to express and record my feelings and to access insights and strengths that I may otherwise miss. It is also allows me to express my feelings, experiences, dreams, ideas, desires, thoughts and many more, for reflecting on now, and in the future. I am telling my story to myself without fear, and without  worry that others will correct my mistakes on the spot… Sometime, I can use this blog as a medium to deliver my opinion to others, the thing that I cannot do in class, as if I am the king because nobody will say No! you are wrong here and I know that I am always right here.”

Activities in computer assisted writing

 There are several ways that one can use to improve their writing using computer assisted writing. In the world nowadays, internet and computer plays very important role to develop new lifestyle and help people to live in the simplest and easiest way. When we say about writing, I am sure all of us will feel uncomfortable because we always afraid that people may laugh at us if we spell wrong words and when we say about computer assisted writing, I am sure, we will definetely feel the same way as when we write in front of the class. Now, the world has changed. We can write online and get immediate feedback via internet in various programs such as online tuition and doing exercises in certain websites. For example, in this course, when we post our assignments, our instructor will give immediate feedback via internet by leaving comments in the shape of ideas and instructions. After I read my coursebook-Online Teaching and Learning in ELT, I have found that online writing has giving some opportunities and space for students and especially the one who just started blogging-like me!, to expand their knowledge in the cyber world. In the same time, we can see that online writing is actually encourage students to be creatical thinker and dare to think in creative way. Because the online writing is handle in a site, students began to gain their courage to write without feeling ashame if they are doing mistakes because their instructor only guide them in private. Referring to the researches that has been done in the OTL Coursebook, there are different results has shown about the performance of students on online and offline writing course. The research show that there was no obvious difference between the performance of the online and offline students in term of their coursework. However, the mean of the end of semester exam and the final exam differ in the offline students seemed to do better. If you want further information, please refer to OTL Coursebook, page 14. In both online and offline course, students are required to submit their assignments in hard copy form. This show that most of the online students resorted to face-to-face interaction to inquire about their assignments. Compare to the online mode, the offline classes still had another three week of class with their teachers after their assignment was submitted. They might used the extra week to discuss the exam, which focussed mainly on citation skills.

How can one improve their writing using the computer?

There are various ways that a person can do to improve their writing skills especially using the computers. There are many computers software that you can use. For example, you can write in Microsoft word. Then you can check your spelling and grammatical error, count your words and edit your text. Isn’t that simple and easy way to follow?
Then, you can improve your writing skill by surf to a few academic website.

These are some of the website that you can visit:
1. http://www.ericdigests.org
2. http://www.utoronto.ca
3. http://book.google.com.myNext, you can visit www.eslcafe.com to try more exercises. You can also participating and join a few Online English Club.

Here are some of the URL that host computerized writing activities:
1. http://www.iteachilearn.com
2. http://www.WritingSoftwareTools.com
3. http://www.EditAvenue.com
4. http://www.NortelLearniT.org
5. http://www.esl.about.com/library/lessons/blwritingplans.htm
6. http://www.teachers-call.com/2008/02/esl-writing-activities-computer-based-editing-and-correction-lessons.html
7. http://www.lclark.edu/~krauss/tesol98/home.html
8. http://www.iteslj.org/Articles/Belisle-Email.html
9. http://www.mariannedyson.com/sfspin.html
10. http://www.iearn.org/circles/lcguide/cc/cc.html
11. http://www.kasei.ac.jp/cs/mariko/Miyao02call%20proc.pdf
12. http://www.ets.org/Media/Tests/PRAXIS/pdf/5720.pdf
13. www.accpc.ca/elp-ts-earlywriting.htm

Happy blogging!

Hello everyone!

This is my first posting for SKBP 1023 blog assignmanets. My name is Noor Fareena binti Abdul Wahab. As I do not have any partner to do this assignment together with me, I have decided to do it on my own. Thanks to my friend, Soba, who is willing to help me on this blog so that I can finish up my first posting.

Actually, I have decided to do posting on reading comprehension. As for me, reading comprehension is all about reading for information. Compare to reading for information, it is different because in reading comprehension, when we read, we must understand the article.

I have been searching for a few articles that I think it is suitable to post in my blog as reading comprehension. So, I have decided to choose an article from a blog which I found really interesting and can benefits all of us especially for women. The title of the article is “How to Avoid a Pickpocket”. Don’t you think this article is interesting? Now, let me show you how this article can benefits all of us.

Here are some of the benefits that we can get from this article…

In my own opinion, I do agree with the writer that being a victim of a pickpocket is a very serious problem that we have to face and we should try our very best to avoid them. This article can benefits us in several ways but the best part of the article is, for me, this article teach us on how to avoid a pickpocket in three major ways. The three major ways are being a difficult target, protecting your belongings and using public transportation. For example, when we say about protecting your belongings, the first thing that the article teach us is, to make the pickpocket feel difficult to get to your stuff. In other words, when carrying a purse or bag, wear the flap against your body and keep a hand on it. What makes this article becomes more interesting is the writer try to convey her messages using stories based on her experiences and she is actually trying to help us prepare for what has become standard behaviour for her after travelled to over 25 countries.

In my point of view, this article help people to gain information by giving some ways and guidelines on how to avoid pickpockets. I believe many people nowadays especially women interested in reading this article because it can help us a lot. Next, this article can help us to gain informations by putting some analogs in people’s mind. This is because the writer want us to imagine if the situation happen to us. For example, this article show us what we should do and what we should do not do if it really happen to us. The best part of this article is, all of these precautions are not to make us so paranoid on our next trip that we would not enjoy it! but once learned, they can only add to your awareness when in unfamiliar situations.

If you want more information, you can link to this website, www.msadventuresinitaly.com

reading-for-information.doc

Assalamualaikum and a very good day to everyone!

As usual, I do not have any partner to do this assignment together with me. So, I have to do it on my own.

As for this part, I have decided to write on reading for information as the first posting of my blog. I do think that reading for information is the reading that we do to gain informations. As for me, reading for information is what we do day and night because as a student we always read especially educational books to gain informations. For example, we go to the library and read there and we get informations from what we has read.

The title of my article for today is “Lung Cancer Fact Sheet”. I choose this article because the content of the article is very interesting, can help us a lot and can benefits everyone who read this article. Furthermore, fact sheet never lie. This is because this fact sheet has been written based on fact, observations and statistics.

In my opinion, this article can benefits all of us here a lot. For example, this article teach us about causes and effects of lung cancer. When we know about the effects of lung cancer, I am sure that all of us will try our best to avoid lung cancer. Then, we will try to practice a new way of life by avoiding the causes of lung cancer such as stop smoking. Interesting right? The statistics also can help students like us on doing researches or doing thesis on this topic. This is because lung cancer can not be cured easily. The best way to treat lung cancer is to stop smoking and never involve in such activities.

If you want more information, you can link to this website: www.lungcancer.org

If you have opinions, ideas or you want to share your experiences, please leave your comments. Thank you.