Online Search Engines for Research (refection)

Dear all,
It is interesting to know that, when you think you know it all, it is not actually the deal. Today was exactly that. I felt that today’s lecture at the library was indeed a fruitful one. I thought that I have heard and known plus experienced the most of what the Tun Sri Lanang library had to offer was dead wrong. I realized that the wealth of information in PTSL is beyond comparison. It was interesting to note that UKM is indeed one of the fast-moving and ever-growing varsities around. In order to become better, UKM is constantly making improvising and bringing it to greater heights. The one way it does it is through the library. I am grateful to our beloved lecturers for giving us the chance to taste and try out ways to find more information though our library portals. This would indeed help a great deal to us subscribers because we tend to want information by our finger-tips. Thanks to the very detailed and also hands-on presentation done by one of the library personnel, I felt rewarded just by being there. Many online databases on searching for information was shared and discussed during the lecture.

For example, during the introduction about online journal search engines and also online libraries and online books, one interesting site that was introduced was ProQuest. ProQuest is the premier online library. The ProQuest online information service provides access to thousands of current periodicals, newspapers and research, many updated daily and containing full-text articles from 1986 – one of the largest online content repositories in the world. Below is a video on ProQuest and how you can use ProQuest to help in your own research.

Another Journal search engine is of UKM’s very own library search engine called Gemilang. Below you would get a preview of how to use this marvellous search engine to make your search a hassle-free one. With just a punch of a few keys, you will find what you are looking for. What is more interesting is that, even when you are out of the UKM vicinity, would still get the chance to access the portal with a valid ID.

Below is another video on how to access full text journals from the UKM TSL library that has been subscribed by UKM. This portal is very useful and I myself have used it before when I was doing my undergraduate research and thesis.

I truly learnt a lot during the short and very indebt session. I felt like I knew it all as I said before but I was amazed by the wealth of knowledge gained afterwards. I would like to end with a video on some library quotes. It’s interesting to see that scholars too have put the library a top notch priority. Enjoy!

Refections on How to create a You Tube Channel and How to Create a Facebook Group

Hello Everyone,

I found the lecture today very interesting with the introduction on how to create a You Tube channel on You Tube and also how to create a Facebook Group over on Facebook. I always thought that social networking sites and also you tube had minimal influence towards teaching and learning because students would tend to sray in attention and end up surfing the net for non-educational related information.

But then again, I realized that students would not lose their attention if the input they are getting is from a useful and relevant source. Thus, i found today’s lecture a very informative and intriguing one. I have heard of you tube channels and Facebook groups but then, i never really thought much of it since i did not have anything to share over on those channels. But now after listening to the facilitators decribing more indept on what we can gain and post on these channels, i have come to realize that the internet is an amazing tool to be used in the teaching and learning environment.

Firstly we learnt about the you tube channel. A channel on YouTube is the home page for an account. It shows the account name, the account type, the public videos they’ve uploaded, and any user information they’ve entered.

You can customize the background and color scheme of a channel along with controlling some of the information that appears on it.

YouTube channels can also display favorite videos from other users, activity streams, comments, subscribers, and other social networking features.

From what i remember, creating a you tube channel is pretty easy. Especially if you have a gmail account. But for those who would like to know how to create your very own you tube channel, feel free to visit this you tube video below:

From what i gathered on creating you tube channels is that it can be very useful in the teaching and learning process. I can record myself and upload videos on my lessons so that students would not get bored of the chalk and talk procedure. Using videos in my opinion would help students to be more focused and intruged. It depends on how creative a teacher can be in presenting videos. Maybe lessons can be recorded and improved on in terms of creativeness and also input so the student can listen, understand and grasp as much information as they can from what is doled out by the teacher. This was of intergrating ICT in classrooms would not only bond the teacher with their students but it would also help students to learn in their zone.

Next would be creating facebook groups.

Below is a link that would tell you all that you need to know about facebook groups

groups

Facebook has always been a great place to share information with your friends and keep up with what they’re doing. What hasn’t been as easy is sharing information with small groups of people.  Today, the launching of a new version of Groups that does just that. With new Groups, we made it easy for you to build a space for important groups of people in your life—your family, your soccer team, your book club. All you have to do to get started is to create a group, add friends and start sharing.

When a group member posts to the group, everyone in the group will receive a notification about that post.  Since information posted in my new groups is only visible to group members by default, we can feel confident about who sees what we post.

Since facebook is constantly changing. A bunch of new features to Groups to make sharing and communication with small groups of people easier. One of them is group chat, one of our most frequently requested features. Until now, you’ve only been able to chat with one person at a time on Facebook. Now you can chat with everyone in your group at once.

In my opinion, using facebook is a very good way to get to all the students since everyone would be on Facebook these days. What is more interesting is  that students will check their facebook groups on what their teachers post. Thus, you need not worry if the student did not see what you have posted because it would be immpossible as every student at this era is practiacally hooked on Facebook!

Here is a link on how to create your very own Facebook group.

Enjoy!

 

 

 

Refections on OER

Dear everyone, today, the task at hand was to do a little reserach on OER.  OER stands for Open Educational Resources.  We were asked to find five journals or articles that talked about OER so that we could have a deeper, understanding towards OER. As time and people change with the evolution of technology, its best that we keep abreast with this current evolvement.  Thus, what better way that to read and equip ourself with new knowledge. So, today, i’m going to share about the little knowlege that I have come to attain from my readings on OER. Before we proceed into OER let’s have a look at what OER is actually… Let’s all check the vedio below.

Open educational resources (OER) are materials used to support education that may be freely accessed, reused, modified, and shared. These Guidelines outline key issues and make suggestions for integrating OER into higher education. Their purpose is to encourage decision makers in governments and institutions to invest in the systematic production, adaptation and use of OER and to bring them into the mainstream of higher education in order to improve the quality of curricula and teaching and to reduce costs.

Open educational resources (OER) are educational materials that can be re-used for teaching, learning, research and more, made available free through open licenses. This allows uses of the materials that would not be easily permitted under copyright alone. As a mode for content creation and sharing, OER alone cannot award degrees nor provide academic or administrative support to students. However, OER are beginning to be integrated into open and distance education. Some OER producers have involved themselves in social media to increase their content visibility and reputation.

OER include different kinds of digital assets. Learning content includes courses, course materials, content modules, learning objects, collections, and journals. Tools include software that supports the creation, delivery, use and improvement of open learning content, searching and organization of content, content and learning management systems, content development tools, and on-line learning communities. Implementation resources include intellectual property licenses that govern open publishing of materials, design-principles, and localization of content.

Below A video about how technology is transforming our system of education, generating equal opportunities for all.

In order to grasp more information on OER, feel free to visit these links

olcos_roadmap.pdf

213605e.pdf

This video below basically sums up that Open Educational Resources is a transformational concept that can play an important role in changing the nature, and availability, of educational materials, content, and tools.

open-educational-rOpenEducationalResources_OECDreport.pdf

open-educational-resources-and-practices.pdf

ReviewoftheOERMovement.pdf

 

That’s all for today folks! hope you have come to know a little bit more about OER by my little scribble.

Thank you!

 

 

 

 

E-learning components

• E-learning provides unique methods and efficiencies to support personal, professional, and organizational improvement.
• E-learning requires self-motivation, time-management, and organizational skills.
• Meaningful communication among online learners is based on respect, knowledge of subject, active listening, and understanding learning styles.
• Building the shared sense of community in an online environment leads to increased motivation and engagement by participants.
• Online performance improvement based on instructor feedback works best in a non-judgmental atmosphere which critically assesses participants against well-defined criteria.
• “Web 2.0” tools require new literacies and create new ways to interact online in learner-centric collaborative environments that can access an overwhelming amount of information.

Based on what you see abouve, its the basic summary of the many components found in e-learning. Hope that it would give you a rough idea on what e-learning components is all about.

Below, you will find a link that showcases the various compoentns that make up for e-learning. Happy reading!

http://www.instructionaldesignexpert.com/eLearning_Components.html

Infrastructures of E-learning

Dear All,

I have not really found much on the infrastructres of e-learning but I did find and interesting article on Improving E-Learning Support and Infrastructure:
An Evidence-Based Approach.

The chapter reports a study conducted in 2004 at The Chinese University of Hong Kong
(CUHK) aimed at obtaining a much clearer picture about the use of e-learning at the
university so as to develop new strategic directions on a firm evidence base.  The
analysis of the data revealed that what the teachers want from the technology, what they
actually do, and what they can have access to for support are not totally aligned. The
focus of the chapter is on how to improve this alignment so as to bridge the chasm. The
study has been successful in eliciting university support for changes to the e-learning
support system.

Below is the link to the article.

http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/clear/download/paper/o%27donoghue_mcnaught.pdf

 

The pedagogy of E-learning

E- Learning activities, just like face-to-face activities, need to be planned at the curriculum level taking into account the pedagogies for delivery.

• The diversity of our student population
• our commitment to fostering student success and active engagement through diverse learning spaces and places

A virtual environment

A virtual environment enables students to access learning on and off campus through a range of eLearning technologies. These technologies need to be inclusive and assist learners to reach stated learning outcomes and graduate capabilities or employability skills.

In order to get to know more about e-learning pedagogy, feel free to click on the link below. It would tell you more about the e-learning pedagogy in a fun an interesting way via a power point slide-share presentation.

elearning-and-pedagogy

Below is a link to an article that tells us more about e-learning pedagogy.

http://www.networkedlearningconference.org.uk/past/nlc2004/proceeding/individual_papers/mehanna.htm

Below is a video on the constructs of e-learning pedagogy.

 

Theories of E-learning in Education

The field of education has its share of methodologies and theories that attempt to explain the process of learning. All theories are representations or attempts to detail a complex process. As such, theories are open to much debate and disagreement.

For instructors, online or classroom, the goal is effective learning – and often various contradictory theories (i.e. instructional design and constructivism) work together well to achieve results. A functioning understanding of theories allows an instructor to experiment and apply various teaching/learning concepts and, through this process, to create a personal philosophy of learning and “best practices”

 

This short video below can help you get started in eLearning advocacy.

In order to further enhance your understanding on the various theories behind e-learning in education, feel free to browse through these 2 links below. They are mostly from articles pertaining to e-learning theories in education today.

http://www.jisc.ac.uk/uploaded_documents/Stage%202%20Learning%20Models%20%28Version%201%29.pdf

http://cde.athabascau.ca/online_book/pdf/TPOL_book.pdf

I hope that you have learnt a little bit from these postings of mine on e-learning theories in education.

Thank you!

Definition of e-learning

Dear All,

As u watched above, it is a very basic overview of what e-learning is all about.

Based on my understanding of e-learning, E-learning is a new education concept by using the Internet technology, it deliveries the digital content, provides a learner-orient environment for the teachers and students. The e-learning promotes the construction of life-long learning opinions and learning society.

It means:

1. E-learning is a new education concept; it may different from the old educational concept. We should provide a new explanation to this new concept.

2. Delivery of the digital content is the main characters of e-learning. We can tell what is e-learning and what is not.

3. This definition extends the environment on the Internet. We mean that the Internet provides a learning environment for the students and teachers. This environment is learner-oriented, so we can throw out the thoughts of traditionally teacher-center’s instruction in classroom.

4. As a new concept of education, e-learning gives a condition for us to realize the life-long learning principle and help us to build a more real learning society.

The e-learning plays more in high education for the reason of fast need of high education.

Below, you can find two links that I have found on the Internet about definitions and futher literature and views on e-learning. Hope that these articles would come in useful for all readers.

http://www.herridgegroup.com/pdfs/eLearning%20a%20Definition.pdf

http://www.mup.com.au/uploads/files/pdf/978-0-522-85130-4.pdf

Thank you for dropping by and viewing my blog and my entries. Hope you did get an understanding of what e-learning is all about.

Thank you!

Learning about WordPress

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