DO YOU HAVE YOUR POPCORN READY??

HEY THERE!

I'm really excited about this week's post!
Our task is to blog about one of the many Google tools and to...
MAKE A MOVIE!
Both are my virgin tries.
Exciting stuff. :)
So, do you have your popcorn ready??

GOOGLE EARTH

I chose this application as I found it really really interesting. I first came into contact with Google Earth during my college days. As a geography student, I had to fiddle around with the application to learn some stuff which I've already forgotten by now. So, as I revived my interest in Google Earth again, I'm not surprised to find that it has improved so much! Let's look at what are some of the cool things Google Earth 5.0 can do! :)

Now that you have the know-hows. Go ahead and have fun with it! I can easily entertain myself for hours just by looking at the aerial view of different places. We will never have the chance to visit most of these places in our lifetime. Best we can do for now is to admire them on our screens. It is indeed applaud-able that we humans have surpassed ourselves once again. With the access to Google Earth, we are able to, virtually, go anywhere anytime.

However, the application comes with many controversial issues as well. Below are some extracts from www.earthtimes.org

"A failed attack on oil facilities in Yemen in September last year was also reportedly planned with the use of Google Earth, which provides detailed satellite maps of the world, the Daily Telegraph reported, without quoting sources."

"The newspaper revealed in January that Iraqi insurgents were using Google Earth to attack British bases in Basra, prompting the company to replace images of military positions in the southern Iraqi province with others taken before the war."

"... high-resolution images could further compromise the security of some developing countries that were already a target of terrorism."


Solution: Google Earth has struck agreements to show fuzzy, low resolution pictures and distorted building plans' of installations that governments considered sensitive.

This may be a workable plan for now. But are the problems uprooted entirely?

MOVIE TIME!!

Here's a short video I made for my beloved ...

Hope it has been an enjoyable read & watch! :)

Please feel free to comment!
Cheers
Jody

GROWTH MINDSET

HELLO ONCE AGAIN!~

In last week's class we explored the concept of GROWTH MINDSET.
We learnt that it is important to constantly be eager and willing to learn. When we do not have a growth mindset towards learning, we will find it very hard to learn anything. I always believe that what we think really have tremendous influence over our actions.

All of us should have experienced those days whereby we don't feel like dragging ourselves out of bed to go to work/school. So we keep telling ourselves that we are unwell and there's a very bad headache going on. After a few minutes of such thoughts, our body is really convinced by our thoughts and VIOLA! We are REALLY down with a bad headache...


During my college days, I really really hated maths. So I kept telling myself that I am really bad at maths and can never do well in it. No matter how hard I tried to practise, I still did really badly. My brain refused to accept any knowledge that is related to maths. The negative thoughts resulted in 2 years of F grade in maths.

It is only when A'levels is drawing near, I told myself that by hook or crook, I have to at the very least pass maths. And i realised that i cannot let myself stay in the vicious cycle of bad thoughts. Hence, i started to encourage myself, telling myself that maths is easy peasy. These thoughts were indeed helpful. I managed to achieve an E grade for A'levels, which is a pass grade. Though E is not at all fantastic, it is still an achievement to me as i pulled myself out if the cycle just in time to obtain my FIRST pass grade in 2 years.

if only maths was this easy...

One movie that i really like is FORREST GUMP. The main character, Forrest, has an IQ level of 75, which that is slightly lower than the average of 90-100. Despite this disability, he does not allow himself to believe that he is inferior. Many at times he is the victim of bully due to his subnormal intelligence. Whenever someone calls him stupid, Forrest always replies, 'Stupid is as stupid does.' He refuses to agree with them that he is stupid and choose to have a positive outlook towards life. He is always eager to learn new skills, such as ping pong. His attitude towards his circumstances has made him outstanding and successful in life.



So. Here's the bottom line : if u want to avoid having your brain look like this

HAVE A GROWTH MINDSET!

E-SHOPPIN!

hi guys!

apologies for being MIA! (missin in action)
here's me and my insights to e-commerce.
*or i'd prefer to call it e-shoppin :)

the phenomenon of e-commerce has been on the rise. many ppl now prefer to shop in the comfort of their own homes rather than exhaust themselves with actual shoppin trips. in this post, we shall discuss why e-commerce has succeeded since its birth. and despite its success, what are some boohoos of this trend.

reasons for success

we are living in a world whereby convenience is highly valued. and when there is a way for people to bring convenience to themselves, it is just a matter of time that the idea rises to fame. it can be quite effortless to engage ourselves in e-commerce as our purchase is literally on click away!

i used to set aside a full day for a shopping escapade. now, i can be on a shopping escapade during a short lunch break. and i can even look specifically for what i want. many online shops classify their goods according to colors or style. for instance, i can just click on the link to skirts and just browse thru all the designs available! power of focus :) how convenient! below is a cataloge from http://missvonjo.blogspot.com/ . its one of my favourites! click on e link for some good bargains! :)

also, as a generation that is really good at multi-tasking, we have learnt how to divide our attention fairly well. one might be booking movie tickets online, ordering mcdelivery and making a purchase on ebay all at once. doing all 3 at the same time would be impossible when out of this virtual world.

reasons for failures

it would be unrealistic to conclude that e-commerce is all success and nothin else. e-commerce has its banes as well. personally, i feel that one major bane is that it does not allow us to have personal interaction with the sellers/buyers. many at times we have no idea who we are buying from or selling our goods to. interaction is an important aspect of our lives. to swoop it for convenience may not be a wise choice as we may isolate ourselves from the outside world.

also, we sometimes have to pay via online banking or credit card before getting our goods. this is dangerous as we never know who to trust. moreover, it is risky to allow the organisations to store our information in their database. we may lose our privacy if our information is passed to outsiders without our approval.


moving on, e-commerce can sometimes be quite a hassle. we are not able to check the quality of our goods before having it delievered to us. it can be quite a hassle to have it exchanged or checked as it takes another few days for the process to be completed. reality purchase, on the other hand, allows quality check to take place. and we are able to try out before purchasing. hence, i would believe that virtual purchase is many at times impluse purchase.

so this marks the end of insights to e-commerce.
the next post shall be on e-learning.
we shall discuss how the internet has changed our learning habits.
stay tuned :)

jody

FACEHOOK? ARE YOU BOOKED?

hey hey!

the hot topic for this week's class is SOCIAL NETWORKING. i shall focus and give my insights on FACEBOOK as it is the most popular social networking website currently! (friendster totally died and is trying very hard to leech onto everyone of us)

facebook is very important in everyone's life now. i would say that it is targeted at tertiary students and above. the many features helped bridge many gaps that other social networks are not able to fill. some of the brilliant features are as follows:

1) news feed
-latest updates of photos posted, relationship status, videos, comments etc.


2) photo albums
-we can choose to upload individual photos or upload albums according to events.


3) wall
-friends can write on ur wall and ur recent updates will be shown on the wall as well.


4) superpoke
-though i think this is quite a purposeless (aka lame) application, it is still entertaining to poke anyone and everyone.


5) events invitation
-u can set up a page for any upcoming events and send invites to all ur friends! (i had a friend who used facebook to send out wedding invites! talking bout convenience huh!)


many people have come to realise the importance of facebook. and many creative individuals went the extra mile to show how silly it would be to perform facebook features in reality. here's an interesting experiment done in the big apple, new york.



as educated people, we should not be naive. it is therefore important to know the risks that the usage of facebook brings. whatever we post on our profile, it is definitely at our own risk. the friends that u've added will have access to ur info, details, photos etc. the photos can be easily saved and used for other purposes. also, facebook has the right over whatever we post. almost 100% of us dont read the 'terms and agreements' and blindly click on 'i agree'. no doubt this saves us about 15 mins of our life, this one click is the reason why facebook is so powerful. this video below will explain to u exactly why.



once again, we come to the end of jody's insights! hope it has been an enjoyable read and feel free to leave ur comments so i can improve for the better! much thanks!

signing out,
jody doo

a good start is half the battle won?

A thunderous HELLO to one and all!

this is my virgin attempt to blog somethin that contains academic content. so as the sayin on the title suggests, i am tryin to start with a big BANG and hopefully this effort will let me gain enough horse power to ace this module (which is the battle won).

so. enough of ramblings. the virgin post shall be about HISTORY OF INTERNET. though i am honestly not utterly excited about this topic, i shall try my best to give my insights with excitement :)

5 interesting facts on the history of internet :

1) The almighty internet was sparked in the minds of brainy individuals, in the early 1960s, who were eager to explore the possibility of information sharing in the scientific and military fields.

The internet, then known as ARPANET, was birthed in 1969. The connection, which is probably so antique now, had 4 major computers linked up together.

2) The early Internet was used by computer experts, engineers, scientists, and librarians. There were no PCs in those days, and anyone who used it, had to learn to use a very complex system.

3) The World Wide Web was started in 1991. It was based on hypertext--a system of embedding links in text to link to other text, which you have been using every time you selected a text link while reading these pages.

4) A current trend with major implications for the future is the growth of high speed connections.

5) Wireless has grown rapidly in the past few years, and travellers search for the wi-fi "hot spots" where they can connect while they are away from the home or office. The next big growth area is the surge towards universal wireless access, where almost everywhere is a "hot spot".

Voila! Hope the above 5 points that i've picked out from an unbelievably long paper are ample in helping u better understand your friend, the internet.

personally, i believe that the internet is a vital part of our lives now. the absence of it can be fatal.

we would not be able to go on facebook and find out the latest gossips.

we would not be able to do our online shopping.

we would not be able to watch the replays of 'little nonya' on mobtv.

we would not be able to dota thruout the night with our peers.

we would not be able to skype and chat w our friends.

we would not be able to create a blog for com125.

indeed. the above happenings can be truly fatal.

to end off this first post. some food for thought. now that our lives are so dependent on the internet, are we in danger of an internet overdose?