Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Could the making of more use of Wikis help to support this module??

Firstly a wiki is a “website that allows collaborative editing of its content and structure by its users” (oxford dictionary)

Even though it did at first take me a while to get my head around the whole notion of the different types of wiki’s there are, but I feel in further years that Biki will become one of the driving forces in internet debate.

I think that this module could in some ways make better use of wiki support in further years in some sectors of the use of the wiki, It could have a link to a general wiki, to which we could ask questions about topics that were covered in class and people didn’t quite understand in regard to certain topics, such as for example say I though I understood what was been ask of me in class then I went home and fund the particular topic difficult but didn’t want to annoy the lecturer by e-mailing him and asking him about the same topic which had ha already had thought us, but with a wiki I could post my question and one of my fellow students could answer my problem, also if in further years if the module was to have a group assignments a wiki would be the best way in allocating the work and as everyone gets some of the assignment done it is ticked off on the wiki which will also help encourage the other students to do their part of the work  on time.

So as you can see I do feel that wiki’s are an excellent teaching recourses in aiding the students learning. Hear is a you tube link that is a really easy way of solving our academic problems or just to show how a wiki could help us find people who share the same interest as us.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZov8J5d2R8

Thursday, October 8, 2009

What do I like or don’t like about my experience with using these tools? (social networking)

 

Over the past couple of years we have been hit with the social networking buzz. I really feel it has changed how people interact with each other I don’t know if it a good thing or a bad thing. For instance take facebook which is actually the only social network which I am registered to, instead of people sending out invites to a 21st birthday  people are now sending out facebook event invitations,  I also feel that is making us more and more reliable on the internet access and our  I-phones  ect…  You really have to wonder what did people really do when they didn’t have mobiles  and internet, young children today lives revolve around a computer and it games, and is it right that 6,7 amd 8 year old kids are becoming members of these social networking groups  and could be exposed to things they shouldn’t be at such a young age?? But these are only the down falls of  the social networks for me it has helped me come back in contact with friends from my childhood and primary school,  and I feel as I get older it is a way of checking in with old friends as we all leave college and head our separate ways in the big world. It is also a way of making many new friends.   Social networking has many positives and many negitaves  but it how the world is revolving.

How dose using RSS feeds help assist you as a student here at UCD?

RSS (Rich Site Summary) is a format for delivering regularly changing web content. Many news-related sites, weblogs and other online publishers syndicate their content as an RSS Feed to whoever wants it. Since my now knowing what the little orange symbol that I keepet seeing popping up all over the place when I was surfing the web, It has helped me hugely in keeping up with the news topics that im am interested in. My netvibes account which I am starting to relies how it really could become part of my daily life by looking at the RSS feeds on it. As a student they can I have started to find it really helps me when I am trying to research a topic which I have an assignment for. For instiance the netvibes site last week when I was looking at SIPTU and their stirkes regarding the wage hikes, it gave me a link to all the newspaper articals on the topic, I really feel when I get more used to using RSS I wont be able to do any research without the as they are so helpful in organizing exactly what I want from the web and it finds it for me. I really don’t know how I have survived without them up till now.