ONLINE JOURNAL

First let me describe to you what an online journal is. A blog is more likely to be as an online diary but an online journal is likely to be like an educational site which it has an editorial control. Journal of all kinds have editors or editorial boards who review submissions and perform a quality control function to ensure that all material appearing in the journal meets the expectations. Journal is a place where new ideas emerged from people that are sharing the journal in getting new information about a topic. Journal also can be a method of teaching. Typical examples of online journals are literary journals, news and popular interest magazines, and ones devoted to specialty subject such as professional or academic publications in other words, e-learning.

Journal of Computer Assisted Learning Abstract Designing and implementing effective e-learning is a complex process, which involves many factors. Lecturers need to constantly consider, evaluate and adjust this factor to provide effective e-learning environments for students. In this paper, we report on the design and development of the Online Learning Environment Survey (OLES), an instrument which can be used to gather and represent data on students' 'actual' (experienced) and 'preferred' (ideal) learning environments. We describe the use of this instrument in blended learning environments with university classes, illustrating how OLES can be used by educators striving for good practice in the design of effective online learning environments.

Journal of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia with the intention of defining an initial research agenda for discipline-specific factors in the usability of e-learning websites, this article focuses on the example of foreign language learning. First, general notions and concepts of usability are analyzed, and the term "pedagogical usability" is proposed as a means of focusing on the close relationship between usability and pedagogical design. Then, to address the key issue of whether there are aspects of pedagogical usability that are discipline-specific, the article examines how language learning and teaching, in particular Technology Enhanced Language Learning (TELL), has approached usability when developing technology-enhanced learning materials. Three elements of a research agenda are identified:-

(a) Pedagogical usability,

(b) Inter cultural usability and

(c) Website evaluation.

In conclusion, it is suggested that, just as language learning websites may require a discipline-specific approach, other disciplines' pedagogical usability may also need to be considered in relation to the specific requirements of the discipline, and that a debate around these issues is timely. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

THE USING AND MY EXPERIENCE ABOUT BLOG

Assalamualaikum and hai....

This time I’m going to talk about the using of blog. The term “blog” is a portmanteau, or in other words, it’s a blend or a combination of the word “web” and “log” (Web Log). “Blog” can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog. Blog is a web page that serves as a publicly accessible personal journal for an individual. Blog can be use to express feeling also the opportunity to write what you feel or what you think.

It is a medium to deliver opinion to the others. In general, a blog is a user-generated website where entries are made in journal style and displayed in a reverse chronological order. Blogs often provide commentary or news on a particular subject, such as food, politics or local news; some function as more personal online diaries. For an example, I’m using a blog for one of my studies method. A typical blogs combines text, images and links to other blogs, web pages and other media related to its topic.

Blog or web blog is a reasonably new phenomenon for teacher and trainee teacher. Blog can be posted from mobile phones that have blog software. It also allows the user to log on directly to their sites for updating their blog. The importance of blog for teachers and trainee teachers are able to provide the trainee teachers a first-hand experience and develop their confidence in using the internet as a resource for teaching and learning.

Typically updated daily, blogs often reflect the personality of the author. For me, blog is a space for anyone who wants to write their journal, dreams, ideas and many more. Blog also have many applications such as using as a journal and it is a place for those who want to express their opinion and share it with others. Besides that, blog also can be use as a practice for those who want to improve their writng skill and improve their English.

Nevertheless, blog has advantages and also the disadvantages. First I will discuss about the advantages of the blog. Blog writing can help someone to improve their writing skill and also their English and at the same time it can help to build out confidence. With blogging activity, someone is able to write and express their opinion. When writing a blog, someone will cautious with their words, because they know the whole world will watch their writing.

In addition, from blogging we can gather much information, because blog is a place for us to express opinion and share it with others. This thing can make us view things differently. In addition, blog can help to improve the using of technology. For instance, during the making of blog we have to explore and design the blog with our creativity. This thing make us to explore the internet to find a graphic, video, animation and more thing to make our blog more interesting and not to dull or boring.

However blog also have the disadvantages. First it can spread the rumors that can give a negative effect to somebody. The rumors that spread can embarrass the people. Besides that for those who want to make a blog as a diary, they can't get privacy because the whole global world will be able to read the content. Blogging also will give a bad effect especially for student because they will spend most of their time writing the blog and forget about other things such as their assignments.

Now let’s move to my experience in writing a blog. Before this I always just heard about a blog from my friend. They always told me about their experience in blog writing, but I'm neglected it because I’m a person that dislike to write a blog. Afterwards, when I’m given an assignment about to create my own blog, I started to realize that actually blogging is something enjoyable and fun. From blogging activity I can express my opinion without feeling embarrassed to others. This is because in classes I'm not brave enough to express my opinion because my English is not good and I'm worried if my friend will laughed at me.

The important thing about blog is, I've learn how to improve my writing skills. It’ll be a sort of tool that will make sure that I work hard in using the proper English. Moreover, blogging help me to build out my confident in using English and it is really useful for me as a BA ELS student. Besides that blogging also push me to explore more new thing about using the technology. For example, I can learn how to insert a picture, video, animation and more things to make my blog interesting.

One thing that make me feel satisfied when I have my own blog is that I feel excited when I read it again and over again. It is unbelievable that I have my own blog now. Honestly, I really enjoyed these blogging activities that give me a lot of benefit and experience. I would like to thanks to my beloved lecturer Datin Norizan that help me more in blogging activity and also to my entire friend. Hope all of you enjoy reading my blog...♥

CONCORDANCE

Assalamualaikum and hai to all of you who visited my blog.........♥

In my blog this time, I’m going to discuss about concordance.

CONCORDANCE..??


What is concordance?? The first time I heard about concordance, I wonder what is a concordance?? Honestly, I've never heard about concordance before. After an explanation from my lecturer about concordance, now I’m slowly to understand what a concordance is.



Concordance is a Listing of Keywords in Contexts (KWIC).It is a tool or a program (software) that helps to list the words in context. The purpose of concordance is to analyze the text.It is suitable for those who want to study text closely or analyze language in depth.




To make sure that I’m more comprehension about concordance, my lecture divided us into 4 groups in the tutorial class to discuss about the concordance. Using the example of concordance that given for us, I and my group will discuss about the using of article 'a' and prepositional 'about'. From the discussion that we’ve made, we realize that article 'a' have so many function. It is not only occurred before a noun, but it is also occur before a verb, adjective, adverb, preposition and relative pronoun. 'A' also can occur before two or more adjective.



Now, I will show a few examples about article 'a'. For an example article 'a' that occur before an adjective like 'a clever’, ’a good', 'a pretty' and many more. Before this I only know that 'a' is only occurred before a noun. So this is something new for me and it can be add to my knowledge.



For prepositional 'about' it can occur before a noun, pronoun, adverb, adjective and preposition. An example of prepositional 'about' are like 'about him', that occur before a pronoun, 'about just now', that occur before adverb and many more. From the discussion that we made, I’m now clearer about the concordance. The using of concordance can help us to make a work become easier.



In Online Teaching and Learning in ELT book also discuss about concordance. There are many concordance software such as Wordsmith, MonoConc Pro and Microconcord. This software helps to analyze language data and greatly extend the potential of a corpus in language pedagohy. Corpora often help to inform on how words and grammatical constructions are used. So, the use of concordance is so needed for us in doing our job. With the knowledge that I get, I'm sure I will apply the concordance in my work later.

THE DIFERRENCES AND SIMILARITY BETWEEN SMS,E-MAIL AND CHAT LANGUAGE

Hiii........

Now it’s time for me to post my second post. Now I’m going to talk about the differences and the similarity between the three important ways of communication in our life nowadays and that is sms, e-mail and chatting. As we all know, this is the 3 main ways for people nowadays to communicate with each other. These 3 ways of communicating actually is making our life easier. Imagine in a few seconds, the message that we sent will be receive by someone immediately even though they were a few miles away from us and the receiver will be able to read it as soon as the message arrives. Compared with the post service, the message or the letter that we sent to someone will take a few days to reach the receiver and if it was an emergency, it will be odd to use the post service.

Using an sms, an e-mail and chatting is the fastest way of communication. This is the advantages of using these 3 methods. Nevertheless, there are a difference and similarity between these 3 methods. Now, we’re going to see what are the similarity and the differences of these 3 ways of communicating.

First and foremost, let me explain the meaning of sms, e-mail and chat. SMS stands for short messaging service where it is available on most of digital mobile phones and a steadily increasing range of other devices (including Pocket PC, Desktop computers and some fixed phones) that permit the sending of short text messages between the devices. An e-mail stands for electronic mail and it is a method of composing, sending, storing and receiving messages over electronic communication systems usually via the internet. Chat or should I say an online chat, is an online conversation where the sender and the receiver are able to communicate at the same time. It also can refer to any kind of communication over the internet, but is primarily meant to refer to direct 1-on-1 chat or text based group chat using tools such as IRC, MSN and many more.

The similarity of these 3 methods is they are fast and cheap. For an example, to sent an SMS it only cost us 20 cents at most while e-mail and chat it will cost us RM 2 at most per an hour at the cyber café if we don’t have an internet connections at our home. Now lets look the similarity of the language that we used on SMS, e-mail and chat. The most similarity is the language that we used in this 3 kind of methods and that is the using of short forms. We always used a short form in our communication and this kind of thing is something in common now. For an example, we normally use ‘Tq’ rather than typing ‘thank you’, ‘btw’ for ‘by the way’, ‘r’ for ‘are’ and many other short form that we used in this 3 kind of communicating methods.

The other similarity is, using and creating new words. We can see now, that there are many new words that have been created and it is not something new here. We can say it as a new style of writing and many people are able to understand it. For an example, instead of ‘sorry’ we’ll type it as ‘sowy’, ‘bye bye’ will be “bubye”, later will be “l8ter” and many more. Besides that, we can see the similarity from the code switching that using in writing the message. People like to use the code switching from Malay to English. This can make a variety of using of language for the 3 methods.

Now let's move to the differences of language between these 3 methods. First, we can see in the using of smiley and emoticons. For sms, there is no emoticon prepared in the mobile phones, for those who are using an sms to sent a message. They can express their self by smileys that are created from the letter and punctuation mark. For an example, :-), :-D, :-P and many more. For e-mail and chat we can used the emoticons and smiley that have been made for us. The obvious differences of this 3 methods is the length of the message that we can type and sent. In sms, we can only type short message because the mobile phones have a limited space of messaging space but for the e-mail and chat they have wide space and cam also write as many as we want and there is no limited space. Using e-mail and chat, we can transfer and receive a file but using sms we cannot do that because mobile phone won’t be able to that.

Another difference is using a colored text. Sms don’t have any text color and it’s only in black and white and always in a same font but for e-mail and chat they were provided with so much of colored text and there is a variety of font that we can choose. We can also bold and italic the font as well. Besides that, e-mail is a synchronous or not simultaneous. Chat is synchronous or online type conversation. Sms also can be categorized as synchronous because the sender and the receiver can communicate at the same time. An e-mail is up to the receiver whether to read the message sooner or later. So, that are a few of similarity and differences that I can list in my blog about SMS, e-mail and chatting. I hope all of you will enjoy reading it and don't forget to share your opinion about this thing with me. Do leave your comment if you have something to say.