POSTING 6

BLOG QUESTIONNAIRE-SKBP 1023

Age: 20 Tutorial Group:3 LECTURER Dr.Zaini binti Amir

1. Do you enjoy blogging?

Yes. I learned about what blog is and how to apply what I learned about blog in my studies.

2. Based on your experience what is the benefit of blogging? We can share our thoughts and ideas with the others in online

3. Do you need more assistance to set up your blog?

Yes, I do because at first I did face some difficulties in putting songs for my blog; which will make my blog to be attractive.

4. Do you have any memorable/favorite topic in your blog?

Yes, I do. I like the topic about how blogging can assist language learners to improve our writing skills. I like it because this topic does reflect about what are we experiencing in this course.

5. List 5 advantages of blogging for you

Can share my thoughts with my friends, it improves my writing skil, can improve our creativity as we try do decorate our blog, creates a opportunity to explore internet while searching for information to complete each posting, makes us to learn how to use E-journal.

6. List 5 disadvantages of blogging

Sometimes it will influence people with negative thoughts, waste of time as we have to keep updating our blog.

7. Will you continue blogging after the course?

i am ot going to continue blogging after this course because only less people are using blog to share their ideas.

8. Do you think that blogging improve your writing?

It does improve our writing skill as we have to be aware of our vocabulary and grammar when we write down our ideas.

9. Do you think that we should continue with blogging activity for the next batch of students?

We should continue with blogging because the new batch should learn some knowledge about blogging and how to apply the benefits of blogging in their studies.

10. Will you recommend your friend to blog

Yes, I will recommend my friend to blog because I assume that my friend also will be enjoying blogging like what I experienced.

11. Can you teach a friend to set up his or her blog

yes, I can teach my friend to set up her/ his blog because I would be pleased to share the knowledge of creating a blog that I have learned in this course with my friend.

Article 2: Benefits Of Concordance

Concordance

More than 65,000 litigation professionals choose Concordance® for electronic discovery, litigation document management, and litigation support. Concordance makes it easy to identify, organize and analyze case-critical information so that you can collaborate and share—across your firm or around the world.

Benefits

Concordance gives you the most effective, cost-efficient way to manage the high volume of documents—including emails and e-documents—generated during litigation.

Concordance also includes an exciting new way for litigators to instantly conduct legal research, right from their discovery documents. Whether accessing documents from your desktop, laptop or the web, Concordance delivers award-winning, industry-leading features that turn discovery as you know it, into discovery as you want it.

Organize and manage immense volumes of litigation data and OCR text

Concordance discovery software is used on the largest cases being litigated today. It can handle over 33 million records per database and allows up to 250 customizable fields per record.

Import, search and organize e-mail and other electronic discovery documents quickly and accurately

E-mail Wizard directly imports Microsoft® Outlook® files, retaining original formatting, hyperlinks to attachments and metadata. Electronic Document Wizard makes it simple to load and search Word, Excel®, PowerPoint®, WordPerfect®, PDFs, HTML, XML and more. The enhanced e-discovery import Wizard in Concordance further reduces the time and cost of document review.

M manage transcripts more effectively

Perform simple bulk import and export of plain text (ASCII) and PCF files, which retain original formatting. With a single mouse click you can “Go To” any document, page number or line number. Add onto and search notes, issue codes and quick-marks, and hyperlink directly to trial exhibits.

source:http://law.lexisnexis.com/concordance

SUMMARY: In my opinion, concordance is one of the effective way that can improve language learners learning skill. Learners also can improve their grammar and writing knowledge trough concordance, which will help them when they work in the future.As a language learner , everyone should realize the importance of concordance in language learning.

POSTING 5

Article 1:Learning through Concordance

By Katherine Moran, e-mail: kate.moran@gmail.com, and Luciana Diniz, e-mail: esllsdx@langate.gsu.edu

A concordancer is a common feature of software programs designed to analyze a corpus ( a collection of whole texts stored in a database). When a user searches for a word in a corpus, the concordancer returns all the occurrences of the word within its context of use. The list of examples is called Key Words in Context (KWIC). Because the concordancers show so many examples in the context of the same word, language students are likely to deduce the meaning and patterns of the word. Furthermore, many of the grammatical features of a word (e.g., the preposition that follows it) are immediately clear if one analyzes several examples of the word. The contexts can be displayed in a line or in a sentence or paragraph.

Corpus-based concordances can be an effective tool for second language learning (Hunston, 2002; Sinclair, 2004). By analyzing concordance lines, for example, students are encouraged to investigate their own questions and therefore become more independent learners. Some of the primary benefits of concordance lines in language learning include promoting students' autonomy and helping them become responsible for their own learning.

Corpus linguistics methods, particularly those using the concordancing feature available for most corpora, are undoubtedly powerful tools for language teaching and learning in general, but especially for L2 writing. Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons, corpus-based pedagogical materials are not widely available or used by teachers and learners in both ESL and EFL contexts (Hunston, 2002; Sinclair, 2004). Partially because of the dearth of materials, teachers are often unaware of how to effectively incorporate the benefits of corpus-based concordances into their instructional modules.

SUMMARY: This article is discussing about the importance of concordance for a language learner, such as; they become motivated to study about their task, become more independent,promoting students' autonomy and helping them become responsible for their own learning.

MY FRIENDS

POSTING 4

CALL

TITLE:Cognitive and Behavioral Approaches to Language Acquisition: Conceptual and Empirical Intersections.

SUMMARY:The past 20 years have seen research on language acquisition in the cognitive sciences grow immensely. The current paper offers a fairly extensive review of this literature, arguing that new cognitive theories and empirical data are perfectly consistent with core predictions a behavior analytic approach makes about language development. The review focuses on important examples of productive linguistic behavior: word learning and early grammatical behavior. Language experience, through social and other contingencies, influences language development directly. Through these contingencies, the structure of language behavior exhibits a gradual emergence. Keywords: language acquisition; linguistic behavior; grammar; syntax learning; word learning.

BRIDING DIGITAL DIVIDE

TITLE:Bridging the Digital Divide.(Industry Trend or Event).

SUMMARY:The so-called digital divide is usually defined as the gap between the affluent and poor in technology ownership and Internet access and can depend primarily on race, geography, economic status or any combination of the three. A survey of businesses shows that 16 percent are 'extremely concerned' about the digital divide, 48 percent are 'somewhat concerned' and 36 percent report no concern at all. Business is nevertheless beginning to take a more active role in promoting technology to disadvantaged regions. Projects range from Mouse.org, a nonprofit group linking New York state public schools to equipment and grants, to the North Carolina Rural Internet Access Authority, which builds telework centers and develops online access to key resources for small communities. Inequalities nevertheless remain, and a survey of 46 public black colleges shows a $700 million shortfall in the funds needed to meet current technology needs. Globally, the 'divide' includes such more fundamental issues as illiteracy, lack of telephone access, suspicion among local peoples toward Western nations and the fact that while the industrialized world contains only 15 percent of world population, it has 88 percent of Internet users.

WOMEN & ICT

TITLE:Study seeks 'disappearing IT women'.(The Disappearing Women: North-West ICT Project)

SUMMARY:Tash Shifrincomputer.weekly@rbi.co.uk Researchers from the University of Salford are trying to find out why so many women leave the IT industry. The percentage of women in the IT workforce has fallen from 27% in 1996 to 21%, according to the Office of National Statistics. The research project - The Disappearing Women: North-West ICT Project - follows a study by the university examining the experience of 500 female IT professionals. "We noticed a lot of job churn and we were wondering why," said academic fellow Marie Griffiths. "The women we have spoken to say the workplace is quite hostile and is not compatible with raising a family."She also cited one woman in an IT management role who found junior male colleagues were being paid 15,000 more than her. The researchers can be contacted at m.griffiths@salford.ac.uk

e-LEARNING

TITLE:Operationalisation of quality constructs for e-learning at higher education.

SUMMARY:new developments in information and communication technologies (ICT) to support learning has brought about increasing interest by both academic and non-academic institutions in e-learning. The developments in ICT are principally multimedia and the Internet with its World Wide Web. Interest in ICT supported learning is also fuelled by the associated (expected) cost reduction and easy expansion of education to the increasing and flexible market that is difficult to reach by traditional delivery. Expansion of e-learning, especially in higher education, raises the issue of quality resulting in both anecdotal and empirical evidence of how to achieve high quality while at the same time benefiting from e-learning. After examining key current research, Usoro and Abid (2008) developed a conceptual framework of nine factors of quality in elearning at higher education. These factors include content, delivery, technical provision (referred to as tangibles) and globalisation. This paper takes the research further by attempting to operationalise the nine factors such that a future study can perform primary study to validate the framework.

POSTING 3

The similarities and differences between mamm.com and eric digest.

Both these things are mainly for giving information about certain topics.It make us easier to find information about something.It really save our energy and time.

Mamma.com
Mamma.com is a "smart" metasearch engine.It contains variety of engines, directories, and deep content sites, properly formats the words and syntax for each, compiles their results in a virtual database, eliminates duplicates, and displays them in a uniform manner according to relevance.It also provide useful tools to its users.

Eric digest
ERIC Digests are short reports education. There are a large variety of topics covered including teaching, learning, libraries, charter schools, special education, higher education, home schooling, and many more.targeted specifically for teachers, administrators, policymakers, and other practitioners, but generally useful to the broad educational community.It has been designed to provide an overview of information on a given topic, plus references to items providing more detailed information.

Mamma.com is a specific search engine.But eric digest is a search which provides a lot of information about variety of topics.

POSTING 2

BLOGGING CAN ASSIST LANGUAGE LEARNERS TO IMPROVE AND ENHANCE WRITING SKILL

Blogging and Writing Courses

A blog is a type of website, which allows users to make postings (i.e. to blog) that resemble an online journal or diary. Most blogs make use of text; however, users have the capability to communicate using photographs, audio (podcasting), and videos (vlog). This application, which is very popular among teenagers and young adults, belongs in the family of open source software, i.e. applications which are freely available for public use. But what does a blog have to do with writing courses?

Dr. Jill Walker, Weblogs: Learning to Write in the Network: “Weblogs are good as learning journals … but all these things could be done in a paper notebook - though the knowledge that other people are (or can be) reading is important. … What’s more important to teach our students is network literacy: writing in a distributed, collaborative environment. … Bringing network literacy to the classroom means jolting students out of the conventional individualistic, closed writing of essays only ever seen by your professor.” (http://huminf.uib.no/~jill/archives/blog_theorising/talk_at_brown.html)

Many students use blogs to keep personal journals and share their thoughts with the world. Building on this trend, faculty are increasingly using blogs as electronic journals. At a minimum, blogs allow students to comment and reflect on assigned readings in a creative and collaborative process. However, the potential benefits of using blogs in the writing classroom can be so much more. The very nature of a blog is its work-in-progress characteristic. Students often struggle with revising their work beyond the first or second read. Blogs provide opportunities for students to experiment with multiple versions of a paper as well as a means to solicit feedback and suggestions from their peers. Additionally, blogs give students an opportunity to see how other students employ writing and editing strategies in their work. A benefit for professors is the ability to maximize feedback. Whether writing a few choice suggestions on how to improve a paper or highlighting select techniques in students’ work, blogging offers a means to authentically interact with students.

Faculty can take advantage of the interactive capabilities of blogging to encourage students to discuss, collaborate, and elaborate on posted assignments. Whether the lecturer teaches on-campus or at a distance, he or she could guide students to use blogs in group projects and to produce collaborative writing work. The creative nature of online, collaborative work can emphasize the value of authorship and proper citation. Taking pride in their writing, can in turn lead students to genuinely realize the value of writing and the wrongs of plagiarism.

There are some blogs that I ejoyed reading. Some of those are:

1. http://ugels.blogspot.com/
2. http://izlankhafi.blogspot.com/
3. http://nightriders.blogspot.com/

I really like to read the first blog because that blog is all about transsexual issue. Actually I and my coursemates had created that blog last semester. Even though we created that blog just because of our group project, but we did had fun while doing the project. Every piece of writing in that blog comes from our own idea. We did a lot of references before we publish our post. Through this, we did gained some knowledge about our topic of discussion, which is transsexual.

HI!

Welcome to my blog. Here i would like to share about what i have found about reading for information. Content of my blog is all about some reading materials which are important for English language users. So, i hope all of you will get some knowledge about reading for information when you visit my blog. I hope you will enjoy visiting my blog. please don't forget to post your comments as it will be very helpful for me.

READING FOR INFORMATION

MODULE ONE OVERVIEW: READING FICTION AND NON-FICTION

· What Is Fiction?
· What Is Non-Fiction?
· Samples of Fiction and Non-Fiction
· Considerations and Strategies for Reading Fiction and Non-Fiction
· KWL: A Strategy Used "Before," "During," and "After" Reading A Non-Fiction Text
· Review Lesson Plans
· Your Research Project
· Reading Assignment
· Points to Remember
· Additional Resources
· Written Assignment: For College Credit and 24 CRU Participants Only
· Quiz

MODULE 1OVERVIEW: READING FICTION AND NON-FICTION
In this unit, you will:
· Learn the difference between reading for entertainment (fiction) and reading for information (non-fiction)
· Examine sample lessons and learning strategies for teaching fiction and non-fiction

What Is Fiction?
Everyone knows about fiction. They have been reading it from their first storybook. They know that it is a fabrication and that they can usually identify with the characters in the story because they can see themselves trying to solve the problem of the story. In its simplest form, then, fiction may be defined as characters trying to resolve an issue across time to some conclusion. And the pattern of a story is much like real-life events and problems that people see daily; easy to follow; easy to believe.

MODULE 1
What Is Non-Fiction?
Non-fiction, on the other hand, does not lend itself to a simple definition. In a non-fiction piece, the reader searches for information or tries to remember information; or the reader wants to learn the opinion of someone else. Both the writer and the reader of non-fiction concern themselves primarily with information and opinion.What does that say about the ways that we read fiction and non-fiction? What does the reader have to do differently in reading non-fiction? To prompt your thinking about this issue, write a brief response in your comments.

MODULE 1
Samples of Fiction and Non-Fiction
Take a look at the following texts for young children. Ask yourself: "How would I think in order to comprehend each of these texts?"
Fiction: The Rabbit and the Lion
· Make a note to yourself on one way that you would teach children to comprehend the fiction text

Non-fiction: Big Red Tomatoes
· Make a note to yourself on one way that you would teach children to comprehend the non-fiction text.

MODULE 1
Considerations and Strategies for Reading Fiction and Non-Fiction
The fiction text follows a well-known pattern of thought. Every reader knows how to follow the characters through some events as they try to figure out the main issue. If readers were asked to give a summary of the story, they could give it quickly because they have a well-rehearsed mental framework to do so.The Three Little Pigs story can serve to illustrate the familiar framework of fiction.
Answer these questions and you will have summarized the story:
1. Who are the main characters?
2. What were the main characters trying to do?
3. How did they try to accomplish their ends?
4. How did it end or how did the characters resolve the major issue?
In simple language, almost any child could answer those four questions about The Three Little Pigsor about any other story appropriate for their age and experience. They approach fiction with a well-formulated interactive strategy for fiction, which is:Identify the characters and what they are trying to do.Then see what happens.

MODULE 1
Considerations and Strategies for Reading Fiction and Non-Fiction (Cont'd)
When it comes to non-fiction, however, young readers typically do not have a mental framework for giving a summary. That's because there are numerous frameworks for presenting non-fiction information. Look at the two samples below by clicking on the links. What does the reader's mind have to do to summarize the sample pieces?

MODULE 1 KWL:
A Strategy Used "Before," "During," and "After" Reading A Non-Fiction Text
Study the sample activity below that makes use of the general strategy of asking questions Before, During, and After reading a selection.

China: An Example Using KWL Strategy
KWL is an instructional strategy used before, during, and after reading. It consists of three components: K-What I know, W-What I want to know, and L-What I learned. This instructional strategy uses writing and reading to activate students' prior knowledge (K), help them generate questions on a specific topic or concept (W), and guide them in finding resources to answer their own questions (L).

K in KWL: What I know. Students can work in small groups or individually to generate as many ideas as possible concerning what they know about "China." Students jot down their thoughts in the "K" column of the KWL Chart. Upon finishing, students share their ideas with the whole class or in small groups.

W in KWL: What I want to know. Again, students work in small groups or individually to generate their own research questions. For example:

How many people live in China?
How big is China?
What do Chinese people like to eat?
What is the biggest city in China?
The role of the teacher is to set up a classroom library with materials, such as films, posters, books, and audiotapes so that students can begin their research. The students should also begin to collect materials such as news clips, book lists, and printouts of articles that may help them answer their questions. Each day, students may add their questions in the "W" column of the

KWL Chart.
L in KWL: What I learned. As students read each day, they should take time out to record what they have learned in the "L" column of the KWL Chart or to add new questions in the "W" Column of the KWL Chart. Then they can share what they have learned with the whole class or in small groups. Alternatively, KWL can be used by individuals as a monitoring strategy before, during, and after reading a place of non-fiction as well as fiction.

MODULE 1
KWL: A Strategy Used "Before," "During," and "After" Reading A Non-Fiction TextStudy the sample activity below that makes use of the general strategy of asking questions Before, During, and After reading a selection. China: An Example Using KWL Strategy
KWL is an instructional strategy used before, during, and after reading. It consists of three components: K-What I know, W-What I want to know, and L-What I learned. This instructional strategy uses writing and reading to activate students' prior knowledge (K), help them generate questions on a specific topic or concept (W), and guide them in finding resources to answer their own questions (L).

K in KWL:
What I know. Students can work in small groups or individually to generate as many ideas as possible concerning what they know about "China." Students jot down their thoughts in the "K" column of the KWL Chart. Upon finishing, students share their ideas with the whole class or in small groups.

W in KWL:
What I want to know. Again, students work in small groups or individually to generate their own research questions. For example:
How many people live in China?
How big is China?
What do Chinese people like to eat?
What is the biggest city in China?
The role of the teacher is to set up a classroom library with materials, such as films, posters, books, and audiotapes so that students can begin their research. The students should also begin to collect materials such as news clips, book lists, and printouts of articles that may help them answer their questions. Each day, students may add their questions in the "W" column of the
KWL Chart

L in KWL:
What I learned. As students read each day, they should take time out to record what they have learned in the "L" column of the KWL Chart or to add new questions in the "W" Column of the KWL Chart. Then they can share what they have learned with the whole class or in small groups. Alternatively, KWL can be used by individuals as a monitoring strategy before, during, and after reading a place of non-fiction as well as fiction.

MODULE 1 Review Lesson Plan (Cont'd)
During: What do I have to do to get the information I need. What questions do I have about this topic? Tunnels
The Great Migration

MODULE 1 Review Lesson Plan (Cont'd)
After: What have I learned about this topic?Tunnels
The Great Migration

We will return to more specific strategies for interacting with informational text as the course progresses. But now it is time for you put this general idea into practice and to watch kids as they deal with non-ficti

MODULE 1
Your Research ProjectGet a clearer sense of how the KWL strategy can be valuable for teaching non-fiction by using the two samples given below. You can do this with your class or with a couple of students. Show the children one of the two samples that follow, or select your own sample from a book in your library. Ask at least two children to read the selection, then to talk about the way that they read it.

K-2 Sample: Sea and Land Animals 3-6 Sample: The Age of Inventions
Report your observations of what the children did by using the following questions as guides.


1. What did the children do to get started?

2. Did they try to remember things as they went along? How did they propose to remember ideas? Prompt them to recall what they were thinking.

3. Was there any pattern to the manner in which they reported what they remembered? How did they sum up what they learned?

4. As a teacher make an explicit connection between what you observed children do when given non-fiction and how you can help them to improve their understanding of non-fiction by using the KWL strategy.

MODULE 1
Reading AssignmentTo deepen your understanding of reading and writing nonfiction, please read the article Sharing Informational Text with Young Children
MODULE 1
Points to Remember
1. Fiction entertains by involving the reader in a story line.
2. Non-fiction presents information in a variety of patterns.
3. The reader of non-fiction needs a variety of mental tools to find and hold the information that he or she wants.
4. In school and at work, the typical person reads significantly more non-fiction than fiction.5. KWL can be a useful strategy in assisting students to understand non-fiction.


MODULE 1
Additional Resources Please choose the type of resource you would like to view: Internet Resources ERIC Database Citations Other Printed and Non-Printed Resources

MODULE 1
Written Assignment: For College Credit and 24 CRU Participants Only(For those taking this course for extended professional development credit, please conduct the following experiment. For those taking this course for university credit, consult the guidelines of your university instructor.) In your course manual, read The Professional Growth Guide on Reading for Information (ERIC, 2002) and select two or more ideas that you find particularly helpful in guiding your teaching. Explain why you find those ideas useful.

MODULE 1
Quiz
If you are taking this course to receive professional development credit or university credit, you need to complete a quiz on the contents of this unit, including the reading assignments. The results of the quiz will be stored until you have completed all the units in the course. If you are not satisfied with the results of the first attempt, you may take a second quiz on this unit. Some or all of the questions on the second quiz will be different from the first one.

MODULE 1
Quiz
If you are taking this course to receive professional development credit or university credit, you need to complete a quiz on the contents of this unit, including the reading assignments. The results of the quiz will be stored until you have completed all the units in the course. If you are not satisfied with the results of the first attempt, you may take a second quiz on this unit. Some or all of the questions on the second quiz will be different from the first one.
http://www.indiana.edu/~reading/reading/a1-/next6.html