Third week?

Busy? Yeah we are getting busy and all but it is not a problem as long as you enjoy doing it. Now let's get to what I have learnt for last week. The first topic for the week is Search Engines & Online Database.Search engines basically is a program or anything you can call it where you type in any keywords that interest you and walah anything related to the keywords would come out. The most common search engine for Malaysian of course everybody knows it, Google. Others would be Bing, Yahoo, Firefox, Safari and more.

There are two types of search engine and they are specialized search engine and meta search engine. Specialized search engine focuses on some particular topics or field and it cannot be found in general purpose search engines. For example Google Scholar, Academia and Pipl.com. While meta search engine is a search tool that gives results based on the results that could be found from other search engines. You could get all sorts of results and you could try it by using dogpile.com and metacrawler. 

Actually, I am quite amused with the internet. You thought that you are good enough to know Google but there are much more to it in internet. Is this the realisation moment where people said that the more you learn, the more you feel small. I guess, yeah.

And.. let us not talk about the dark web and whatsoever. Full stop.

Another topic that I learnt called Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) in ESL. It is any form of communication or interaction between two or more people via separate computers. Why ESL? Because we got to learn and use its function to learn language.

There are two types of CMC. They are Asynchronous CMC and Synchronous CMC. Asynchronous CMC can be refer to delay or not real time. It is not expected to reply immediately. The examples are emails or the comment section in any social medias. While Synchronous CMC happens in real time and it can be exchanged and replied immediately (often expected to). It allows direct communication such as internet chat rooms, messenger and video or audio conferencing.

Next, CMC & Long Distance Learning. This topic is a new info for me, ya I might be late, but now I know. This topic could be shorten to teacher and learner interacting without being in the same location. The examples are video conferencing, e-tutoring and e-lectures. This proves that everything can be done with just a click.

Another useful topic would be Collaborative Learning. It helps in enhancing peer interactions and group work. One of the most popular example would be Google Docs,and I have to admit that this lecture is so so helpful and now I can easily collaborate with my group mates in finishing our group assignment. Just I wish I knew it much earlier🙂