Twelfth Post: Practical 10

The metaphor that I have used to associate my learning in the EIR journey is "Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're going to get." Basically this means that life is full of surprises. For one, I did not really care much about internet research before entering the course and at the beginning, I felt that the EIR course was really something that would only hold my interest for awhile. However, as I went through the weeks attending the EIR lessons, I was able to see that learning to use the internet as a research tool in different ways was really very useful and interesting as I learnt that there were many different ways to input searches as well as there were other search facilities such as meta search engines and invisible web.

The journey of having to research on my topic of cyberbullying was also a very tedious but enjoyable one as I was able to find out many things about it that I did not know of before. Therefore, I have to say that I am glad that I opened the box of chocolates called Effective Internet Research as I was able to gain some wonderful knowledge and experience that I know I would not be able to get anywhere else.

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Cyberbullying refers to the harassment of a youth through any electronic medium such as the internet, mobile phones or interactive digital media. Although cyberbullying only relates to youth, adults are also affected by online harassment, referred to as cyberstalking. Throughout the years, it has gained popularity and many online bullyings are taking place more and more. The impact of these online bullyings are very severe as it has repercussions that go all the way to reality as well, citing the example of some teenagers who committed suicide due to their bullying online. However, it is important to note that these online bullies may be affected in different ways themselves which may have caused them to turn to this route. Therefore, it is important for victims to cooperate and relate their situation to adults so as to create solutions to the problem of cyberbullying.

Eleventh Post: Tutorial 3&4

For this lesson, we were introduced to more detailed information on Twitter. We learnt the many stuff that Twitter could do, what it is mainly used for as well as the downsides that it posseses.

Twitter is a very useful tool that has enhanced the learning experience of EIR in many different aspects. As Twitter only allows a total of 140 characters, messages that are posted have to be concise and straight to the point. That is the real beauty of it as I am able to send messages to my other classmates or friends and receiving messages, without having the need to worry about reading an essay but instead a short and sweet message. As such, it facilitates our learning in the way that we are able to share whatever we have found, together with those who are doing the same subject. Twitter is also a very convenient place to post links of websites that I have found during the course of my research as it is very easily accessible and as mentioned earlier, people can view my page and benefit from the links as well.

Twitter is also rapidly becoming a platform of contact for many different things, from people to organisations, to post updates on whatever they new things they have. By following these Tweets, I am able to gain more knowledge on various things related to EIR.

Comparing Twitter to Blogspot, I have to say that Blogspot also has its own merits. As it does not have a character limit, it is very useful to post long messages or rather, daily experiences. This serves a very important purpose as we are able to store what we have learnt in blogspot like some sort of diary so as to refer to it in the future if need be. Not only that, videos and pictures are also able to be posted on Blogs which makes it more convenient to refer to.

If I had to choose between Twitter and Blogspot, I would say that Blogspot would be my choice of a platform for storing information as I prefer to be more thorough in what I post instead of short messages, lest I forget some information. Not only that, Blogs can also be used in a way like Twitter by just posting short messages. So in my opinion, Twitter is a mini Blogspot with half the features.

For academic research purposes, both Twitter and Blogspot can be used to share links with other friends so that everyone is able to access and share the same links posted by one person. As such, whatever I find could be useful to another person and their sharing links would also make things easier for me. Many professors as well as teachers also make use of Twitter and Blogs. By engaging in discussions by following them in Twitter and subscribing to their blog in Blogspot, I am able to gain more knowledge so as to make my researching more convenient. Lastly, Twitter has different channels which may relate to research topics and having quick updates on the topics are definitely very useful.