Learning off the Internet

How learning can be made effective through the use of digital media? Give examples and using your own experience of learning 

Several years ago, I was still a student rushing through A levels, with a subject that all students have to take if they are taking the A levels - Project Work. There were many ideas that had to be explored, the choosing of a main "theme" and then the choosing of a main idea to set off our project. My group decide to go with the theme of "Modernisation", and together we brainstormed a load of ideas that we deemed effective to the theme, but after a few mistakes and hurdles, we chose the idea of e-Distance Learning (yes, I do have a point that is relevant to the blogpost title after rambling on for so long). 

We were all hyped up yet worried about implementing the concept of e-distance learning, since there wasn't as much examples that we could glean our information from. Through the many years of technological advancements, typing this post is such a breeze, since there are so many instances of learning through the digital media and supplementing the concept of e-distance learning. 

I had this crazy idea that e-distance learning through classrooms should be done the same way as the cartoon above. Yes, we even had this set up done in the classroom during the presentation (and our video), to ensure that our "students" around the world are able to have the convenience and flexibility to learn, and to create a e-learning environment where it is interactive, engaging, and to create a personal learning experience to each and every student. 

Starting this project was just a beginner style of research and implementation of an electronic learning environment, however, looking at the technology now and the level of critical thinking that every tech savvy human should have, learning through digital media has far surpassed what I had intended that 4 years back. 

Looking at this inspirational video where Salman Khan talks about how he created the remarkable Khan Academy - carefully structured series of educational videos that offer a complete curricular in math, and in other subjects as well. He showcases how powerful interactive exercises have one the minds of students, and how learning off digital media is much more effective and critical to exploring the minds of students. 

Remember, you can even get your college degree off digital media if you want to, you just have to have the passion! 

Electronic Business

I LOVE SHOPPING. To be clearer, I love online shopping. Who doesn't really? What with e-businesses sprouting left right and center, there are endless possibilities that everyone gets to choose. Just like normal businesses, there are some unfortunate closures and there those that are still up and running even as I am typing this.

If you are thinking of setting up an ecommerce website and have no idea what are the top ten key factors to owning a successful site, here are the top ten key factors!


TOP TEN REASONS WHY WEBSITES SUCCEED.

• ALWAYS REMEMBER TO UPDATE YOUR SITE DAILY

You have to know that great websites do not succeed by letting their websites grow cobwebs because they think that they have nothing left to update their site with. Weekly or monthly updates just does not make the cut. Let's say you have no new products to add in on a day to day basis, you have to continue trying to add something new so that your consumers will find for themselves a reason to continue heading back to your website as compared to the others. Maybe adding in some bolgposts reviews? Or maybe a competition? Clearance sales? Backorders? Just think about what you would like to see if you are consumer and you will not run out of ideas for your website. Furthermore, a daily update of your website will increase your search engine ranking! And in SEO terms, you will be at the top of your rank. 

Qoo10

• PROVIDE A SUBSCRIPTION OF SOME SORT

Groupon

Remembering the old time proverb of "out of sight, out of mind"? Well, that applies greatly to the internet as well. Or perhaps even more so. If your competition has constant updates for the consumer as compared to your lack of weekly updates website, the consumer will slowly but surely wipe your presence clear from their hippocampus and your business will fail. Successful website will tend to send newsletters/bargains/coming soon products/ clearance sales, at least once a week. This sending of the regular newsletter actually gives you a chance to push for new products and clearance sales, and you actually imprint brand awareness upon the consumer's mind and ensuring that they do not fail to remember your existence. 

• SIMPLE,CONSISTENT, AND EASY NAVIGATION

Ebay

Yes yes, having that amazing flash animation on your websites gives you the kick that YOU want, when YOU open your site - that is because you placed it there and you understand its purpose. But not the consumer, they have no idea why you placed an annoying flashing animation over there, and they are annoyed by it so they decided to close the tab that holds your website. Just like any normal business, the bottom line for having a successful ecommerce website is to make life easy for your consumer! Make every navigation simple and classy, with the options for switching products to be clean and consistent, and your consumer will be more inclined to stay longer to take a snoop around. Remember to always include these few things:

1. About Us
2. Products / Services
3.  Contact Us
4. Testimonials / Product Reviews / Before & After
5. . Frequently Asked Questions
6. Site Map
7. Copyright Information
8. Return/Refund/Privacy Policy
9. Resources/Articles
10. Frequently Asked Questions

• EVOLVING MORE THAN YOUR COMPETITION

Old Facebook

 New Facebook

You own a website business. That itself speaks volumes about what you have to do to maintain a website business. You have to evolve the same way technology does, by adopting new technologies as they come, and remember that your consumer will like to see a change in the website they are visiting once in awhile. So be open with changing the outlook of your website, and factor in the cost incurred for this as something that is necessary. Don't be like the websites that have failed because they are the ones that are left in the dust when other websites had already changed. Think like the way CEOs of big companies are paid to think - think of the future. 

• PLACE YOUR WEBSITE IN GOOD HANDS 

Google Team

Needless to say, if you put in only 50% of effort in maintaining this as a business, then you can only expect to receive about 50% in returns. To succeed in your ecommerce website, do not be stingy with the money that you have to spend. Hire staff that are eager to make this business as successful as you desire it to be, and remember that this is not an area to scrimp on as well! Have a team of full timers that will be responsible for most of the day to day running of the site, and another group that will brainstorm along with you how to better the website; more heads will make better ideas.

• GOOD LOOKING LOGOS AND DOMAIN NAMES

You are your website, and your website is you. Treat your website like a living being, where similar to human beings, outlook and a classy name will create for you a "halo effect". Simply put, you have to look the part to be the part. As I have repeated countless of times, money is not something that you can be stingy about in every sense of the word. Hire a professional web designer to design the website for you, and a professional logo designer to ensure the appeal of your logo. Never choose a cheaper alternative, since you wouldn't want your website to fall through because your logo looks cheap and homemade do you?

• SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION

This is something that every ecommerce website should do, and if you are not doing it... then your business has either failed, or you are very lucky. Remember I mentioned that you have to place your website in good hands? Your full time staff that is hired to manage your website has probably set about doing this as soon as they can. In the over populated world of the Internet that is based largely by SEO. this is something that you have to do. Need I say more?

• GOOD PR 

By now, you would have set about doing up your SEO, but that is not the end to placing your website on the map of ebusinesses. You have to remember that ecommerce is similar to regular businesses, where good PR is essential to making your website known. Get featured on popular blogs, news sites, ad space, and placing articles in regular newspapers for a wider coverage of your consumers. Do not look down on blogs or news sites, as they are your strongest platform to promote your website through. Or maybe you can get your team of workers to partake in pay-per-click advertising, a much underrated way to promote your site. 

• GOING SOCIAL

This might be something new to the consumers 12 years back, but no longer is going the way of social media deemed as unnecessary. In fact, if you have social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, MySpace, etc.) for your website, remember to always put some social media "buttons" around your website, for people to share your website, or to just link to your Facebook page. Remember the team of workers you hired? You will have to dedicate one team to the management of your social media platforms, where information are to be updated daily and customer questions to be answered just as promptly. This is something that you are able to reach to all the different groups of consumers, and definitely not a force to be lightly taken. Whatever it is, just remember to have social media if you want to succeed. 

• EXCELLENT CUSTOMER SERVICE

Never ever forget that an ebusiness is no different from a regular company, where customer service is the most important in the process of sustaining your company. Ensure that you are able to fulfill what you have promised to your customer, payment has to be secure and quick, and delivery of orders have to be prompt and efficient - never to be slower than stipulated time on the website, and to handle all complaints and bad reviews with the grace of a lady. Remember that customers are able to post reviews on forums or discussion boards, and that word of mouth (even through the computer screen) is much more influential than what you can imagine. 

All in all, remember that you may be an owner of an ecommerce website, but you are consumer at the same time. Just think of what you would like to see, and you would have won have the battle. 

The Many Electronic Friends That We Have (Week 3)

There are many times that we are on Facebook/Twitter/Myspace/Tumblr and we decide to browse to the thousand of friends that we have on our social networking sites.. Okay, I jest. I only have around 400 friends on Facebook and I think it is already too much for me to handle. 

This is my Friend Network that I managed to get from a website that Com240 has directed me to in the previous semesters.

My network is not interesting, which is what I would like. I prefer a clean cut network, and this perhaps is the only thing that surprised me – that my networks are not as confusing as I thought them out to be – that most people in my networks are made up of strong ties, without much connectors to each group. My Facebook activities are rather mundane seeing as I have not many activities as compared to my peers, similar to realizing that my network is not interesting; I am surprised that my Facebook is so clean cut. There are instances that I would just log into Facebook to be a “lurker”, and perhaps my time spent as a “lurker” has made me forget the fact that I have not been as active – posting of statuses/photos/links – as I am active as a “lurker”.

Well. we all know that everyone needs social networking to interact with their friends or to create "bonds" - yes, however flimsy they are - to maintain future networking purposes. Coming from someone who only has that many friends on Facebook... I believe that social networking sites are good only if you are a believer of having many flimsy connections.

And I am unfortunately not a believer of having many acquaintances for the sake of having a pretty Facebook page. There are so many social problems to deal with when you expose more than what you are supposed to on social networking sites, its almost akin to placing yourself up on a platform where everyone is allowed to bitch about you.. and YOU WOULDN'T KNOW IT. Just look at the poor case of Canadian Teen Amanda Todd, a poor victimized girl of Facebook, who eventually committed suicide after posting up her story on YouTube (a popular video sharing site).

This is her original video, can you believe that people still continued to bully her on Facebook after this incident? Which had ultimately led to her cracking and committing suicide.





Is social networking really just about maintaining friendships and creating new bonds? Since by the social penetration theory. we all know that relationsla bonds do not acquire themselves immediately following the acceptance of a "Friend Request".

Kinda like this image, where there are hundreds of "friends" writing on your Facebook Wall wishing you something along the lines of  "happy birthday pretty! Have a good bithday!"  "Happy birthday! Have a good day and may your wishes come true." Seriously though, how many of those people actually remembered that it was your birthday if not for that niggling little notification at the top of their Facebook homepage?

Yes, you could be like that girl in that picture, and remove your birthday notification from Facebook. But I can honestly tell you that no one would remember your birthday, other than your family, boyfriend/girlfriend, and your best friend from when you were a kid.

Social networking is almost a farce, a facade where everyone gets to be "friends" with each other on the surface. When in reality, social networking really requires you to be able to sustain those relationships with real life interactions.

And everyone, let's not forget about the terrible social/psychological problems you might have due to the overuse of social networking sites. 

Week 2 Social Media

Girl: I saw you tweeting her!

Boy: I was just replying her out of politeness!!! 

Girl: Oh yeah?!? 

Boy: Yes!!

Girl: I saw you like her bikini pictures!

Boy: ....... 

We have all been using social media in our daily lives, so much so that it has integrated into our lives and has turned into a necessity so much so that we have forgotten how we had operated as living beings before that. 

I am guilty as charged. 

Although, I am pretty much people will call a lurker on Facebook ( I don't post anything, I just lurk around and stalk unsuspecting Facebook users *evil laugh*)  I do use other social media, such as the all important Instagram ( you post pictures of anything and everything), Twitter (those 140 characters are not to be looked down upon, I have managed to tell someone's life story from that 140 characters) Vine ( those short video clips are pretty entertaining, really.) Social media keeps me and everyone around very much entertained on a daily basis. 

“Social media is a bad idea – the rise of
social media has caused more and
more problems like Internet addiction,
social isolation, and invasion of privacy -
especially with the young generation!”

 Referring to a quote I remembered reading on COM125 PowerPoint slides (okay, I lied. I went back and copied and pasted this quote) strikes a cord with me. Sure, social media has granted people the ability to create communities of their own such as the blogging community - where there are businesses dedicated to managing bloggers, in Singapore we have Gushcloud.sg and Nuffnang -, online activist groups, event companies, and more than we can think of. Three years back, Google indexed 620 million Facebook groups, imagine all the communication within that many groups! 

That to be said, I agree wholeheartedly with that quote. 

Social Media is a bad idea. 

I have lost count of the countless times that I had deactivated my Facebook, for fear of the loss of privacy. Facebook is close to being like a stalker and gossip haven! And there has been so many meaningless "friendships" on Facebook, or the obligation to just click "like" on someone else's photo on Instagram just because that person "liked" your photos too many times for you not to return the favor. Social media, utilized by the young has seem to lost its value of connecting, but rather a race of popularity.  

Source

How meaningless can Social media get?

what really goes on behind those flawless pictures on Facebook

Nobody even really remembers the different versions of the web anymore, no one knows how "it" works on the most basic levels. Here is a very basic rundown of the difference  between Web 2.0, 3.0, and 4.0. 

• WEB 2.0 - The reading and participating web
• Begun in year 1999 
• LiveJournal (Launched in April, 1999) and Blogger (Launched in August, 1999) started the ball rolling
• Non-technical user can actively contribute and glean information from the web using different blogging platforms.
• Video-Streaming
• Twitter
• YouTube
• Flickr
• Instagram
• Facebook

• WEB 3.0 - The Semantic Executing Web
• Web 3.0 uses the Inernet to make connections with the information
• Web 3.0 interprets what you want
• For example, you want to et somewhere nice for dinner with your special someone, and you have a budget of maybe $200. You want somewhere romantic yet not too overly romantic, somewhere where there is nice aphrodisiac oysters and steak for main courses. Using the current tchnology you might have to do a lot of research to be able to get a close enough location for that dinner. You might have to compare pages and pages of websites and reviews to decide on what is available to you. However, with Web 3.0, you will be able to sit back and let the Web 3.0 do the job for you. You might key in something really specific like " I want ot bring my date out to somewhere romantic that is not too romantic. I will like the place to have oysters and steak too." This is possible because Web3.0 is able to interpret every keyword that you have typed and able to understand the context of the search. Web 3.0 knows no boundaries and opens up the whole semantic web for you. 

How the semantic web works is seen in the video below

And a last video, to lay out the growing nature from Web 2.0 to Web 3.0