Starting up

Pheww! finally another upload. The problem with internet is that it needed a line and a computer. I have none available to me. Now that computer and internet is available again i will try to liven up this dead blog with a new life. Thank You.

online test

On Tuesday my post is about online proficiency test, now I'm going to post my results after taking the test it goes as follows.


Online Quiz Results :: Kemahiran Asas ICT
Your Score : 21/30

Online Quiz Results Summary

Your #Attempts
: 1
Total Class #Attempts
: 374
Your Quiz Score
: 21/30
Your Highest Score Ever
: 21
Note: This may not be your final marks. Due to some of the subjective and semi-objective questions (short essay and fill in the blank).


As you can see from the results, i didn't do so well. 21 out of 30 is not bad but it's not good either but enough of that. Now' let us touch on the test itself. The test is in multiple choice format, picking the right choice is harder than it seems, the questions is thought provoking rather than useless facts and more on practical aspects rather than theory. It also has an interesting anti-cheating feature which is randomization, although we are in one room every screen shows different questions, this is the first time I've met such features and i dare say it is quiet an experience. The test also give out immediate feedback on your score which allow you to sigh in relief after you take the score. However, a thorough analysis can improved the score feedback by leaps and bound, perhaps a ranking over our score or the most marks on certain area such as excels. The quiz however, didn't have much security it is more on self improvement rather an actual test thus security such as the taker identity is not heavily imposed. Comopare to other online test this test have a lot more to improve but like much of the online test done this test is also for the purpose of self improvement and awareness. A while back i took an online IQ test called the tickel IQ test and the feedback after the test is very impressive, they actually gave a detail coverage of your answer or which type of question that your answer the most corectly and what type of mind do you have. Try it, just click on the hyperlink.

Have you try it? if not oh well. Actually the test taking isn't my idea but the idea of my lecturer whom i will refer to here as Datin. This course that i'm taking is about the language use in the networld or online language if you prefer. the course in my opinion is very interesting after all it was because of it that i'm into blogging. it also is usefull for my improvement in using the english language and i'm sure the rest of my classmates will say the same thing. However there are some things that we could do without, one of the thing is the e-mails learning, learning chat language is fine as well as forum and such. but e-mail is redundant, i,as i can only speak for myself, allready thought ourselve practically on what to do and what not to do on e-mail, perhaps in the future Datin will skip about the e-mails part(or maybe because i couldn't find more e-mail to use, haha). Overall this course is great and i'll rate it 9 out of 10, good luck to Datin and the rest of the lecturers in this course, i enjoyed this course and learn a thing or two about being techsavvy as well as languagesavvy.

oh as usual bloging will go on.

ONLINE LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY ASSESMENT

My review of online language profiency assesment is about using questions made online, answered online and graded online. The article strees the importance of english to a growing country like malaysia however it also said that malaysia is once a country that uses english as a suplement and as a complement not as a substitute language. Therefore the ministry of education reintroduce english into teachers all over malaysia. Thus left to their own devices, public universities such as universiti kebangsaan malaysia (UKM) tailor-make professional development programmes that aim to train lectures that trained in bahasa malaysia as well as lectures that lectured in the national language. The article also tells us about the developement of the online test and the use of learning care as a platform to do it.
In align with the centre for academic ukm policy, the test is a timely one and should be able to guide the lectures placements into the English training modules. The online test specifications include information on content, format and timing, criteria levels of performance and scoring procedures. The online test trial performance is not very encouraging but that is because many of the lectures took the test just for familiarization as the result shows that a total of 59 attempt made by 22 lectures. Concluding of the article is about the experiance of the team developing and conducting the online test for UKM academicians as well some of the faults of today web-based system. The team also proposed that to ensure the validity of the test the test needed to be conducted within a specific time frame and that UKM community be inform og the test availability.

lifelong learning

Here, once again I am. This time my topic is on the prospect of lifelong learning. For this particular project I went to several places for research and might I say that the tools are there but perhaps I’m a bad researcher for I cannot find much on the prospects of lifelong learning. What I did find is three articles on lifelong learning, three that may support lifelong learning from the role of teachers and public libraries to the arts itself. These are my summary:

The concept of lifelong learning is heavily contested, as it can be defined in a number of ways and applied to a range of specific situations, such as the link with the economy, or more broadly defined to incorporate all aspects of learning within an individual’s life, wherever this be located and whatever it may be applied to, for example, basket weaving through an adult education class as a means of personal fulfilment. Given the narrowing divide between our public and private worlds, and the resultant need to take greater responsibility for our own life management and development (Bayliss, 1998), a broad definition would appear to have the greatest currency. Such an approach is reflected in the pragmatic view adopted by Chapman and Aspin who refer to the triadic nature of lifelong learning, the central elements of which are:
• economic progress and development;
• personal development and fulfilment; and
• social inclusiveness and democratic understanding and activity.
Ball (1991) identifies three overlapping stages of lifelong learning: first, the foundation stage which is concerned with instilling the habit of learning during the compulsory years of schooling; second, the formation stage, from 14 to 21 years of age, which is concerned with the development of workplace readiness; and finally the continuation stage which is based on an independent learning approach. Holland also attaches importance the experiences of young people between the ages of 14 to 19 (the formation stage) and suggests that not only are they instrumental in shaping their immediate futures, but also “their long-term capacity to survive in a highly competitive modern world”. Much of the discourse about lifelong learning has been concerned with the needs of adults (Jarvis et al., 1998) with little direct reference in the major reports published to anything that happens pre-16 (Tight, 1998).

Another article is on the importance of libraries as a place for lifelong learners and to hold down illiteracy. Literacy and lifelong learning cannot exist in a vacuum. Expansion of literacy needs reading and writing material. The neo-literates need a place to practice and develop their newly-acquired skill. On the other hand, in the absence of a literary environment, which will encourage them to make use of their skill, there is the danger of a relapse in to illiteracy by the neo-literates.
Though lifelong learning is essential for survival today, what means do learners have to obtain their lifelong learning? Where would they turn to for the learning material? Especially in a developing country like Sri Lanka, where cost of learning material (mainly books) is too high for the majority of the population, the public library can play a significant role in providing learning material to support literacy as well as the continuing education process of the general public.
The ways in which public libraries can contribute towards expansion of literacy and lifelong learning are many, and examples are numerous from all over the world.
Gibbs (1990) points out that Australian public libraries have intervened on two levels. At the bottom level a separate literacy collection could be provided for the literacy students and teachers. This is not far removed from the traditional library services. At a much higher level, libraries have intervened more directly by managing and supporting literacy programmes. It varies from provision of space for classes, one-to-one training and a library staff member participating in a literacy group to the library managing all aspects of literacy programmes. This will include provision of space as well as employing of tutors
The term “Library” implies literacy. “Those who are not literate do not have anything to do with the libraries” is the common opinion. If the public library is to participate successfully in the literacy programmes, this perspective must be eradicated. A variety of non-print media (posters, pictures, cartoons, banners, films and videos) can be used to attract the non-literates to the library so that they will gradually overcome the fear of literary environments and want to learn more by improving their reading and writing skills.
Developing literacy centres based on public libraries will be cost effective in the Sri Lankan context where resources are limited. Taking the Australian context as a model, literacy trainers could be identified to work from the public library. In this way the space of the library could be used to conduct classes and the learning materials can be organised without much additional cost. On the other hand, when the literacy students visit the library for classes they will gradually learn to use the material in the library to practice their new skill. This will prevent the relapse into illiteracy.

A village library which is fully integrated with the literacy and post-literacy educational programme, if staffed with an imaginative librarian, can go further by providing remedial reading, personal counselling advocacy or referral. If the librarian collaborates with the literacy teacher and the rural extension agents, which he should, the use of the library materials for literacy and vocational or coping skills development and even for everyday problem-solving information, will be immense. Thus a village librarian becomes also a functional literacy tutor and change agent, and the village library becomes the village education and information centre (Newa, 1990, p. 84).
The public library can contribute to the lifelong learning by supporting the learners to identify and locate the reading material (perhaps listening and viewing material as well) relevant to the needs of the community. The library can identify the needs of the community by studying the main occupations of the area, agricultural products, major industries, crafts and vocations particular to that area, and the characteristics of the population. i.e. certain areas produce tea, rubber or coconut. In certain areas there are specific industries like aquaculture, or garment factories. These specific characteristics produce sub-cultures relevant to a particular area. The public library must cater to the lifelong learning requirements of these sub cultures. Now we’ve come to the final part of my posting. The role of arts in lifelong learning.

'Tango dancing is beneficial to the elderly, say the authors, because it incorporates elements found in standard neurobiological rehabilitation programs: forward, backward, and side-to-side weight shift; one-legged stance; walking on a straight line both backward and forward; increasing step length in all directions; and turning within a narrow space. A prime example is the Transitional Km (TK) technique and program (Shcrman and Weiner, 2004), which utilizes multi-arts (dance, poetry, music) to integrate elements of ritual into the care of older adults in residential facilities to provide a sense of order, continuity, clarity, and integration during rimes of great change as well as in daily life. Elderhostel offers a wide diversity of programs in the arts: many arts appreciation, studio arts, and art history classes that include experiential visits, events, field trips, and integration of first-hand learning and discussion.
Preliminary results from the study on creativity and aging sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and featured on these pages (see Cohen, this issue) demonstrated the importance and the need for arts learning across the life span. Paula Terry, NEA director of the Office for Accessibility, states that "arts organizations, including state and regional arts agencies, should expand programming beyond k-12, to make learning in the arts a lifelong process" (personal communication, 2005).
At the present time, the state of and opportunity for lifelong learning mirrors the inequalities of access in stxiety and attracts people who arc educated. The challenge in thinking about the field will be to reach those in need and make learning through the arts accessible to everyone. It will be interesting to observe how libraries rethink themselves in the future, perhaps is "lifelong access" libraries, and if the arts arc a vital component. Concurrently, the global aspect of learning and the increased use of the Internet in learning as well as ongoing usage by the baby boomers will play into lifelong learning and the arts.

The three articles hopefully have shown that lifelong learning nowadays are view with a more wider and broader prospect, it wasn’t just academically learning but almost everything in our lives needed to be learned just as we learned how to crawl and later walk. That’s all. Signing out.

Oh by the way you can find those online databases here.

www.proquest.um.com

www.emeraldinsight.com

www.ebscohost.com.

JUST BLOGGING

Blog could be define as a place to express your thought and feeling. It can also be define as a medium to deliver opinion to the world. Blog is a reasonably new phenomena, blog being use as a tool to train trainee teachers and teachers alike is even newer. in the introductory paragraph of an article that I've read, the article states the uses of blog for the training of teachers and trainee teachers. from it, i dug out two uses of blog for teachers and trainee teachers. one, to provide them a first hand experience of using computer mediated-application and in using the Internet as a resource while developing their confidence in using the Internet. the second use is for blog to help trainee teachers and teachers in their profile development and the content analysis of the bog also indicate that they reflected on their simulated teaching sessions by posting them inside their blogs. these two uses can help the teachers and trainee teachers to expand further on their choice of career and as blogging allow them to view each other works, a considerable amount of sharing is also included.

Now we've delve into the second part of my post. A great experiance come frome spending time doing great things and trust me when i say that blogging is a great experiance for me. The first time i'm doing my blog work i groan at the extra work, in my mind i've classified the work as another assigment needed to be done, however as the weeks progress i started to enjoy making them. why? perhaps it's the additional touches that i put up perhaps it's knowing that you have a small place of your own in the net, all that matters is that i enjoy the experiance and unless something drastic happens i'm unlikely to turn from that path. from blogging i've also found out it's advantages, i think it's most obvious advantage is that it allow the sharing of thought, in the world of today this sharing of thought is badly needed after all if we can understand each other then we can even change the goal of 'world peace' from an impossibility to a grandiose unlikelyhood. However, blog is not without it's disadvantages, the most obvious would be that it needed an internet connection therefore not all can participate in blogging, the more subtle disavantages is that just as it can be use to share good ideas it can also be use to share negative ideas, think about it. The most interesting aspect of blog is in it's applications, or the multitude use of blogging that is limited only by the mind. blog can be use as an information nexus, as free or otherwise advertisement for companies, and it can also be used as a public conference or forum. That is part of why my reaction to blogging decidedly change from horror to happy.

BEYOND CONCORDANCE LINES: USING CONCORDANCE TO INVESTIGATE THE LANGUAGE DEVELOPEMENT

"look at the systematicity of language as an interesting linguistic puzzle, rather than a set of boring rules to be memorized" said schmitt(2002: 34) as one of the benefits of concordance programme. Concordance programme is use as a method analyzing the constructions of sentences on how words ware use in them. I and three others were task to see the use of 'a' and 'about' by using the concordance programme, from the discussion we found out that 'a' is use i front of various word class such as verb, noun, adjective, adverb and more. it can also be use in front of several noun, in front of several verbs and in front of modifiers and such. Then we turn to the use of 'about' in a sentence. About is a prepositional word however through the use of concordance we receive a better picture of the word 'about' and it's uses. Particularly in one of the sentence the programme highlighted 'about' is use as a adverb instead of preposition. The result of the discussion proven that concordance programme simplified the analyzing of the word structure and allow a clearer picture to be form so that students from all age can easier understand the word structures.
On another note, the article on using concordance to investigate language development is about the investigation of language development and the various methods used in it. In the article, by studying the performance of language productivity and vocabulary use of three age group development pattern can be found. Productivity in this article is indicated by the number of sentence per essay and words per sentence. from a research done by THE EMAS CORPORA, the number of sentence per essay and words per sentence increases as the age group get older( primary 5, form 1,form 4), this is expected because of the cognitive maturity of the older age group, however they also produces longer essay as well as more complex sentences. As for the vocabulary, its diversity is often determined by calculating the type to token ration. a larger type of token ration may indicate a wider use of language while a higher type to token ration may indicate the use of uncommon words as a low type to token ration may indicate over reliance toward on a limited set of words. Another type of vocabulary analysis in the article is the sophistication of vocabulary. the article stated that it can be determined using specialized software programme such as RANGE (Nation, 2002), which analyse text using several frequently used words. From the research done, it has proven that older students tend to use wider range of vocabulary, their words are more sophisticated and they use more academic words then youger student. This show the improvement of the use of english language. As a conclusion, by investigating the language productivity, range of vocabulary and sophistication of vocabulary using the concordance programme to find the specific words, they have sucessfully found out the developement pattern of the english language among three age group of students. The result is that the words, it's sophistication and complexity of the sentence continue to developed as the student get older. That is all fom me.

My first blog posting in a series of blog assignments

My first assignment to be published in my blog is to state the differences and similarities of e-mail, sms and chat language. First up is the differences of e-mail, sms and chat language. The three language is different from each other by it's usage. What i'm trying to say is that the three is use for different things, e-mail is called an electronic mail, it may be written by using hybrid languages, smileys or emoticons but ultimately it is use for sending mails, a paragraph of sentences that is written like a mail with all the salutations and greetings that a mail has. sometimes among close friends we neglected the greetings but only among close friends. For sms, the short messaging system is use as an alternative to calling the person and is writtin with short sentences with the shortest words. Chat language is use for synchronise chatting, with immediate feedback on your message, kind of like chatting face to face. The second differences bettween the three language is the words written. In chat the words are short, with a lot of smileys or emoticons use in the message. It also has it's own shortforms or phrases that is special to certain chatrooms only. Sms is also written short but rarely the use of smiley or emoticons could be seen. Instead of shortforms the languages uses a lot of vocal-ommission words such as 'indpdnt' for 'independent' and such. the language of e-mail hoewever contains long words that is use to inform. How the word is written is up to the sender, if the person recieving the e-mail is a friend then the e-mail will probably have shorforms, no greetings, smiley or emoticons, however if the sender is sending as a formal e-mail than all the tact in the mail will be use, there will probably a greeting, salutations, then thre will be no shortforms and possible the use of smiley or emoticons is avoided. That is the differences of the three language that i can think off now for the similarities. The first is in thier meanings, the e-mail, sms and chat language has the same meaning usage, to give messages or information to another person, either at the end of a monitor or a phone screen. The second is in the sycronising effects of all three system. The three is a synchronise method of communication which is instanteneous, this is especially true for chatting which the sender be able to recieve an almost immediet feedback. the third similarities is in the availability of shortforms. All three languages has shortfoms use in them, this is especially true for the sms language. Well we've finally come to an end, i hope that this peice of writing will shed some light into the world languages of the net. Thanks for reading, bye.