2009年5月29日金曜日

Lesson4:Social Bookmarking

Think!
--The environment of my research before I have known the PERSONAL & SOCIAL STUDY TOOL; Delicious--

1.
a) almost 0%. Most of the resources of my research were based on books.
b)about 30 %. 2 years ago, I have come to use the information of the internet. However, I did not get used to it and I also did not put much credit on it.
c)about 70%. Now I use the information of book as well as that of the internet though I separate these two type depends on the type of information which I want to collect.

2.
I would set the site homepage address as my bookmark on the tool bar or I publish that address into my blog.

3.
Before I have known the Delicious, I would only put the site on my blog to show my friends.

Explore! (17)
---Searching other classmates' Delicious bookmarking by using their user names.After that, make them into my network member and share the links with them.---

Working with this simple task, I realized the true usefulness of Delicious so much.It enables us to 1)share the bookmarks and 2)send them links like a present!I was so impresed. This tool give people huge impact on their research project or some academic workings, too.


Do!
---The efficiency and usefulness of Delicious: rough answers of several presentations---

I have noticed and understood three big points of Delicious which makes it so useful and social: book marking system, tagging and sorting system, and system of sharing by network. First one, book marking system, by which users can pile up their favorite or important site into the Delicious, is enable them to collect much information efficiently and smoothly. The second one, tagging and sorting system, is enable users to reach the very information directly without much effort and troubles. The last one, the system of sharing by network, is enable users to share the information with other people. We must realize the usefulness of this system when we do some group research and wish to share the same information with other member of the group. That small dream easily come true by just two clicking on the page of Delicious. By exporting one's information, someone's information become everyone's information! So social and useful!
As I said earlier, Delicious can contribute various situation and have the power of strong assistant in many environment as well.

Explain!
---Baced on SCICU Key questions, there are reflections of social bookmarking.---

1)What are the main skills needed to use Delicious?

---In order to use Delicious, its users are required the skill of judging whether the site they have found is worth bookmarking to Delicious or not. This is because their collection of bookmarking have high potential to be seen by thousand of other and unknown people. It can be harmful poisons as well as the useful resources. So the judging skill are highly needed.

2)
What are the affordances of social bookmarking (what does it make possible, what does it impede)?

---In the process of the social bookmarking, the network can be the strong affordance. Through the millions of networks which is running all over the world, social bookmarking system can work more smoothly
and can have its wideness in its function.

3)
How can Delicious be used to network professionally and connect you to learning resources (including other learners)?

---This seems the most important points of using Delicious. using the sharing system, people can use Delicious as precisely sorted huge information library or exhibition which they can use and share those information freely. By entering the keywords or tags of researching topic, people can find various information on the screen.

4)
What skills and understandings have you learned about social bookmarking that may promote your development as an effective learner in the digital age?

---Started using Delicious, I have come to realize its usefullness and perspectives of sociality. On the left side bar, I can click and jump to the bookmarks sites whenever I wish to see. At the same time, I have also realized that piling more and more bookmarks and sorting my own Delicious, and sharing many useful and interesting site with other peers and friends, or my family, I will be able to use and develop Delicious better: the more I use it, the better it will be and the more it will become useful.







2009年5月17日日曜日

My Academic Experiences -part1-

Here, this is my ELP essy as one example of my academic work...



Racism in Britain:The Origin and Transition of Racism in Britain

Britain, to say the least, is no longer the country of only white people. The census held in 2001 indicated that about seven percent of the whole population in Britain was non-white people (Fryer 219). This figure seems subtle, but there have been a number of conflicts and frictions between these minorities and majorities. For instance, 7000 cases of racial violence were recorded in 1984; this figure bounced up to 20000 in the next year (Fryer 170). However, such a terrible phenomenon might arouse little surprise among British people. This is because racism in Britain has been accumulated from century to century taking various forms such as political belief, biased education, or “systematically different treatment” (Mason 72) toward minorities. Actually, these racial attitudes in Britain have been created and cultivated as outcomes of historical incidents.

First of all, the introduction of the slave trade in seventeenth to eighteenth centuries caused the first racism into Britain. In this trade, innumerable African people were compulsorily sent to the West Indies to labor in the plantation for sugar. At this time, sugar was called “white gold” for its high value, and when this trade turned out to be considerable success, more and more black people were crammed into traders and used just like a “part of a machine” (Fryer 36), which would be thrown away and replaced easily. Nevertheless, this idea indicates that their treatment was nothing but terrible. On the other hand, thanks to the literally dreadful engagement of these slaves, British economy experienced huge and surprising amount of profit. They large profit was generously used to domestic investment, such as the introduction of railroad, the invention of steam locomotive, and even the establishment of the bank system which has been existing in today’s Britain. In addition, some of the cities like Liverpool and London became famous for its prosperity due to the success of this trade. It can be said that all of these developments and growing of Britain was owing to the contribution of black people. In other words, their abundant labor force enabled Britain to be the most powerful and influential country at that colonial period. As a result of this situation, a great need of justification for slave trade was born. In order to maintain the crucial trade system and rationalize the idea of colonialism, a number of scholars, including a famous philosophers, John Locke and David Hume, created the idea that white people are superior to black people by nature. For example, John Locke clearly stated in his norm that white people could and should regard black people as the essential “assets” for human beings (Fryer 97).Only because black people’s culture and society were different or immature for British’s point of view, such scholars labeled them as “inferior” and in so doing, they rationalized exploitation and ill-usage of black people. As time passed, such white supremacy had gradually pervaded into British society. Indeed, the profit of slave trade was thirstily needed and so was its moral justification.

Secondary, the abolition of the black slave system led to the expansion of immigration, which made Britain confront the first mixed-race society. Because of the climate of anti-slave system from view point of the morality in early nineteenth century, the government enacted the abolition of that system in 1834. This regulation produced two surges of immigration. Firstly, because capitalists and landowners were put in crucial plight, they sought new labor force; immigrants from India. India at that time was directly controlled by Britain, which made India totally collapsed and starved by soaking up almost all the resources and wealth (Fryer 49). Consequently, many of the immigrants aimed better circumstances in Britain, only to find themselves overused and discriminated. The number of Indian immigrants was sharply increased and they formed “new slavery” (Ramdin 53) within the British Empire. Secondly, British capitalists also began to possess huge plantation in the West Indies. They greedily exploited the laborers there and at last, made local society devastation (Fryer 53), which pushed local people to immigrate in Britain for better life. As a result of these two surges, British society had got a subtle but significant change of the racism. According to Miles, it has changed into “new European Racism” (Miles 37) which obviously reflects social structure and relationships of force. On the other hand, “old racism” simply embodied mythological difference and negative evaluation along with political and economical desire. In other words, “new European racism” draws the clear border between majorities of supremacy and minorities of “being lived distortedly” (Miles37). It can be assumed that the emergence of immigrants from other countries gave the first opportunity for British people to see others through the racial bias.
As the division of Africa and the expansion of colony grew rapidly, racism and white supremacy penetrated into people deeper and deeper. Along with the division of Africa, great number of people was put under the exploitation by British capitalists. Just as the situation of slave trade, controllers gained considerable profit and demanded strong justification of control system. In addition, there was a clear intention of government to distract people’s attention from domestic problem by encouraging racism. Such desires were accomplished through various medium such as literature, newspaper, music, and theater (Fryer 87). They were all playing the role of vehicle to convey the glory of Great Britain and the myth of racial supremacy. People enthusiastically supported these ideologies without knowing why such idea was created and from where “glory” actually was coming (Fryer 88). From this period of time in late nineteenth century, the prevalence of racism grew around the Britain.

Nextly, a sharp increase of immigrants after WWⅡadded racism with the feeling of hatred. In the middle of the twentieth century, Britain was in serious shortage of labor force for recovery of nation after the war. This need opened the gate of immigration wider and wider, so the huge number of immigrants flowed into the country. Consequently, it gave a tremendous impact upon the British people, and they began to feel a hatred of different customs of immigrants and even a fear that immigrants might deprive the job or position of British people (Fryer 218). It would not be hard to imagine that these feelings of hate and anxiety easily connected to anti-immigrants movements and even the racism with violence. As time passed, white people started to apply their long-cultivated racial attitude upon exclusion of immigrants. These second surge of immigration provided specific reason and exact target to exert racism.

Gradually, racism became daily and ubiquitous thing, and it was supported by even laws. Public and social discrimination were prevailing around the country, and it was expressed in three different types; access racism, expressive racism, and physical racism (Bleich 9). For instance, racial attitude was seen in the children’s book which reflected clear racism (Bleich 118), and this was the typical example of expressive racism. This type had a strongest influence upon discriminating people’s psychology because children would grow up with unconscious racial attitudes implanted by these books. On the other hand, physical racism had direct influence upon the discriminated people. It contained violence toward people, or property such as house and car. However, among these three, access racism was the worst obstacle for discriminated people, because it legitimately admitted to hinder immigrants from free choice of employment, housing, goods, and services. Without these rights of choices, they could not make their living. Thus, the improvement and eradication of this access racism became the main focus of anti-racism movement. Their resistance was aiming against not only racial, discriminating people, but also resistance against not only racial discriminating people, but also against the social system which encouraged accelerating serious racism within the nation.
However, as the number of the immigrants increased dramatically, several brakes on racism began to emerge. In the late twentieth century, the government put an immigration restriction, because the proportion of labors from other country were about to predominate British society. Faced this situation, politicians got the idea of establishment of anti-racism act, named Race Relation Act in 1965. The actual purpose of this enacting was twofold: in order to appease the labour supporters who resented immigration restriction, and to head off troublesome problems of racism (Bleich 36). This act admitted that racism was undesirable (Goulbourne 101), and it soon called large complains and controversy because it was opposed to public policy and personal preference of British people. It was not until this establishment of anti-racism act that the recognition of denial of racism appeared in British society, and this tide pushed immigrants to resist for their better treatment in discriminated situation. From this period of time, the brand-new climate of multiculturalism, which aimed at combating racism, began to emerge (Castles 33).

Furthermore, in modern British society, wider variation of immigrants has made racism more complex and diverse. As of 1990s, ethnic minorities were classified into six major groups; Caribbean, Chinese, Indians, African Asians, Pakistanis, and Bangladeshis (Ramdin 308). This situation obviously shows Britain as mixed-race country, which demanded a need for multiculturalism. Looking for method of harmonious relationship among society, the government applied several social acts, which was focusing on reducing disadvantages of minority people (Edwards 165). These acts were especially aiming at discouraging the access racism. However, it could be assumed that prevalence of strong racism over the people’s mind seems not so easy to remove or even challenged. This can be the big obstacle because there is and will be more and more interaction or inflow of people from other country in modern British society. Under such situation of requiring of good race relations (Bleich 78), the next move or incident, which influence upon the racism in Britain must be notable. In the process of seeking the good relationship among various people, one must understand the historical reason for prevalence of racism in Britain. It is the bitter background that the racial attitude was implanted into people’s mind through several historical incident at the convenience of controllers or social benefits.

2009年5月11日月曜日

Lesson3:Blog as e-portfolio

Think!
Traditional evidences

Before I started this course, I used to show my study evidences by pictures and figures, citation from the books of resources, and sometimes video evidences.


Explore!

(1)As progressing evidence

After watching the video, I think I understand that using e-portfolio, we can carry various kind of unformed information and evidences. We can check the progress of our work and proceed them at anytime. It amazingly makes our daily lives smooth and comfort.

(2)Useful Box

Actually, now I am on a research project in other class at ICU, and in that process, I cannot help thinking that if I could add specific figures, statistic information and even the videos or pictures which are relating to my project into my e-portfolio, it will be really useful. In addition to this, we can attach these information which will be the newest and so various. I hope my e0portfolio to be useful working space and at the same time, it will be the giant box of my evidences.

(3)Comparison

Compared to traditional tool such as resume, e-portfolio can hold much and more various information: from In addition to this, it is much easier for visitors to understand what that person want to say and think.





Explain!

In order to develop my e-portfolio, I put some items and publish my academic work experiences to my e-portfolio as a blog.



First of all, I put several photographs to my e-portfolio in order to show my interest. These photos I took are good to see in this page, too.

Secondly, I post my ELP essay as my academic work as a test. I wanted it to be able to be seen it as a link connected to Word directly. But I do not know how to do it. I am going to increase these contents eargerly as I get to know the method more.

2009年4月22日水曜日

Lesson2: The Browser as Personal Learning Environment(PLE)

Think!

When we are earger to work anywhere and anytime, it is possible to say that there are several method to achieve that. The USB memory card is one of the solutions. With this small and thin tool, we can carry and use any or however much information at anytime. It is also clear that simply we carry the books or tools to work on them to work anywhere and anytime.




Explore!

Firstly, of the features of No.4, I have found very attractive function; All-in-One. This is the side bar on the right side of the screen which displays various tools such as music player, calender, etc.

Nextly, there is another useful usage; Split Browser. with this method, users are able to watch two different window or pages at the same time.



Explain!

I found two very useful add-ons; ResearchWord and Clipmarks. The former one is the tool box to research and understand the word you have chosen. There are many tools in it; Wikipedia, The free dictionary, Google Definition, spellcheck, Google Images, Youtube, Amazon.etc. You can have various approaches to find out the word you want to know. This ResearchWord fulfills almost all saticfaction to study the word. The next useful and some kind of interesting add-ons is the Clipmarks. There are three steps to use this tools; firstly you CLIP the pictures or words or sentences or even the videos that you want to reserve and keep.Nextly, you SAVE that images or words to your own page of "my clipmarks". Then, lastly you can see everything you have clipped so far on your own "my clipmarks" anytime. In addition to this, you can also see everybody's clipmarks on the homepage of clipmarks, it will definitely useful to make your research or studying; just entering the words relationg to your study, you can see various information from everybody's clipmarks.
By using thse useful tools, we can develop our personal learning environment widely from the studying the unknown or ambiguous words to collecting the resources and information of our learning.

2009年4月16日木曜日

Lesson 1: Introduction to Social Network

Think!

1.Social software
Social software is the kind of method which enables us to gain informationwithout lots of tough research or troubles. With only connecting theInternet, we can pick up and find what we are looking for on thescreen.Another words, this social software is the thing of one way, onlyproviding and guiding. From this point of view, whether social softwarecan be really "social" depends on how we use it to our lives efficiently.

2.Social network
Social network is clearly the thing that connect eachperson to the information, some opportunities, and even the best partner.Compared to social software, it offer the place for people to seize the chance of connection.In thepoint of "social", this social network can be much easier to image becausethe influences and power which the "network" gives on the society is sostrong and huge. Society is the cause of networks.Thus, social network canbe thought of must to make the society and social lives of people.

Explore!

After watching the video of social network, I understand that socialnetwork makes the hidden opportunities visible. They can be the chance toget a job, to live a good house, or to find a pretty girl friend. Therange and possibility of the uses of social network cannot be measured.

Do!

Having learned about Social software and Social network a little, thir images and definitions have been established in my mind, though they are still ambiguous. We use Social software and gain huge profit from it to make our lives better and comfortable. On the other hand, we also use Social network as a method to get the opportunities and various profit.They are both very useful invention and at the same time they have developped along with the demands and needs of human. In order to make the most of these, we must be good and wise users knowing the danger and features of them well.

2009年4月15日水曜日