'It ain't easy being me, but it's fun to watch people try.'
This metaphor started linger on my head since I was Secondary 3. I saw someone posted it up as an image and i got attracted to the meaning of it. Personally, I think that it's really not easy to be myself. At times, I will feel useless when I don't have the ability to get some things to do well. But when I have some things which I am good at, and other people will tend to 'try' them out. And this is a feeling which is like an 'enjoyment' where people can't do what you are best at.
This metaphor brings me to another perspective of life, which makes me thinks a lot....
1.Imagine that you are given a virtual budget enough for you to go on the “Dream Holiday” visiting the country which you have always wanted to go to.
I would like to visit a lot of places! But as for a holiday, I would like to travel over to Maldives! I've seen a lot of travelling shows on TV. Most of them was introducing different places, their food, accommodations and a lot more! But Maldives drew most of my attention. Their sea views, their accommodations and entertainments makes me wanna fly there right away each time I look at the TV shows when they were filming at Maldives. I find that Maldives will be a nice and good chilling place where people get to really enjoy for holidays!
2.Search for multimedia websites (tourism / travel related ones) that magically showcase the places of your “Dream Holiday”.
This is a video I saw from Facebook, a friend of mine posted this up. And without hesitation, I played and watched it. This is a self record video by a Korean couple who went Maldives for a holiday! They were showing us how the accommodations looks like over there. The facilities in the room makes me go 'WOW' at the first look at it, and I bet after you have watched it, you would wish to go there for a holiday too!!
A picture of Maldives!!
Tell me who can resist the beautiful blue sea over there!?!?!
3.Evaluate the website/s and identify the most important criteria you used to get information about your “Dream Holiday”.
I saw reviews from Tripadvisor.com.sg, all the reviews came in with 5 stars full ratings!! All the reviews were given from people who went there and been there for holiday before, thus, I believed that the information given by them was reliable. There's also ratings for Value, Rooms, Location, Cleaniness, Sleep Quality and Service. All of them was more to the 5 stars ratings too! Besides that, there is options for us to check rates for the trip too! We just simply have to give us the date of travelling and the number of people going, and they will search for packages from 5 different travelling websites.
Activity 3 - Blog Reflections
Which evaluation criteria did you use to evaluate the multimedia websites for your “Dream Holiday”? Why?
I used 'Authority' to evaluate the mulitmedia websites for my 'Dream Holiday'. As in the web that I have found, tripadvisor.sg, written down others opinion and their experience for their holidays. Besides that, they also gave us a brief information and picture of how the particular looks like and is that place worth to go.
Why did you choose to go to your Dream Holiday destination.
Maldives is a beautiful place for diving, relaxing and have a real 'holiday'. After watching TV shows that introduce them, I started to look for more information about Maldives on the web. The pictures given was gorgeous! The sea was so blue.. which I would like to see it in real. And also, they gave me a 'peaceful' feeling which could allow me to really enjoy my holiday if I couls really travel there.
Compare your virtual Second Life experience with that of evaluating the multimedia websites for your Dream Holiday
I think that Second Life gave me a ‘fast’ view of how Maldives looks like. It will be fun if I could really step on the sandy island of Maldives my own.. J
Activity 1 - Searching TP's databases : Digital Library Portal
Database 1:
For the first database, I searched through using EBSCOhost under the Journals & Magazine Articles category. Using “(causes and effect*) AND (child* OR kid*) AND (violence OR aggression) AND selective mutism” search method doesn’t seems to work this time as the search engine shows a ‘No result is found’. But I widen the search space by typing in just ‘selective mutism’, surprisingly; there are quite a number of related articles for me to choose from. But sadly, those articles that I find pretty useful can’t be seen as it requires us to purchase them.
For the 2nd database search, I used Global Issue in Context (GIC) to carry on my search. While searching for the topic ‘selective mutism’, I find it kinda hard to get a result from the rest of the links or resources from the given links. I tried my luck on GIC and was surprised to see that at least there’s 28 news articles related to selective mutism. And 5 posts were found under the ‘Global Viewpoint’ category. What’s more interesting is that the articles were all found from different publisher or newspaper globally. Links and citation is also given in each articles posted.
Activity 2 - Searching the Invisible Web - TP's Databases
When using the “eBooks” database, I typed ‘Causes and effects of Selective Mutism at first, but no results was given. Thus, I changed to just the main keyword to ‘Selective Mutism’ but only 3 results were given to me. But the date stated that one of the eBook was from 1967 while 2 others was from year 2011, which I think that the books was up to date.
Activity 3 (Blog Reflections)
a.Do you think it is more effective to search the invisible web (databases) than using search engines, meta-search or subject directories? Why?
I think the invisible web, search engines, meta-search and subject directories all gave me effective researches. Just that using the invisible web could allow me to find information that was not seen in the other search engines. Thus, i personally think that using all the search engines could allow me to many different kind of answers.
b.Name ONE database which you will use for your research topic. Why?
I would prefer using the 1st database (EBSChost) for my research topic. EBSChost gave me much more relevant information to Selective Mutism as compared to the 2nd database (GIC). Besides that, GIC only have research that is from 2005 and etc.. which is not very recent. While the EBSChost researches was quite updated and some was just few years back like last year information can be seen there.
c.Name ONE more database which you will use for your course. How will you use this database for your course?
I will prefer to use EBSChost for any researches for my course as I think that the information given was reliable, sufficient and was up to date.
