A Journey from Christchurch to Queenstown

My vacation to New Zealand was a really exceptional experience. For almost 2 weeks (17 February 2012 to 1 March 2012), my parents and I lived in a country which was different to Malaysia. It was the things I managed to see, the discoveries I made there and the people I met which made it a completely unique and unforgettable journey. I would return there as soon as possible without almost any hesitation.

When vacationing in unfamiliar places, there’s various consumer electronics and technologies that can help you enjoy the sites or stay focused on the business or vacation at hand. A PDA, GPS, and translation software are indispensable additions to your travel gear.

We travelled by car from Christchurch to Queenstown via Global Positioning System (GPS). A GPS is extremely useful when combined with digital street maps. It do really helps us navigate to points of interest, including mapping software specific for the regions in which we are travel. Find hotels, restaurants, gas stations, sightseeing points and much more, by simply selecting or entering the coordinates and letting our GPS receiver guide us there. In fact, with a GPS we know if a “short cut” really is a short cut and that you’re not being taken on a longer route just to rack up a higher fare. Thus our vacation  were really fun with a GPS since it allows us to enjoy our experience without worrying so much about how to get around.

e-Learning Videos

I am a bit busy to do some typing, so here i will just share some good videos related to e-learning evolution.

Statistic on e-Learning

Benefits of e-learning

e-Learning revolution on tablets

Rayyan and Games

With the rapid pace of technology, it can be a challenging task to monitor our child's exposure to different forms of media. What are the effects of media and technology exposure at varying ages and what can you do as a parent to regulate his or her interaction with technology tools? 

Are video games bad for children? Recently I noticed my cute niece, Rayyan Hakimi often playing games using his mom’s Samsung Tab. He just 3 years old but managed to navigate the cars and he really enjoying it!!! For this particular question, I totally disagree that video games are inherently bad for children, as long as the parents control which ones their kids play. I think that video games that are designed for children in their age groups are educational, and helpful in a child's development. The only way in which video games would be bad is if a parent allowed a child to play games that where not in their age group. Video games provide children with a hands-on fun way to learn and grow. Some games may improve kids' hand-eye coordination and problem-solving skills, in fact sometimes games require kids to actually move or manipulate the game through their own physical movement.

I still remember, Rayyan’s mother become panic and  have asked me the question of what can she do to prevent Rayyan’s addiction towards video games and Ipad that she just bought.. Huh,such a tuff question!! I just answered that she should set clear rules about when, where, how much and what kind of game playing is allowed as soon as Rayyan starts to play games. Then, she and my brother should limit the video game playing time and make sure Rayyan is not playing in the middle of the night. It just my two cents and if let say Rayyan refuses to cooperate, restrict access to video games for a period of time. Again, we just make sure computer and video game playing remains a positive part of Rayyan’s lives.

iPad has changed the world and even our minds. iPad is not just a cool device, but provides education, therapy and, of course, entertainment. Some parents might thought of teaching their kids with an iPad rather than old-fashioned paper and pencil, the iPad does offer several advantages over books and even computers and smartphones.

In this article, we’ll take a look at 5 out of 20 iPad apps which help your kids to write letters, develop phonics, and even write their own books. You can find all of them here: http://savedelete.com/20-awesome-ipad-apps-that-will-teach-your-kids-to-read.html)

Modern e-Learning : Tabletize?

Recently, i see a lot of youngsters having fun playing games within their tablet no matter where they go. I'm thinking that this might be one of the best method of e-learning for them!

I did some search and found out the existing of tablets which is designed specifically for education purpose. These are some of them...

Aakash 2
The Aakash 2 will feature an array of e-learning apps, some of which were available on the original Aakash. To begin with, it will offer access to the Sakshat educational portal which is designed to assist both students and teachers. There’s a students' corner, a teacher’s corner, a space to carry out discussions and also a knowledge plus segment that offers ebooks, journals and study materials like Maps and free translation. Pre-loaded apps include Yahoo!'s web portfolio and news from Indian Express Group. GetJar provides access to over 350,000 software applications.

Original Aakash at its launch...

The tablet also includes Mango learning solutions for game-based educational modules, interactive smart books and the full CBSE curriculum. It features TestBag, the most comprehensive solution for testing and e-assessment. Intelligia finger tracing apps have also been included to teach letter writing to toddlers.

The other one is Micromax Funbook

Micromax Funbook
The Funbook comes with several apps pre-installed, but on clicking on the app and logging into the mStore, each of these apps shows a common interface. The interface is neat and segregated into compartments for Education, Games, Apps, Movies, Entertainment and Live TV. You will find apps already embedded in each section; for instance, you will find the Vriti e-learning app in the education section, about 13 games on adventure, arcade and action in the gaming section, a Bollywood flick in the movie section, entertainment apps like BigFlix, popular Hindi music, and also Live TV, which features 48 TV channels.

Value for money..

The Vriti e-learning app allows access to more than 500 smart courses ranging from Class 1 to Degree courses and even preparatory material for the medical, engineering and MBA entrance exams. One has to first register with Vriti and select the syllabus they wish to download. You also get study materials, videos, multimedia, tests, assessment, and even references from leading content brands like Pearson, Everonn, GK Publishers, Scholarshub, Vidyalankar, Universal Tutorials, CAPS, Zion and more. However, all this is available on a trial basis and you will have to buy the courses if you want permanent or extended usage. On the flipside, Vriti and some of the other content it offers is also available on Google Play and is not something exclusive to the Funbook.

What we liked was how well Micromax has segregated these categories and then placed the content for easier accessibility. Micromax has designed a nifty tablet by precisely picking some cool apps that students may find useful and entertaining.
With the "tabletized"  features, the e-learning process is going mobile and closer to everyone!

How to deliver an engaging Virtual Classroom presentation

continued from previous entry...

For this entry, I would like to share with you guys the topics that I have chosen and completed for my Final Year Research Report. For your info, Alhamdulillah, eventually I have completed my Degree in BSc (Hons.) Business Computing, Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) in May 2009. Wow, time is too fast, now we are approaching end of 2012!!!

I would like take this opportunity to say a million thanks to my supervisor Associate Professor Yap May Lin (Faculty of Computer and Mathematical Sciences, UiTM) for her guidance, support, encouragement and constructive criticism that I have been received for the preparation of this thesis.  Well, she had encouraged and motivates me with her advice and opinion to ensure I will complete the project successfully. I also like to express my deepest gratitude to  Dr. Fariza Hanis Abdul Razak, Puan Fauziah Redzuan, Puan Mardziah bt Hashim , Associate Professor Halilah and Dr. Emma Nuraihan Mior Ibrahim for all their advices in writing the report and help me much in getting the right finding analysis. Again, not to forget , I also want to thank my beloved family members who support me to go through that difficult time in order to complete the thesis. Last but not least, to all my friends, a million of thanks to them who never stop supports helps and motivate me. All these people are my inspirations in completing my final project.

Ok,back to the Research Report. The title of my research is The Service Quality of E-Learning: A Focus on Mode of Delivery. Generally, e-learning is not a new concept of delivering education. The e-learning concept has been around for decades and is one of the most significant recent developments in the information systems industry. By responding to the range of issues and problems that affect the quality, credibility and accreditation of e-learning programs, my research aims to identify the mode of delivery used in the e-learning programs and to determine the service quality on the mode of delivery for e-learning from the perspective of University Teknologi MARA (UiTM), Open University Malaysia (OUM) and University Tun Abdul Razak (UNITAR) learners’, respectively. 

Based on the e-service quality model, eleven dimension of service quality, namely ease of use, appearance, linkage, structure and layout, content, reliability, efficiency, support, communication, security and incentive were analyzed and tested for the purpose of value add the implementation and ways of delivering e-learning effectively and successfully. Findings from my survey indicate that majority of respondents ranked ease of use as the most significant dimension of e-service quality of e-learning while incentive as least significant for the for the current status of e-learning delivery mode. In terms of perceived importance of e-learning delivery mode, efficiency is ranked the highest while incentive as least important. From hypotheses testing, eight out of eleven dimensions exhibit significant association with the learners’ perceptions of e-learning e-service quality. In summary, through my findings, Institutions of Higher Learning should measure the service quality features on the regular basis and service quality may become the evaluation criteria in order to deliver e-learning efficiently and successfully.

In fact I personally belief that retention for learner varies based on content type and delivery vehicle, hence students or learners viewed that the better the match of content and delivery vehicle to a learner’s style, the greater the retention and the results is. Ok, maybe this video may give us some idea.. Enjoy guys!!

The Service Quality of E-Learning: A Focus on Mode of Delivery

For this entry, I would like to share with you guys the topics that I have chosen and completed for my Final Year Research Report. For your info, Alhamdulillah, eventually I have completed my Degree in BSc (Hons.) Business Computing, Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) in May 2009. Wow, time is too fast, now we are approaching end of 2012!!!

I would like take this opportunity to say a million thanks to my supervisor Associate Professor Yap May Lin (Faculty of Computer and Mathematical Sciences, UiTM) for her guidance, support, encouragement and constructive criticism that I have been received for the preparation of this thesis.  Well, she had encouraged and motivates me with her advice and opinion to ensure I will complete the project successfully. I also like to express my deepest gratitude to  Dr. Fariza Hanis Abdul Razak, Puan Fauziah Redzuan, Puan Mardziah bt Hashim , Associate Professor Halilah and Dr. Emma Nuraihan Mior Ibrahim for all their advices in writing the report and help me much in getting the right finding analysis. Again, not to forget , I also want to thank my beloved family members who support me to go through that difficult time in order to complete the thesis. Last but not least, to all my friends, a million of thanks to them who never stop supports helps and motivate me. All these people are my inspirations in completing my final project.

Ok,back to the Research Report. Actually the title of my research is:  The Service Quality of E-Learning: A Focus on Mode of Delivery.

Generally, there are two research objectives that need to be achieved for this particular study. These research objectives are:

i) To identify the mode of delivery used in the e-learning programs.

ii) To determine the service quality on the mode of delivery for e-learning.