COM 125 Fifth Week!!!

E-Learning

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"I never teach my pupils. I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn."

- Albert Einstein -

We can't deny that learning is a never ending process of human live. We will not stop learning until we reach our death. Do you agree with a statement saying that we are happiest and most successful when we learn, develop, and work in ways that make best use of our natural intelligence? I do agree!!

Learning is not limited with activity you are doing at school. It is more than that. I know that everybody hates school, but they don't hate the knowledge they get. Every people hate it when they have to learn something that they don't want to learn, but they will even try their best when they are learning a certain skill or knowledge that they want to master.

The problem is that sometimes they don't know where do they go to learn the skill or knowledge they want to master. They don't have the knowledge source that can help them learn.

Fortunately, technologies has helped us a lot in information. We can acquire some information through browsing through the internet. It is different with the old way of learning where you go to school, listen to a real teacher standing in front of you and read from a real book. When you are reading an article in the internet, or you try to learn a skill by watching a video online, it is called e-learning.

E-learning is a learning that is facilitated by the use of digital tools and content. Typically, it involves some form of interactivity, which may include online interaction between the learner and their teacher or peers. Some varieties of e-learning includes: Virtual classroom, Online learning, Rapid e-learning, Simulation-based, Game-based, Mobile learning, and Learning Management System. Below is a mind map that can help you to know some categories of e-learning.

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Some Benefits of E-learning:

1. Convenience and flexibility to learners
2. Improved performance
3. Increased access
4. To develop the skills and competencies needed in the 21st century, in particular to ensure that learners have the digital literacy skills required in their discipline, profession or career.

Image Source:
Picture 1: http://fc00.deviantart.net/fs50/f/2009/295/4/2/Albert_Einstein_Full_Color_by_Pyrlo.jpg
Picture 2: http://www.elearnspace.org/images/Categories%20of%20eLearning.gif

Week Four

E-Commerce

Electronic Commerce is a type of industry where the buying and selling of products or services is conducted over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks (also known as e-commerce). There are some types of e-commerce: E-tailing or "virtual storefronts" on websites with online catalogs, Business-to-business buying and selling, Business-to-consumer Buying or Selling, Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), the business-to-business exchange of data, E-mail and fax and their use as media for reaching prospective and established customers (for example, with newsletters).

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Brief History of E-commerce:

• 1971/1972: The ARPANET is used to arrange a cannabis sale between students at the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 
• 1979: Michael Aldrich demonstrates the first online shopping system
• 1984: CompuServe launches the Electronic Mall in the USA and Canada. It is the first comprehensive electronic commerce service
• 1992: Book Stacks Unlimited in Cleveland opens a commercial sales website (www.books.com) selling books online with credit card processing
• 1995: Jeff Bezos launches Amazon.com and the first commercial-free 24-hour
• 1996: IndiaMART B2B marketplace established in India.
• 1996: ECPlaza B2B marketplace established in Korea.
• 1999: Alibaba Group is established in China
• 2000 onwards: DHgate.com, groupon, business.com, zappos.com, diapers.com

A typical e-commerce website should contain:

1. About Us
2. Contact Us
3. Site Map
4. Why buy from us
5. Testimonial
6. Legal information

Some Types of E-commerce bussiness Model:

1. Brokerage (example: eBay)
2. Advertising (example: Google)
3. Infomediary
4. Merchant (example: amazon.com)
5. Manufacture (example: Dell)
6. Affiliate
7. Community (example: wikipedia)
8. Subscription (example: iTunes)
9. Utility

Image Source:
Picture 1: http://tomuse.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/online-shopping-cart-software-ecommerce-web-store-services.png 

Third week COM125

The Social Networking

After a lot of discussion about web 1.0, web 2.0 and web 3.0, this week's material focuses on social networking. Well what about social networking? It is true that nowadays social networking is so popular and people cannot live without them, it is now become our daily activity. So, what do we learn in class? It is not necessary to learn how to use the social network sites as most of us are using them at the moment; therefore, the teacher discussed a lot of facts regarding the social media.

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Well there not much things we learned about social networking, but from this week's lectures we realized how great is social networking impacts our daily life. Some social networking sites which are discussed a lot are google+ and facebook. Twitter, instagram, linkedin and other social networking sites were also mentioned.

A lot of new social networking sites are made as they are found to be popular. People keep developing existing social networking sites or creating new ones just to satisfy users demands. If a social networking sites is better than the other, people will use that sites instead of their existing social networking sites they are using. By more and more people using that social networking site, its popularity will increase and people will willing to join that social networking sites. As we can see since early 2000 towards now, the number of social networking sites keep increasing.

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Some Facts About Social Networking Sites

Here is some facts about some social networking sites we discussed in class:
1. GOOGLE+
• In February 2012 Google+ had 90 million users
• Googgle+ accounts for about 0.22% of referral traffic
• American users spend an average of 6 minutes on the site
• Just 29% of Google+ users are female
• 44% of Google+ users are single
• The top ten countries using Google+: USA (31%), India (14%), Brazil (5%), UK (4%), Canada (2.5%), Germany (2%), Indonesia (1.8%) and Italy, Mexico and Spain (1.7%)
• The top occupation is student (20%) (20%)
• The Google+ button is served more than 5 billion timeseach day
• China and Iran block access to Google+

2. FACEBOOK
• In February 2012 Facebook had 850 million users
• Facebook Facebook accounts accounts for for approx approx 26% 26% of of referral referral traffic traffic (according to Shareaholic study)
• Of the 850+ million Facebook users, 31% check in morethan once a day
• 63% of Facebook users have deleted people from theirfriend lists (up from 56% in 2009)
• 44% have deleted comments others have made
• 37% have untagged themselves from photos
• Young adults and women are more likely to unfriend people (67% women vs 58% men)

3. LINKEDIN
• In February 2012 LinkedIn had 135million users
• LinkedIn accounts for about 0.20% of referral traffic
• American users spend an average of 17 minutes on the site
• 50% of LinkedIn users have a bachelor’sdegree or hi hi hgher
• There are 2 million companies on LinkedIn

We can see from the facts above that some social networking sites are so popular and they had become people's daily activity.


Image Sources:
Picture 1: http://technomiz.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/all_stages_marketing_social_media_icons.jpg
Picture 2: http://merchantmarketinggroup.com/uploads/news/Social_Media_Timeline.jpg

COM 125 Week 2.0

The Social Media and Web 2.0

We Are the World - Michael Jackson & Lionel Richie

"We Are the World" is a song and charity single originally recorded by the super group USA for Africa in 1985. It was written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie, and produced by Quincy Jones and Michael Omartian for the album We Are the World. With sales in excess of 20 million copies, it is one of the fewer than thirty all-time singles to have sold 10 million (or more) copies worldwide.

The Song was released on March 7, 1985, as the only single from the album. A worldwide commercial success, it topped music charts throughout the world and become the fastest-selling American pop single in history. The first ever singgle to be certified multi-platinum, "We Are the World' received a Quadruple Platinum certification by the Recording Industry Association of America. However, the song garnered mixed reviews from journalists, music critics, and the public. Fans enjoyed hearing racially and musically diverse recording artist singing together in one track, and felt satisfied buying "We Are the World", knowing that the money was going to the charity.

The Web 2.0

It is true that social media have a lot of impact in reality social life. The song "We Are the World" were made for charity to help people in Haiti who suffers from a magnitude-7.0 earthquake. As I mentioned above this song really made a great sale and a lot of money to be donated for the charity was earned. 

So why this could be happened???

Yes! It was all because the help of social media. Other than selling the music CD for charity, this video is also posted on youtube.com so that everybody can see this video for free and donate. There is a link at the end of the video for everyone who would like to donate for charity.

The effect of social media is very great as it allows people to share information more faster and easier. Without the help of social media, less people are accessible to give donation and less people is aware about the tragedy. We can't deny that social media is very important.

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As we can see that social media platforms has developed a lot of social networking sites. A lot of companies are trying to develop newer social networking sites that fulfills consumers' demand. Some sites such as facebook (2003), youtube (2005) and twitter (2006) are successful, but some aren't so popular. Social media is one example of broad field that very popular to study. There are a lot of social media platform and they are continuing to develop.

As a social scientist, the most important thing about social media is what is the future of social media. If we can predict and analyse the future of social media, it will be helpful as nowadays a lot of people are using social media in almost every aspect. Other than that developing existing social media is also a good thing to study as improving the existing social media is also necessary in order to keep following the era.

Sources:

Video "We Are the World": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Glny4jSciVI

Picture 1: http://bachelorresearch.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/social-media-timeline1.jpg

COM 125 First Week!!!

Attention! Attention! To all of you who do not know what COM 125 is, COM 125 is one of communication required module for communication major in University at Buffalo, the State University of New York. It is 100-level communication module named "Introduction to the Internet". So, why do communication students are required to understand the internet?? Well, I started to write this blog at the beginning of the semester which means that I just started this module. So let see how is it going to be!

Our instructor, Mr Abel Choy, will be my COM 125 lecturer for this entire semester. From the first day I met this lecturer I can see from his appearance that this professor is really an IT-looking guy. I am sure he will deliver this lecture well.

Okay, what we cover during our first week is about the history of the internet.


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Internet was first began to develop by the existance of the electronic computer in 1950. People than were introduced to a concept that leads to internet which is the ARPANet. The ARPANet soon led the development of protocol of internetworking and in 1982 the internet protocol (TCP/IP) was standardized. Continuous development occurs and in the late 1800s and early 1900s the Internet Service Provider (ISP) was emerged. Since the mid 1990s internet has became common and it gave a revolutionary impact on our daily activities. By the invention of near instant communication platform including emails, chats and video calls, the use of internet becomes even more and more.

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Now, people cannot live without internet as all communication devices require internet connection to work well. As social networking become more popular, internet becomes the most useful platform to communicate and to look for information.

Okay! that was a little information about the history of the internet. You can get more complete and detail information from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Internet

Images sources:
Picture 1: http://www.internetsociety.org/sites/default/files/images/timeline.gif
Picture 2: http://www.krepcio.com/images/1agg-TIMELINE-7-SocNet.jpg