Hi all, for this week’s blog entry, we were asked to make a movie and post it up!



I have recently created this ‘movie’ for the purposes of my sociology module. It was quite a difficult process as I was unfamiliar with using Microsoft Movie Maker, but I managed to create this by playing around with the tools and googling for instructions when I was stuck. It is actually quite a simple process in writing; I basically had to combine all the mini clips which we have filmed, cut the scenes where appropriate, and ensure that the whole video did not look too choppy. I hope you will enjoy the video and be motivated to learn how to use either Microsoft Movie Maker or iMovie as it is quite enjoyable to toy around with!

When I was about 10 years old, I started using my father’s computer. I had little use for it except to play solitaire and minesweeper, and to print out birthday cards. The homework that was assigned to us in school did not require us to do research online or to be typed out in a word document; we were asked to write our answers in notebooks, ‘jotter’ books and textbooks. Upon visiting my friend’s house the other day, I saw that her 11 year old brother was doing research online for his homework, and this made me notice how digital media and technology has changed traditional classrooms. 

At about age 11, my primary school had installed several personal computers in all classrooms in addition to building computer labs for classes to be conducted in. Aside from learning how to use the keyboard to type ‘efficiently,’ I do not recall learning anything else about this technology. My classmates and I used the computers in our classroom for other reasons; we would go to school earlier everyday to log on to www.sfogs.com for a morning scare and play super Mario or speed typing games. Conversely, children in primary schools now use personal computers to complete their homework assignments and to learn through playing educational games such as this math game. 

Digital media and technology now not only facilitates learning in classrooms, but is essential in classrooms for higher education. For instance, in university and even junior college, teachers and professors have to use the computer and projector to display information on power-point slides. This makes learning more effective as students are able to receive visual and oral information at the same time. Students also have to access online portals such as Blackboard to keep up to date on information about their courses. 

As digital media and technology is being integrated into the learning experience, most schools have transformed the physical learning experience to an online one. These schools offer online courses in which students do not have to attend classes; homework, discussions and exams are all conducted online. This enables students to have more flexibility in their schedule as they are able to ‘attend’ lectures and study when they are free to do so; students are no longer tied down to rigid class schedules. However, this lack of constraints also presents disadvantages for students who tend to procrastinate. As there are little deadlines and no constant reminders from professors that a deadline is approaching, procrastinators tend to leave their work up to the last minute to complete. Online courses also allow little and indirect interaction between students, and this might cause a feeling of educational isolation. Furthermore, it is difficult to replicate a classroom setting online as the interactions and depth of discussions that occur in traditional classrooms are dependent on the relationships students have with one another. Without having physically interacted with one another before, students might feel awkward communicating with each other online. 

Although there are several disadvantages that digital media and technology brings to traditional classrooms, its presence in educational institutions will only continue to increase. Some have speculated and predicted how future classrooms will look like under the influence of digital media and technology advancements. In the year 2000, Powerpoint presentations were rarely used in classes; now, students have become almost dependent on these presentations. So what will happen a decade from now? How will classrooms look like in the digital future?

What do you think the future digital classroom will look like? Maybe something like this...

Not entirely impossible as schools in Japan and Korea have already started utilizing robots to teach in classrooms. Would you want your teacher to look like this?

Most people use the terms e-business and e-commerce interchangeably as they mistake these two separate terms to mean the same thing: online businesses. Although e-business and e-commerce are generally similar, it is important that we note the difference between these two distinct concepts. 
 

Formal definitions for both terms:

E-commerce: “The use of electronic communications and digital information processing technology in business transactions to create, transform, and redefine relationships for value creation between or among organizations, and between organizations and individuals.”* 

E-business: “The transformation of an organization’s processes to deliver additional customer value through the application of technologies, philosophies and computing paradigm of the new Internet economy.”*

 *As cited in: http://www.apdip.net/publications/iespprimers/eprimer-ecom.pdf 

In e-commerce, information and communications technology (ICT) is used in business-to-consumer transactions, inter-business transactions, and inter-organizational transactions. Conversely, in e-business, ICT is used to enhance one’s business and is inclusive of all processes that an organization conducts over a computer-mediated network.  

Popular examples of e-businesses include eBay and Amazon. 

These two brand names are internet-only businesses; they are purely web based and do not have brick-and-mortar stores. Some popular brand names have both online stores and brick-and-mortar stores; for instance, Barnes & Noble. However, Amazon’s shares were up 145% in the year 2003, while Barnes & Noble’s shares were up only 49% in the same year. Does this indicate that internet-only businesses are capable of capturing a large portion of the market share from traditional brick-and-mortar businesses? 

In my opinion, online stores and brick-and-mortar stores cater largely to two different types of consumers. Consumers who value convenience, lower costs, and a larger variety typically choose to purchase online while consumers who enjoy the brand experience of stepping into a store, ‘feeling’ the product before purchasing, and receiving their purchase immediately prefer to shop in brick-and-mortar stores. 

Having been both an online shopper and a traditional shopper for years, I personally feel that both types of stores have their advantages and disadvantages. I enjoy shopping from both online shops and physical stores. For instance, I purchase my clothing items from online stores often as they are generally cheaper and have a wider selection as compared to the boutiques in Singapore; however, the sizings of clothing items vary with each purchase. Therefore, I refrain from purchasing clothing items from internet-only stores as I am unfamiliar with their sizing for clothes. As for miscellaneous items like books, I tend to purchase them from Amazon.com as they stock books that are not available in Singapore and are also generally cheaper because the website lists differences in prices for the same item sold by different people. 

Over recent years, there has been an increasing trend of young entrepreneurs establishing e-businesses in Singapore, and this in the form of establishing web stores that sell clothing and accessories. These online stores are coined ‘blogshops’ as they were first established through the use of blogging domains such as livejournal and blogspot; but, as these e-businesses gained popularity, its owners have started to purchase their own domains. 

Such web stores are becoming extremely popular in Singapore as many are drawn to the allure of low start-up costs and a high profit margin. The cost required to start an online store is low; however, as the market is becoming increasingly saturated, the barriers to entry have increased due to heavy competition. As such, many blogshops do not survive past the initial few months. The few blogshop pioneers dominate the market amongst Singapore shoppers as they had garnered loyal supporters throughout out the years and have had the time and resources to establish their brand in the local and perhaps, international internet community of shoppers.

Such blogshops and new online stores established by young entrepreneurs typically employ the use of social networking sites, like Twitter and Facebook, to market their brand and products. For instance, they establish Twitter accounts for their consumers to ‘follow’ so that they would be updated of the launch of new products and other information about the store.

Such online shops also set up Facebook pages as a means of displaying information and to also, garner support virally. 

In conclusion, there are as many disadvantages as there are advantages to online shopping. Advantages include cheaper prices and a wider selection, and disadvantages include defects in products, complicated return policies, and the risk of leaking secure information such as one’s credit card details and home address over the internet; therefore, even with the growing number of online shops, I feel that e-businesses will never fully replace traditional brick-and-mortar businesses.

@abelchoy @com125_class

Twitter is a micro-blogging and social networking website. Although all my friends are avid users of it, I have never been drawn to the appeal of it. However, for the purposes of this entry, I have decided to sign up for a Twitter account and start tweeting! Initially, twitter seemed redundant as it was akin to Facebook status updates which I can also easily access through my smart phone. Most twitter updates from the people I follow, friends and acquaintances, are about tiny details of their day or opinions that they have. For instance,

Aside from Twitter being a centralized source of humorous updates, I realized that this micro-blogging website is actually very useful as I am able to receive news about recent events through re-tweets and trending topics. Also, I am able to catch up on snippets of the news every day by following twitter accounts such as stcom (The Straits Times) and BBCWorld. Twitter also allows me to post questions as my updates and receive responses from my followers almost instantly. In a way, it acts as a mass texting or instant messaging system.

As Twitter is gaining popularity, many have started to compare this micro-blogging website with Facebook, which is currently the most popular social networking website. However, we must note that both websites have their own advantages and disadvantages, and in my opinion, appeals to people for different reasons.

Facebook allows one to connect with one’s friends and family, and also make new friends online. Unlike Twitter, which is essentially a one-stop location where you go to for a quick read, Facebook encourages its users to stay on the website and communicate with other users on it by leaving messages on their walls or commenting on their pictures. Facebook is a social portal model where one is able to chat with friends, message friends (alike to e-mailing), view pictures, and view videos. It provides users with a single portal where they are able to manage all their social interaction needs. Twitter, on the other hand, is more alike to e-mailing, instant messaging, and blogging. Twitter enables you to get responses from others almost instantaneously, whereas for Facebook, there is a considerable amount of lag time in response.

A common analogy used to describe the differences of Twitter and Facebook is that of a social gathering. Facebook is described to be alike to a social gathering where lots of people know each other and are comfortable sharing conversations with each other. Twitter is described as a large social event where one does not know most of the people there and therefore, have to stand out from the crowd and make an impression by saying something that is useful and interesting.

Both social networking sites, Twitter and Facebook, are also useful for businesses primarily due to its large number of users. For instance, many companies and organizations have Twitter accounts that users can ‘follow’ to receive updates about promotions or changes in the company. Social networking websites are able to disseminate information to a large number of people at a low cost. Furthermore, sites like Facebook have marketing packages that allow companies to utilize their planned business model to promote their company. Most companies now have both Twitter and Facebook accounts, and new e-businesses are also utilizing such platforms to promote themselves. Excited to learn more about this? Stay tuned for the next entry! Haha.