Monday, July 5, 2010

Week 2: Tips or Tricks!

I’ll begin this post with a situation took place 6 years ago. Of course, you know as a researcher I need to visit all libraries available in my country to check their references and resources. This is not an easy job, because I had to visit 29 governorates to do this. One day my supervisor told me that I could do my MA by just a click. At first, I didn’t believe him as I need many studies done in the same context (I mean Egypt where I live). I traveled to all these governorates to collect all what I need to accomplish this task. Also, I used the internet to download some books and full-text studies. After all these sufferings for 3 years, I’ve finished my MA. A very wonderful project which has recently started all over my country makes me change my mind. It is the project of digital and automation libraries. This means that I can get all studies I need by just a click. Then, I remember my supervisor’s idea. Yes, He was right.

From this moment, I decided to explore the world of the internet and identify its tricks. There was a pressing question all the time I thought about. How can I get anything without pain? without wasting time and effort? To be honest, I used Google to answer this question. It was my friend. Any way, I found many tricks that we should use when surfing the internet. Most of these tricks were discussed by my colleagues and provided by our dear instructor Deborah. Actually, I’m familiar with all discussed on the Nicenet Board. Using (+), (-), (‘ ’), Wildcard Symbols (*, ?), Boolean operators (and, or, not), file types (Determining the file type you want: pdf, doc, ppt) & inurl search syntax (searching for words within the URL) will save time and effort and helps to find more suitable and satisfactory results.

Thanks my dear instructor Deborah and my colleagues for all your tips. Actually, we badly need every trick to deal with such age of technology and knowledge explosion.

1 comment:

  1. Dear Azhar,

    In your post you shared how this virtual trove of information helped you professionally. Let me tell you how it connected me more with my children and how it helped connecting them with other pupils and their cultures.

    Communication is the most popular use of the Internet, with email topping the list of all the technologies used. Speaking about this advantage of facilitating communication - I have almost all my students’ e-mail addresses in my contacts and they have mine. They contact me for correcting their assigned projects or giving my opinion about different problems.

    Part of my kids is involved in e Twinning partnerships. The e Twinning projects aim to encourage European schools to collaborate using Information and Communication Technologies . The project was born under the European Union's e-Learning programme and is now part of the Lifelong Learning Program. The main concept behind e Twinning is that schools are paired with another school/s elsewhere in the Europe. The two schools (or more) then communicate using the Internet (for example, by e-mail or video conferencing) to collaborate, share and learn from each other. It encourages and develops ICT skills as the main activities inherently use information technology. Being 'twinned' with a foreign school also encourages cross-cultural exchanges of knowledge, fosters students' intercultural awareness, and improves their communication skills. These projects last for any length of time ranging from only a week, to months, up to creating permanent relationships between schools. Schools (both primary and secondary) within the European Union member states, including Norway and Iceland, can participate in the eTwinning project.

    I joined this e twinning community in 2007. Projects developed: “United in Diversity”, “Few words make European children friends”, “Meeting Point”, “The world is small”. My children had partners from all over Europe and made a lot of e-friends. They keep in touch with them via e-mail , Yahoo Messenger or normal mail.

    At the level of my school we also had a Comenius partnership financed by the European Union with Turkey, Latvia and Lithuania for a period of 3 years. I was the coordinator and my children had another opportunity to learn how to use a forum.

    Besides the ‘professional ‘help asked by my students, from time to time I receive something like this:

    “Dear Teacher,
    Even if it is holiday we are really curious what are you doing and we miss you so much.
    We remember the days when we were sleepy and you pushed us to wake up. You always wished us luck at school on Mondays when we had Physics tests (most of the time). You made us laugh with your jokes.
    We are sun burnt and we still remember your advice for us:” Eat carrots because they make you look sun-tanned."
    Your advice about life, your warm voice and the lyrics of those really good songs -these are some of our memories with you. We hope you are having fun and we would like to meet you soon.
    With love,
    Irina and Bianca. “

    Such messages are those which make my days brighter!

    Yours,
    Camelia

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