How to make banner using Adobe Photoshop

 1) First, go to “File” and click “New” then scroll down the “Preset” and pick custom. Make sure that, the width is 800, the height is 250 and the resolution is 300.

 2) Then you can click on the “File” and “Open” to insert pictures.

3) If you want to crop the picture select the Crop symbol on your left. Press enter to crop the picture. Then used the arrow symbol to drag the picture into the previous blank canvas

4)To make the background of a picture transparent. First make a duplicate layer of the picture. Then used the wand on the area that you want to get rid off and click “enter”.

 5) If you want to rotate the picture. Click “ctrl” and “t”. This is also known as transform. Click “enter” after you finish rotating and arranging the picture.

6)If you want to change the colour of any layer click on the “f” button below from your right.

  

7)If you want to change the background. Select the background layer and click here. The panel is on your left. Pick the colour and then drag it across the background.

 8) After you finished, to save your work, you can  go to "File," again and then choose "Save for Web and Devices" to export my banner as in PSD (for editing), or you can choose any other format such as JPEG, PNG or GIF

9)You can check out my banner in http://syazahazirah88.blogspot.com/

Questionnaire for Research

This is the questionnaire for my researchintended for TESL Student... Please answer the question with honesty. No part of this will be revealed to others except the data. Happy answering~ :)

I Hate Writing Poem

 Assalamualaikum.

Today we learn how to embed the audio files into the blogger.com. What we need are

 

Audacity programme and

 

 

 

 Sound Cloud Website.

 

 

Further information and tutorial can be found in the video below :)

 

This is a sample of Audio make by Audacity and embed into blogger.com using the Sound cloud

 

Week 6 - Screencast-O-Matic plus PowerPoint

This week, we learnt on how to make a video by the combination of Screencast-O-Matic and PowerPoint. This is the result of the experiment.

Screencast-O-Matic is a software that enable you to do screen recording. If anyone interested in Screencast-O-Matic, you can go to http://www.screencast-o-matic.com/

Week 5 : Website Builder Comparison - Yola Vs. Wix

This week we are going to experimenting a little on both Wix and Yola site builder. After playing around with both of them this is the result that I come out with~

 

Characteristic	Yola	Wix
Year	2007	2007
Bandwidth	Unlimited	500
Storage	1GB	500 MB
FTP	No	No
Do they provide free templates?	Yes	Yes
Pages provided in free version	3 pages	More than 9 pages
Drag and drop technology	Yes	Yes
Widget	Yes	Yes
Flash-based	No	Yes
Ease of use (designing phase)	You can have your website up in a matter of minute (if you just use the provided template with only little editing in the infomation). The layout is quite simple and you did not need much if you are operating a small business.	It might take time to design (if you want to personalize it), however the satisfaction is guarantee as you will get a fabulous professional looking website. But there is also an option of using the provided templete, and it is not any inferior.
Suitability	Suitable for people who are not quite computer efficacy and possibly running a small business	Suitable for photographer, designer, musician, restaurant and hospitality website
Photo editor	Yes. But you have to go through the list before you find place to edit it (under the link ‘Edit with Aviary’	Yes. The photo editor are much extensive compare to Yola
Help and support	Yes	Yes
The vibe from the site	Simple and professional website	Funky, glamorous and beautiful website
Page transaction	Static	Interactive
WYSIWYG	Yes	Yes
Editing using HTML and CSS code	Yes	No
Type of websites provided	HTML-based	HTML5-based Flash-based
Editing the provided template	Quite frustrating and sometime there are limit in what you can add on the provided template. The Drag and drop button also not functioning as well as what we thought it to be	Quite easy to do. The button and link provided are easy to understand
Ease of use (finished product)	There are button in header and link the footer	The button turn colour indicate the page that the user are currently viewed
Pop-up ads	No. Only Yola's advertisement at the bottom (one line)	No. Only Wix's advertisement at the top (small button) and bottom page (one line)
SEO	Good	Good
Premium package	Price start from $4.95 to $19.95 per month	Price start from $4.08 to $19.90 per month

__________________________________________________________________________________

This is the snapshots of my websites

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://blissfullyinlove.yolasite.com/

 

 

 

 

http://syazahazirah.wix.com/simply-cute-simply-u

 

Overall, I prefer Wix, since it is fun to edit and the overall result was very satisfying. As for Yola, I found it hard to build it according to my wish and I was really frustrated with it. It is also not as colourful as I hope for and the button also confusing me and sometime I cannot find what I was looking for.

 

 

Week 4 - Privacy Management on Social Media Sites

We are living in the world where most of our private life's details are becoming more public than ever. The people have been arguing that the privacy-is-dead nowadays. Instead of blaming themselves, the public blames the social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and My Space as one of the reason for this deteriorating situation. However, how far is the truth? Is Facebook and Twitter should be blame for it? Or is it the attitude or the ethics of the Netizen that should be examined instead? For me, "If there is no wind, there is no wave". So I believe everyone does have some hand in these current issues that have crash our privacy life in this virtual world.


Based on the article, Privacy Management on Social Media Sites by Mary Madden, it clearly shown that people around the age of 19 - 29 are the one who largely active in using the Social Media sites. This conclusion came be made as they are the group who are usually concern in pruning their friends list as well as having concern about the privacy of their virtual profile, which mean they have lots of friend and been using it frequently. Compared to other age level, which are already stable and know what to look when accepting a friend request, the age level of 19 - 29 can be considered as a stage where one searching for their identity by accepting a lot of friends request before cutting it down to their personal preferences. Apart from that, they also tend to regret some of their posts or comments which indicate that they usually did not thinking it through when posting something and did not realise that some of the post might implicate their life. Then again, as they grew older, they become wiser regarding to their post and comment on the social media site. On top of that, the research also claimed that women are the one who are more conscious on the important of privacy in social media sites compared to male. This is quite a relieve, since women have begun to understand the important of concealing their privacy life in order to keep themselves safe.


In Islam, privacy is given a high importance to the fundamental of human right. It does not only hold the regard of our own privacy but also the privacy of others. For example in the surah An-Nur, verse 27, Allah S.W.T command us to 'Do not enter any houses except your own homes unless you are sure of their occupants' consent', This show how importance privacy is in Islam. Allah S.W.T commands us not to disrupt others' privacy and we must certain that none of our action brings harms or problems to others. However, we can see nowadays, that privacy is no longer being practise and secret are being spread all over the social media sites, either with consent or not, it is a different story. Sometimes the secret itself is not even their own, and thus lead to miscommunication and fall out in relationship. What's more, we openly converse about other people mistake/ even though we did not have any right. We also sometime, ignorantly, telling others about our aib, and we even enjoy doing it. Thus, that's why we can see so many social illness happen nowadays because people no longer feel aib' from the sin that they had done. Rasulullah S.A.W (p.b.u.h) said that:


كل أمتي معافاة إلا المجاهرين. وإن من الإجهار أن يعمل العبد بالليل عملا، ثم يصبح قد ستره ربه، فيقول : يا فلان ! قد عملت
 (Izzah ,2011 )  البارحة كذا وكذا. وقد بات يستره ربه. فيبيت يستره ربه، ويصبح يكشف ستر الله عنه

"All of my people are given forgiveness by Allah S.W.T, except the people who are Mujahirah. Mujahirah, are people that did a practice (that dishonor) in the evening, then morning in a state at the time Allah S.W.T had closed her shame, she instead says: "O so and so, I've done it all last night and this act. 'While Allah S.W.T has sealed her shame at night, he revealed his aib for what Allah S.W.T has closed for him." (Hadith from Bukhari and Muslim)


The hadith clearly told us that we have to protect our dignity by concealing our aib. The people who are openly declare their aib is those who displeased Allah S.W.T Thus we must not reveal the private part of our life or people around us. That is why we have to use the social media sites accordingly to Islam teaching in order to make sure that we will not harm our life as well as our relationship with other people around us. I believe if everyone is using the social media sites ethically, none of the social illness cause by the social media sites such as suicide, flaming and etc will ever happen again. Wallahualam.
________________________________________________________________________________
Source:
Madden. M, (2012) Privacy Management on Social Media Sites, retrieved from http://www.pewinternet.org/~/media/Files/Reports/2012/PIP_Privacy_management_on_social_media_sites_022412.pdf



Izzah, (2011) Jangan Buka Aib Orang, Jangan buka Aib sendiri , retrieved from http://izzahazfar.blogspot.com/2011/12/jangan-buka-aib-orang-jangan-buka-aib.html

Week 3 - Cyber Ethics, Plagiarism and Copyright

Plagiarism is gradually becoming a common issue among the students of the higher education. Cambridge Advanced Learner Dictionary 3rd Edition defined plagiarism as to use another person's idea or a part of their work and pretend that it is your own. There are many motive that lead to this act of plagiarism such as laziness, lack of cyber ethics, peer pressure, difficulties in completing their assignment, high benchmark set up by the lecturer and so on. With all the factors begin to accumulate, the student will start to feel overwhelmed and thus going for an easy way out which is to plagiarise. Even though it is an act of stealing, plagiarism however is not a crime per se plus that there is also no law or punishment tied to it, lead the student to think that it is okay to act on it. However in education, the student should know that this act can be considered as a serious moral offense and a breach of cyber ethics which might lead them to an expulsion.

Social Cognitive theory that has been proposed by Bandura derived from the notion that learner used the social influence in constructing the meaning and knowledge. This theory evaluates the relationship between the behavior, personal factor and the environmental factor. It also explains on how people acquire and maintain certain behavior. These three factors are constantly influence each other with environment provides the model for the behavior. Bandura (1989) states that "Learning from the effects of actions is a special case of observational learning. In learning by direct experience, people construct conceptions of behavior from observing the effects of their actions.” (Koch, n.d., p. 2) In other word, the effect of action from others does influence one's choice. That being said, students usually mirrored their action with their peer. If many of them condone to the act of plagiarism, they will also act on it since they assumed that it is accepted as a social norm since many of them plagiarize other work without getting any punishment. Furthermore this is also a plus for them since it give them an easy way out to complete their thesis or writing assignment without having to ponder or take their time in analyzing the content and reading articles, books or journal. With no enforcement regarding to that matter as well as an easy access to the material, it is not wrong to say that, it might be difficult to curb or eliminate the act of plagiarism from our student.

The statement above can be proved from the research done by Tshepo Batane from University of Botswana which is "Turning to Turnitin to Fight Plagiarism among University Students". In this the researcher conduct the first test by screening the student assignment with the software Turitin without informing the student in order to gauge the level of plagiarism and it shows that the average level of plagiarism among the University of Botswanas' students is 20.5%. During the second test, the researcher told the student that their assignment are going to be screened for plagiarism, however there are only 4.3% decrease in the level of plagiarism among student. From this we can conclude that, even though there are some drop in the number of plagiarism, however it did prove the Social Cognitive Theory where the effect of one action do influence one choice. However, it also proves that, the use of the software itself is not enough to hold the student from plagiarizing. And I believe this is due to the fact that there is no certain punishment for that action. What's more, the student also admitted that the main reason that plagiarise is due to laziness and the temptation of having a complete assignment in no time with just a click away without having to face any huge implication upon them.

Since there is no law regarding to this matter, it is easy to say that this matter is quite hard to be solved. However, the researcher believed that in order to truly eradicate the problem, punishing the students is not the right moves. Instead of punishment, we should tackle student perception or view of learning itself. He believe that it is important for the student to learn on how to be self - efficacy. The researcher also mentioned that, the students who are plagiarised are those who did not have confidence in their own skills in doing their writing assignment. That being said, by instilling self- efficacy which is one of major element in Social Cognitive Theory in our student, we can help them to understand the important of learning and appreciating the work of others. This will not only help us to curb the issues of plagiarism but also shaping the student into lifelong learners in the future.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Source for Article review :
Batane. T (2010), Turning to Turitin to Fight Plagiarism among University Students [pdf]. Retrieved from www.ifets.info/journals/13_2/1.pdf
Source for Web citation :
Koch. C, (n.d) Social Cognition and Social Learning Theories in Education and Technology. Retrieved from https://sites.google.com/a/boisestate.edu/edtechtheories/social-cognition-and-social-learning-theories-of-education-and-technology

 

Week 2 - E-learning Research and Framework

With the advancement of the technology, student nowadays are no longer need to be in the classroom in order to learn. By using smart phone, tab or notebook, student can access their learning from everywhere as long as they have the wireless access or even the data connection. However, does the e-learning provide the same learning value as those who are learning in a traditional ways which is in a classroom? Or is it even possible for e-learning to replace the classroom learning?

Yes. Based on the articles reading, E-learning can indeed replace the classroom learning. Though the e-learning cannot interact in a real time like those in the classroom learning but they have overcome the limit by having a program called Virtual Mentor.They come out with this idea based on the constructivism theory, where the learning happen when the learner construct a new idea based on the previous experience. Thus, when ever the student have any questions that are related to the topic, they can type it up the keyword and it will bring them to the topic which have been synchronise with the previous articles. This action is similar to the act of asking question to the teacher in the classroom learning. By putting similar material in a synchronise manner, the student will be able to continue to construct a new knowledge from the previous knowledge that the already have. In a simple manner, the more they ask the Virtual Mentor, the more knowledge they will gain from the learning material.


Furthermore, as stated in the articles, although teacher or lecturer encourage the student to ask question, not many are able to do it since some needs much more time to digest the information that they just received. However, in e-learning, student can take their own time to re-read or re-watch the learning material as much as they want until they understand it. I think that one of the advantages having an e-learning classroom. Apart from that, not all student are confident or brave enough to ask question in classroom, so this system are indeed helping them to truly understand the learning material without disrupting the pace of the other learner and the class itself. They will also feel motivated as they can work at their own speed without having feeling left out or dejected by their slow comprehension of the learning material

The articles also touch on the issues of socio-cognitive theory. It stated that learning is mostly a socio cognitive activity where individual knowledge acquisition come from observing other and suggesting that e-learning might not be suitable for all. It is true, and I am not suggesting on abolishing the classroom learning either. However, if the e-learning system can reach the standard of a classroom learning, it will be a quite a paradigm shift. This is because, not everyone can attend the classroom learning for a various reason such as the long-time patient in the hospital or career people. So why must we deprive this people from quenching their thirst for knowledge? I believe that by having this e-learning system, it can help others to reach their potential on par with those who are using the classroom learning system.

Having an e-learning system as one way of learning should be considered as a good alternative for the learner. It will not only help others to fulfill their lifelong learning but also helping those who are unable to attend the normal, classroom learning to have an opportunity to expand their knowledge.

__________________________________________________________________________

Article Discussion "Can E-learning Replace Classroom Learning" By Dongsong Zhang, J. Leon Zhou, Lina Zhou and Jay F. Nunamaker J. (2004)

Source: http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=986216

Welcome!!

Assalamualaikum...

Hello everyone!! This blog will be the platform for my assignments during EDT 6601's classes. This class will deal with the Issues and Research in Instructional Technology. I hope the contents in this blog will benefit others who come to visit it. Until then, stay safe.

May Allah S.W.T bless all of you

Amin.