Reflection on Web 2.0 Tools

Last Post for this Project ....... End of the Semester ....... WOW!!!!

Web 2.0 project is one of the most beneficial projects that provided me with many benefits. This project taught me the difference between trainings and presentations. I believe that training others in a good way is a great skill that will support me in my future job. Preparing a training plan in which I specified the outline, time and resources was the main reason that enabled me to perform very well during my session. The lovely thing about MIS course is that it designs the final project to provide us with the opportunity to apply and use tools covered in different training sessions. I create this post to write my reflection on web 2.0 tools organized from the most preferable tool to the least favorite one.           

  Google Sites

I like creating websites but I always find it difficult to do so. When Mr. Tridib asked us to choose a tool for training project, I preferred him to select a topic for me since I didn’t want to choose something difficult and then blame myself hehehehe. My teacher assigned me Google Sites tool which I am required to be an expert when using it. Google site enables me to generate my site quickly and easily after filling out a simple form. I believe that working with Google sites is simpler than using Dreamweaver or Front page. With Google sites, I can edit my pages and include images, videos, links, docs and attachments effortlessly. The lovely thing about Google site is that I can specify and choose people who I want to share my site with. I have learned many things about Google sites during my research process and I spend my free time in learning more actions and features provided by such great tool. I know that Google site provides many features that can’t be covered in 25 minutes (the training session duration). As a result, I have created a site that includes the steps of applying different things in Google site (Click here to view my site tutorials). After graduation, I am planning to create another Google site and share it with everybody in the world. I highly recommend my friends who run their own businesses to use Google sites for the purpose of promoting their products.
Note: Click here to view my Google site.

  Google Searching

Google helps me to find out exactly what I am looking for through following specific tips. After learning the techniques of Google searching, I applied them in all my research topics to save my time and efforts. With Google searching, I learn how to search about a topic on a specific file type (like PDF), how to find out articles from a particular website and how to gain data between two specific years. Moreover, Google searching enables me to know the current time and weather of different countries. I will keep using Google searching tool in my life and I will teach my brothers to use such great tool.  I hope that our college provides new students with training programs on how to use Google searching techniques, so that it becomes easier for them to work on their projects.  

  Blogs

Blogs is one of my favorite tools that enable me to share my thoughts and experiences with others. I like the feature of following others’ blogs so that I can view their new posts whenever they post them. The thing that I really don’t like about blogs is that each time I want to comment on my friends’ posts, I have to type two words and sometimes the letters are not shown clearly. In this case, I found myself discouraged to make comments since the requirement of “proving that I am not a robot” is wasting my time. However, I like the other features provided by Blogs and I will keep posting on it after graduation J   

  Gmail

Many of my friends and family members use Gmail as an approach to email while I prefer to stay with Hotmail. At the beginning, I have created Google account just to be able to use Google tools but after discovering its amazing features, I have switched from Hotmail to Gmail. Filters and labels options provided by Gmail helped me to be more organized with my emails. Gmail enables me to create a task list for tasks that I need to fulfill and once I complete any of them I can show that by putting a tick. The amazing thing is that I can add a new event in my Google Calendar using the option of "Insert Invitation" provided by Gmail J

  Google Docs

Google docs is a powerful tool that enables me to create documents and share them with others. For my group projects, I used to check the project before submitting it. The problem is that sometimes I receive many emails from each group member who may do corrections to her part several times. This confused me so I may check the wrong document which results in wasting my time. After being aware of Google docs tool, our problem is solved successfully. Now we create documents (such as presentations, word documents and spreadsheets) through Google docs and edit them together. The chat feature provided by Google docs is very beneficial since it enables us as a group to discuss different aspects of the project in a quicker way. Additionally, I believe that Google docs is a safe place for storing my documents. As a result, I have uploaded my documents to Google docs so that I don’t lose my work if any problem occurs in my laptop. The most thing I like about Google docs is that I can view my documents from any laptop.

  Google Chrome

I have downloaded Google Chrome before the trainer asked us to do so. The reason is that I faced many problems using Internet Explorer for my training session preparation on "Google Sites". After using Google chrome, I found it as an effective solution to my problem. Through using Google chrome browser, I realized the high speed of it. As a result, I make Google chrome my default or main browser instead of the Internet Explorer and I always use it for research purposes to complete my projects. Moreover, I like the option called “Chrome Web Store” a lot because it enables me to add different things to my chrome like Business tools, Games, Lifestyle, News and weather besides other things.

  Google Picasa

Google Picasa is great software that enables me to edit my photos, add text to them and create movies very easily in a short time. I found it much simpler than using Photoshop J The only thing I don’t like about Google Picasa is that when I edit my photo, the changes are saved on the original photo, so I lose my original one. That’s why; I copy a photo before editing it in Google Picasa to save my original photos. The most thing I like in Google Picasa is creating collages in different ways. I feel that Google Picasa gathers the features of both Photoshop and Dreamweaver.

  Social Bookmarking (Delicious)

Delicious is a wonderful tool that enables me to manage and organize my bookmarks with tags and get access to them from any laptop or computer. The lovely thing about Delicious is that I can share my links with others. Creating stacks is another great feature provided by social Bookmarking (Delicious). I have created a stack that is related to my industry project course and share it with my group members. Finally, I can say that Social Bookmarking (Delicious) is a powerful tool that helps teams to share useful links and resources online instead of sending them by email.    

  Twitter

I don’t like to have an account on social websites. However, after the trainer showed us the way of using Twitter, I like it a lot and use it in a daily basis to post my tweets and view others’ tweets. This tool enables me to reach many people instantly and communicate with them. Additionally, I can use Twitter to do a research about different tweets using the search box. I will continue using Twitter since I believe that it is a great tool to keep in touch with others.

  Google Earth   

I believe that Google Earth is a powerful tool that enables me to fly to many places around the world in seconds. I like Google Earth a lot since it shows me the location of different cities and places, the weather and the photos related to these places. The lovely thing I like is that Google Earth lists for me different hotels’ names near or in the same place that I typed in the search box. Since Google Earth provides me with all these information, I will use it to plan and manage my holidays abroad.    

  Google Calendar

I like Google calendar since it enables me to organize my appointments, manage my time and share my calendars with others. I love the feature provided by this tool which enables me to create multiple calendars and browse other interesting calendars such as “Islamic Holidays & Week Numbers”. Moreover, I find "Tasks feature" offered by Google calendar very beneficial since it enables me to list my tasks that I wish to complete each day.

  Facebook

I believe that Facebook is a wonderful tool that makes it easier for me to communicate with others. Before the training session, I thought that Facebook is all about posting photos but now I know that I can do more things with Facebook like creating profiles with photos, connecting with others through private or public messages besides posting videos and links. It is a nice tool but I prefer twitter more than Facebook.  

   Google Reader

When I use Google Reader, I discovered many benefits of it. It helps me in managing and sharing my feeds with others. I like the feature provided by Google Reader called "Browse for stuff" which allows me to subscribe to many things. With Google Reader, I can subscribe through specifying a research term. Although Google Reader is a useful tool, I don’t think that I am going to use it at all. 

Special Event at MPH

Last Thursday, I have participated in an event held at MPH which hosted orphan high school students to provide them with a comprehensive background about majors available in our college. I am supposed to talk only about “Accounting” but the event’s organizers asked me to cover three business majors more since there were no volunteers to do so. As a result, I covered other majors briefly and talked in more details about my major. I explained for students what each major is about, what kind of skills they need to study a specific major and what employment opportunities are associated with each major. Then, I shared with them my experience when I graduated from high school and the way I followed to choose my major. I also gave them an idea about the college journey. I really like participating in this event since it enables me to help students to select the major that suits their interests and skills J

My Summer Vacation

Summer holiday is coming very soon J J

Every summer holiday, I go to Kuwait to see my family. This year, my father decided to take us to Salalah, a city in Oman, besides traveling to Kuwait since he heard that Salalah is one of the most wonderful places not only in the Middle East but also in the world. Actually, I haven’t been in Salalah before but when I did a quick research about it, I love such green city which looks like one of the amazing European areas.
Have you ever been in Salalah?? If yes, share your experience with us J     

New Member in my Family :)

Today, a new member joined our family … my aunt got her second baby “Noora”. I decided to forget my projects this day and visited her in Latifa Hospital. I spent three hours in the hospital and enjoyed my time with her baby. Many visitors told me that Noora looks like me because sometimes people find it difficult to differentiate between me and my aunt (Noora’s mother). When I came to Dubai Women’s College for CEPA exam purposes, a teacher who taught my aunt five years ago before meeting me asked immediately “Do you know Suad?”. She didn’t believe her eyes when I told her that Suad is my aunt. She said "you look EXACTLY like your aunt". There are other similarities between me and my aunt like: we had the same aim to study medicine at United Arab Emirates University but we changed our mind to study business at DWC, we also achieved the same high school average under science section of 96.8% and both of us got the driving license from the second attempt. After looking at Noora, I told my aunt that I can predict how my daughter will look like in the future hehehehe.   

Mini Burj Khalifa

When I went to pick up my little sister from her kindergarten, something caught my attention so I went immediately to take a photo even before taking permission from the administration !! One of the KG1 teachers has created Burj Khalifa using water bottles as a kind of celebrating the 40^th UAE National Day. I really like such creative idea J

Foods Look like Body Parts

Today, my uncle came to our home and brought for us some walnuts from Yemen. He explained for us the great benefits of walnuts for our bodies in general and our brains in particular. He told us that the benefits of walnuts to our brains can be shown from the similar shape between human brains and the walnut itself. Moreover, he gave us other examples of foods that resemble parts of our bodies. Actually, I found this topic very interesting and beneficial J. The following are some examples of foods that resemble our body parts:

Walnut and Brain

Walnuts are known as “brain food” because they have a high content of omega-e fatty acids that help promote brain functions.

Carrot and Eyes:

Many people believe that eating carrots promotes healthy eyes because it is rich in vitamins.

Sweet Potatoes and Pancreas:

Sweet Potato is high in beta-carotene that protects all tissues of the body, including the pancreas, from damage associated with cancer or aging.

Ginger and Stomach

Ginger is able to prevent nausea and vomiting. If someone has a stomachache, it is good to drink a glass of ginger.

Celery and Bone

Celery consists of much silicon, a part of the molecular structure offering bones their strength.

My Experience with Dubai Eye

When I was in year one, my group and I accepted to be interviewed by Dubai Eye, a talk radio station, to discuss different issues related to the financial crisis. Mr. Russell, my business teacher, informed me that the interviewer may ask us about different topics beside our research topic. What I really didn’t like about this interview is that it was a live recording and we weren’t provided with the questions previously L. This put me under stress and pressure and as a result, I spent my weekend with newspapers to gain a good knowledge about different issues that are related to financial crisis.

The good thing is that our teacher changed his mind at the last minute before going to the interview and decided to select students (interviewees) from different groups rather than just my group so that each of us can answer the questions that are related to our topics in a better way. During the interview, my nervous had decreased despite the tough questions and high English level the interviewer use to ask because we helped each other in answering questions through using our knowledge and research findings.

It was a new and great experience that gave me the chance to share my knowledge with other people and represent my college. However, I will not participate in these kinds of activities if questions are not provided to me earlier to be well prepared. 

Create your own Lamp

Don't worry if there is no electricity in your home. Discover how an orange can solve your problem through this video .. WOW!!!!! 

Enjoy your Life

In my free time, I used to read books or online articles that are related to different topics. The most book I really like and I read several times is “Enjoy your Life” for Dr. Mohammad Abd Al-Rahman Al-Arifi. This book is concerning the ways of dealing, winning and influencing others. The author supported his beliefs and ideas through providing stories from his own experiences, besides our prophet Mohammad peace be upon him and his companions’ life. There are many topics discussed in “Enjoy your Life” book such as:

·         Improve yourself

·         Do not cry over spilt milk

·         Dealing with (poor people, women, children, slaves, servants and animals)

·         A hundred ways to win people’s hearts

·         Be kind at the first meeting

·         Remember Names

·         Hold the stick from the middle

·         Do not kill yourself by grief

·         The art of discussion

·         Smile and keep smiling

Personally, I applied what I read in this book and I witnessed AMAZING results.

I highly recommend you to read this book which is translated now to English. I am sure you will like it and read it more than once.

Eating an odd number of dates ! !

Dates provide us with excellent health benefits and high nutritional value. I realized the great benefits of dates and that’s why; I used to eat them in a daily basis before my main meal. When I was young, my father taught me to avoid eating an even number of dates since our prophet (peace be upon him) used to eat an odd number of them (1,3,5… pieces). Actually, I didn’t ask about the reason because I believe that anything Mohammed (peace be upon him) recommended us to do is absolutely for our benefit. Two years ago, I heard a man in a TV program said that there is a study done by non-Muslims explains the reason of why it is preferable to eat dates on odd numbers from the medical point of view. He said that people who are suffering from diabetes and kidney problems shouldn’t eat (or eat very little)  dates since it will increase the sugar and potassium in their bodies, hence have a negative impact on their health. The study discovered and concluded that dates will be transformed in our bodies as sugar and potassium in case of eating them on an even number; of course we need these elements but if they are exceeding our bodies’ needs, it will affect our health adversely. The AMAZING thing, he said that if we eat an odd number of dates, large portion of it will be converted into carbohydrates which give energy. What I found it interesting is that the purpose of what Mohammed (peace be upon him) recommended us to do 1,400 years ago is just discovered before recent years. 

Exam at Emarat Petroleum

Since it is my last year in the college, I have applied for a job in many private companies and government organizations during the event of Careers Fair. Last week, Emarat Petroleum called me to inform me that on Wednesday 11/April/2012 there will be a short test held on their main building to examine my knowledge and decide whether to interview me for the job or not. I accepted that since Emarat Petroleum has a very good reputation in developing employees' skills and motivating them to improve their performances. The exam should start at 9:00 am but the company delayed it a little bit waiting for other job seekers to come. I was worried since I wanted to reach my college at 11:00 am sharp since I didn't want to miss Mr. Tridib's class in which he will cover the chapter that I am going to teach for the second project. We stated the exam at 9:15 am and we were students from different colleges and universities such as Dubai Women's College, Dubai Men's College and Zayed University. The company provided us with exam consisted of five papers including theoretical and numerical parts. The theoretical part included many questions shown in three papers such as define: Assets, liabilities, bank overdraft, depreciation, cash flow, bank reconciliation besides writing entries for some transactions. The numerical part contained fewer questions than the theoretical one such as: converting currencies, finding the average salary for the quarter and the discount amount of money using the discount rate given in the question. For me, solving numerical problems was easier than writing definitions. I took one hour answering the questions so I could attend MIS class. Emarat Petroleum told me that they will inform me about my results through a telephone call and I hope to get a job in their Finance Department :)

  

My Bazaar Project

Dubai Women's College provides students with the opportunity to think, discover and implement their talents through a special event called Bazaar. This event is run for three days for the purpose of encouraging individuals and groups to start a mini business and operate it by themselves using their knowledge and skills. My group and I chose flat footwear’s business since we believe that ladies care a lot about their styles. The name of our business was FASHI shoes. The majority of people thought that FASHI refers to Fashion, but there is a story of choosing this name. Actually, we took the first letter of each group member's name (Fatma, Aysha, Shaimma, Hamda and Iman) and gather them to create our business name "FASHI". We sold variety kinds of footwear; sandals, slippers, and flat shoes. These footwear were designed by us using different kinds of accessories such as crystals, artificial flowers, feathers and buttons. We charged different prices for each shoe based on its cost and the materials used to design it. Each day of the Bazaar, we offered a master piece presented on a special standard and it was the most expensive shoes for the day.     

We believe that promotion is very important for us to increase our sales. Therefore, we used different ways to promote our fabulous shoes through publishing a website besides other promotional tools shown in the image below.

     

My Cousin's Birthday

Today, we spent a lovely moments celebrating my cousin's birthday, Ahmed who is 10 years old. My whole family gathered in Ahmed's home to have a barbecue party. After dinner, we had a zebra chocolate cake which was delicious in taste and fabulous in shape. My aunts and I bought for Ahmed an I-Pad as a gift which made him very happy. The funny thing is that Ahmed's father promised to buy him I-Pad if he achieves excellent marks at the end of the year. Ahmed said "Now I'm not going to study hard since I don't need my father's I-Pad" hehehehehehehehehehe.

         

Amazing Way of Teaching

Three weeks ago, my little brother asked me to help him in memorizing Nine Times Tables since he will be examined on it. When I was in grade three, my teacher taught us to find out the answer of "9x8" through two ways, either to add number 9 eight times or repeat number 8 nine times. For me, it was a hard and boring method, so I prefer to spend some time memorizing the table.

Unfortunately, my brother faces difficulties in memorizing things and he forgets them very quickly. I tried to find out a simple method that facilitates my brother's way to learn such multiplication table. Finally, I found a great and amazing method of solving Nine Times Tables that I wish my teacher followed it with us to make our lives easier. This video shows the easiest way of solving Nine Times Tables.