My Experience in DkIT

I would not say that I was very happy studying in DKIT. 

There were lots of assignments we have to do every semester and most of them were writing reports. It's not boring but sometimes complicated. I heard classmates complaint that the reports we had done sometimes were not related to our final exam and not all the reports were good for us to learn something that we need.

I would like to have a test for the percentage of CA because the topics you have tested in the exam would not come to final exam, which means for final exam you just need to concentrate on the rest of the topics and it's really reduce the pressure.

Most of the lecturers in DKIT are very enthusiastic but some are not kind. The most disappointed thing that encountered in DKIT was some lecturers were not treated Chinese students fair enough.

Taking my experience for example, there was one subject last semester was similar to the subject that we learned in 3rd year. The assignment that lecturer asked to do was also similar to the 3rd year we had done. Therefore I chose the same topic but changed something using my own words and then submitted (this is a secret ^_^). I got 78 for that assignment in 3rd year but only 58 in 4th year. I don't think that is because the level of 3rd year and 4th year are different because the guidelines for assignment are also similar. One day when we waiting for our research proposal's feedback from Brian, I heard classmates (Irish students of course) said they got 70-75 for that assignment. I was very sad for this kind of unfair thing.

Every subject in 4th year is very difficult for me and now I'm worried about my final exam as there are lots of materials you need to read and remember in your head but some of them I even don't understand and can't digest. Hope I will pass my final exam because I don't want to repeat. No one likes repeat.

Mobile Commerce / Wireless Technology

There is no doubt that Internet has already be the part of our lives. However, Internet is not everywhere, it's not convenient for business people when they need to access to the Internet but these is not.

There are some computers provided in public area such as airport, but they need to pay. However as you know, every business person has there own laptop and all the data they need is in their computer, why they should pay for the public computer and even there is no information what they want. Therefore wireless is necessary.

Non-business people may not have their own laptops, we could say every person has a mobile phone. As technology has developed, mobile phones are not just a phone to contact others by ringing and text message. Mobile phones have broader functions such as 3G, go on Internet, etc. As iPhone comes up, business people could use it for their business, other persons could use it to have fun like go to facebook, QQ to talk to their friends everywhere. There is no regional limitation. 

In college, there are not sufficient computers for every students to use, especially when doing their project. However, if there is wireless in the college, students could bring their own laptop and use Internet in the college to do their project. Wireless is really usefull for people everywhere.

I don't know if there is wireless in airplane or not, if there is not, hope we could use wireless in the airplane, especially for the long journey. 

Mobile commerce/Wireless technology is no doubt very important and usefullness in our lives. Hopefully everyone could use this technology everywhere in the future.

Censorship

We could say that different countries have different culture, for example, German and Ireland are European countries, but Germany people are punctual to appointment whereas Irish people are always late for 10 minutes or event half an hour; Although China and Japan are Asian countries, the architectures in Japan are more look like European and USA's, and Japanese people's thought are mixture of both European (open minded) and Asian ( non-open minded).

Because of regional differences, people even have different overview on the same thing. For instance, most of Chinese people are despise gay whereas gay could married in European countries and USA. I don't know is gay legal or not in Japan, but there are lots of cartoons, novels and drama CDs about gay stories and they could be published.

Chinese people could not access to Facebook, twitter and YouTube, in my point of view, there are lots of unhealthy videos on YouTube and they are not allowed to watch as government of China said, they are not good for children's grow up.

In recent years, Japan's cartoons are not allowed to play on TV in China because Chinese government said they are violence and unhealthy. When I was a child, we could watch Japan's cartoons on TV, but they are all in Chinese because government don't want children listen to Japanese and learn Japanese, the government thought children would gradually not concentrating on Chinese culture.

Most Chinese people are not satisfied with government, people talk about the politics on table (when having dinner in the restaurant) and online as well. There are some forums for people to register and be a member of them and talk about their thoughts about China and also the world. However, in recent years, government started to censor these forums and then most of them are forced to close, apparently people are reluctantly.

As I know, the copyright of DVD is well controlled in European countries, USA and Japan. In China, there are lots of pirate DVD and sold very cheap. It's illegal of course, sellers are very careful to avoid finding by polices.
Talking about political thing is really a sensitive topic in China, and also the relationship between China and Japan because of the history. These topics are not very happy topic to talk about, there are lots of entertainment topics in China to talk about like movie stars, sports stars, etc. Happiness is important for people's lives ^_^

Usability

Website is very convenient nowadays when people want to search useful things online. We could compare the rate of the hotel accommodation and price of the air plane ticket, and then choose the best choice online. 

Taking Castelknock Hotel for instance, the homepage is very structured, every department information online is in detail. They provide a flashing show of the accommodation, restaurant, swimming pool, golf area, etc. However, they don't update the playing approach of the video as I couldn't watch the video online. The hotel also dosen't provide the room rate on the homepage. Sometimes people want to see the room rate in detail rather than require for it, although the room rate is fluctuate, especially during the peak season and off season. 

Comparing to the D Hotel in Drogheda, we could clearly know the room rate from the homepage, but the pictures to the restaurant that the hotel provide are not that good to show their characteristics and obviously people could not see the advantage of the hotel and also don't know if people themselves could get benefit from the hotel or not.
As Internet is necessary for us nowadays, organization industries should have their homepage well structured and friendly for people to look at and search. The homepage of a company could be seen as a image of the organization, therefore the first glance and the usefulness is very important when building the homepage. 

Web Standards

According to definition in wikipedia, web standards is defined as "... a general term for the formal standards and other technical specifications that define and describe aspects of the World Wide Web. In recent years, the term has been more frequently associated with the trend of endorsing a set of standardized best practices for building web sites, and a philosophy of web design and development that includes those methods."

As there are majority disability people in the world, web accessibility is not that convenient  for every individual person, W3C(World Wide Web Consortium) "develops and mantains the protocols used on the web to insure interoperability and promote universal access." 

Web designers need to think about how to design the web page that will be suitable for different kind of disability people such as deaf, blind, etc. I don't know how many disability people in the world, but they have the right to play on the internet  as normal people. Therefore web page designers face the challenge. People probably think that disability people should not use the internet as it's very difficult and complicated for designers to design the special web pages for them, disability people bother a lot. However, think this problem in another way, it's a chance for web page designers to improve and develop their skills and perhaps they could learn more and new things from this case. Every coin has two sides.

Technology Fast

How our life will be without technology? e.g. no mobile phones and no Internet in two days. That's crazy. 

However, I tried. I didn't switch off my mobile phone, but I really didn't text message nor calling in 48 hours. I didn't go on Internet as well within 48 hours from 2pm on 7th March to 2pm on 9th March.

I found it was not that hard for not using mobile phone. Although we need to do our project for the following week, we could meet in the college and talk about in details. 

However, I used mobile phone for alarm clock, I need it from Monday to Thursday and sometimes also Friday and Saturday if we have a group meeting. Therefore, I still used the mobile phone for alarm clock. 

I remembered when I was in China, I used mobile phone everyday. I need it to contact my parents, my friend, especially there was an contingency.

Apparently it was very hard that I couldn't go on Internet as I really need it. I couldn't check my email, I couldn't check if there are handouts that I need to print out or not on Moodle. I was thinking how I can go to the class without handouts because I need to take notes. We need to have meeting for business ethic's project and the team leader will take attendance for this project, I was afraid what I should do if I didn't attend the meeting and that's just because I couldn't check my email.

When I was in China, I could watch TV or have other entertainments outside, in other words, I can 'live' without Internet. However in Ireland, I cannot 'live' without Internet, especially during the night time. I cannot concentrate on the articles or any other handouts although I know I must read them as they are for the next day's classes. The only thing I could do at night is go online and play surf online. I also need to search some information online for the project.

I can't imagine how business people live without technology as they need it to do the business, to earn money, to have their life going on.

Anyway, the tough life has gone. My life is back to Internet again. During these two days, I ensure that I cannot do anything without technology, wherever I resident.

Discussing Project Management

A project is a piece of planned work for participants to do on time.

When doing a project, you need to finish the project having achieved what you initially intended to do. Resources, such as time, money and people, are also important for a project manager when working on a project. If it's team work, coordination is very important.

A process is a regular thing which happens again and again. It's different from a project. A project is a temporary piece of work but a process is a permanent piece of work.

If you work in project management, it is essential for you to be self-disciplined, but in reality, I don't like it. It's demanding of your time, money and intellectual; and it's also hard for you to do.

There are some skills that you need to be a good project manager:

• time management skills (also to manage your time)
• organizational skills (able to organize your work and other people)
• leadership skills (able to motivate the people on your team)
• interpersonal skills (able to work with other people and get on well with them)
• communication skills (able to talk to people and work with them)
• technical skills (also to use the tools of your profession, e.g. IT skills)

Welcome to Denise's Space area

Hi everyone, welcome to my blog.

My name is Denise, a Chinese girl studying in Event&Hospitality Management in DKIT.

I'm interested in watching football matches since I was born and I support Netherlands nations and Arsenal club.

My favorate football player is Dennis Bergkamp, who has already retired as a player and now is trained to be a coach.

Hope you will enjoy and have fun in my blog.

Have a good day.

Social Networking/Social Media (Virtual Communities)

In many decades ago, there are no computers, no mobile phones, it was not convenient to talk to someone if far away from you. Letters and land phones are the only way in use to contact. There probably be a problem if there was a contingency because the delivery of letter is not that fast and sometimes there would be a problem with satellite and we can't use the land phones.

Everything is developing, especially the technology in our lives. Computer and mobile phone are the most important and common tools for networking, not just for business men, but for every person in the world.

We could search the things that we want on website, we even can buy stuff on website if we don't want to go shopping outside. For instance, E-bay, Amazon, Taobao(in China), etc. provide us most of things that we need online, we just need a credit card to buy and will receive the merchandise in a few days. 

E-mail is a easy way for people to exchange information as there is a upload file function. For example, when a group of three students writing the report, they can write at home after allocating the different parts for whom to write and then email each other when finishing writing.

YouTube, tudou (in China) provide lots of videos for people to watch. These kind of videos are not just for entertainment, but also some useful videos for business people and students. For example, there are some advertising videos for students who are doing advertisement project in their research and their report. There are some videos that talk about fashions, healthy, scientists, technology, nature, culture, politics, geography, agriculture, etc. They are all good in people's entire lives.

Mobile phone is very important in our lives nowadays. It's the most convenient and fast approach to connect others and even deals. Mobile phone is also a good tools when dealing with contingency.

However, do we lose some real things when use computers and mobile phones frequently? Do we talk truth when we are not talk face to face but on the Internet, or on phone (as we can't see the other person's face)?

Anyway, each coin has two sides.

Media channels in our lives

As technology developed nowadays, media channels are important and necessary in people's lives. There are different types of media channels to interactive, communicate, broad knowledge and even make new friends.
The media types that I commonly spend per week:

• Newspaper-0 in Ireland, but  1-2 hours in China (0% in Ireland but 5% in China)
• Radio-never listening to radio (0%)
• Television-0 in Ireland, but probably more than 15 or 20 hours in China (0% in Ireland but 7% in China)
• Online/Internet-more than 5 hours everyday (92% in Ireland  but 80% in China)
• Email-2 to 5 hours (3% )
• Mobile Phone-30 minutes to 1 hour per day. (5%) 

Apparently I spend much more time on the Internet and that is because I can read news, watch movies, listening to music and talk to my friends and my parents online.