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INTERESTING AND BENIFICIAL GAMES

   I am really a game lover, so this is the most interesting assignment for me this semester. Except one thing, I have post this late, and I hope to be forgiven by my dearest lecturer, Datin Norizan. Ok… I have been working on Fowlsword 2, which is very fun to be played and of course, have learning influence in it.

   Through this game, we can learn to type faster and in the same time, improve our vocabulary. But it requires a lot of patient because we will have to compete with time given to type the words and in the same time, we need to think fast to type the right word because the letters given are scrambled.

   Nothing comes free in this world, right? If we are good and have enough patience to play this game, we will get all the benefits from it. So, do not skip to try it because, it is worthy.

   To try this game, try out this URL

www.miniclip.com/fowlwords2

www.primarygames.com/langarts/fowlwords2/start.htm

www.picgames.com/games/fowlwords2.php

This is the last posting that Datin has assigned me for Language and Information Technology subject. I will answer the question that Datin have ask.

1. Do you think that blogging activity improves your writing skill?

To be honest, yes it helps a lot. After having my own blog I write a lot. I learn how to express my opinion and write it in my blog. Then I will ask my friends to read my blogs and leave some comments which will help my writings next time and I hope this way it will help them to improve their writing skills too.

2.  Do you think that blog is a useful learning experience for you?

The answer is simply yes. First time I hear about blog, I wonder what it is.

Is it like e-mail or friendster? Now I understand what is it and this means I learn something I never knew it exist before. It brings my life up to the whole new level and it as well improves my computer skills. I know this will add my advantage when I am graduate and looking for job after this.

1.   What do you think that you need to know before you can complete the blogging activity successfully?

I think I need to know lots of thing before I can complete the blogging activity successfully. First I need to have good writing skills because this blog I am creating is about language and ICT, so it requires me to write good sentences. If not, it will be embarrassing because I am a language student. So I try very hard to write better. The second one I need to know how to use sources around me to complete my assignment. For example, I need to use World Wide Web to find in formation, I need to use books in PTSL to find information and last but not least, my own experience while I am doing anything to write in this blog. Third one, I also need good friends because I have to do pair work and sometimes I need to ask my friends what I don’t know. But thank God I was surrounded by very good people around me which were always there when I need their help.

1.  What are your problems that you face using blog?

My very big problem is when I want to use wireless, I need to go to foyer or cafe. Because when I want to use blog, I need to have internet connection. But then I solve my problem by choosing one peace place to use internet for free that is PTSL. Quiet, surrounded by studying people, makes me more comfortable to use blog. The second one is I am lack of understanding about using blog. I did not know we have to publish after saving to view the content. I feel stupid when thinking my first mistake. That time I already save it and I check my blog but it does not appear, I keep wondering why it happen until my friend help me. Hahaha…

1. Will you tell your friends, recommend to others about blogging?

Well, good news because I already told all my friends, family and even chat friends about it. Most of then did not know what is it but I teach them what I know about it and some of them already create their own blog after I told them how interesting it is.

1. Now that you are able to blog online will you continue using it even after the SKBP is over?

Of course because after this I will make it as my corner so that people including friends and family and also my lecturer can see my activities and development even after in graduated. This will help me avoiding from losing connection between people I love.

Now that I have complete it all, I really want to thanks my lecturer for being so understanding nad helpful and to all my friends, continue the blogging spirit, ok…

Assalamualaikum and ola to everybody. This is my fifth posting and in this posting I was assign to talk about my experience using online test which called Uji ICT for “asas level” and Electronic Malaysian Competency Test (EMEC). I took the test on last Monday, during my tutorial class.

This is my first time using computer in quiz, and I will write honestly about the test so that it can be improved next time. Ok, first of all, I can say it have good as well as bad impact too.

 Before I start the quiz, I was given my own password, so as my friend. Then we have to open many pages on the internet before we can start answering the question. The first problem I can see is 3 of my friends having difficulties to key in the password and many also have difficulties to open one by one pages before we can start answering. This can bother the concentration of the students.

After that, we can start answering the quiz. We have to read the text and then answer the questions given but the problem is, it is a long text and usually student will read the text and while reading the question they will read the text again to look for the right answer. Since the text and the question were located in different pages, it has become a problem to click here and there to read and to answer the text and questions.

Then, I heard rumors from my friend say that “we have to answer quickly, because the time will be counted. If we answer in short time, we will get a higher marks.” Then I can see everybody start answering nervously and cannot concentrate to answer the questions, I don’t know whether this rumors true or not but I also did the same mistake to listen to the rumors.

After that, the man which I can say, Datin’s assistant  told us there is another quiz that we have to answer after that 1 hour quiz, which make me more nervous and I start answering in rush. I know that Datin’s assistant try to do his best to help us, but there is one mistake he can avoid in order to help us. That is, while we answer the quiz, his phone kept ringing and the sound was so loud and it bothers our concentration. And maybe he can answer the phone outside the room, because in my case he answer it inside the room while we answering the question, talk in loud voice, and took some time talking on the phone.

The good thing about this quiz is we can get the result instantly, because after answer all the question, we submit and in no time we get out results. That means we do not have to wait for the lecturer to mark the answer. This also brings benefit to the lecturer because they do not have to mark our answer one by one, and it save their energy.

Plus, the questions which were given to us are different. This obviously can avoid students from cheating and I can say this is good or us.

This is my result for the quiz which I get instantly after I submit. So, take a look.

   In Malaysian context, the use and analysis of language corpora is limited.Eventhough,there are earlier effort by Universiti  Teknologi Malaysia(UTM) and has been continued by Malaysian learner’s corpus collected by UNiversiti Malaya (UM) and the English of Malaysian  school students or EMAS corpus by reseachers from Universiti Putra Malaysia(UPM) .

   The EMAS corpus used in this study  was collected in 2002 and consists of close to half a million words (Arshard et sl.,2002).It is contain written data in the form of three essay written by amount 800 students. There are three age groups that were from year 5 of primary school and form 1 and form 4 of secondary school. There are three essays.1) fishing trips-describing events       2) the happiest day of my life 3) Third essay was selected by teacher from essays that respondents had completed as part of their regular schoolwork.

   Language productivity is referring to the number of sentences per essay and the words per sentence following each group. It is shows that form 4 produce longer essay and complex sentences than form I and year 5.So, the language productivity in older student more better and complete than younger student.

   Range of Vocabulary – the diversity of the vocabulary used in corpus is often determined by calculating the type to taken ratio (schmitt.2002)

Formula= (number of separate words (type)/number of words in a text) x 100

* A larger type to token ratio is interpreted as an indication of a wider range of language used.

-means the older respondents use a wider range of vocabulary in their essay.

EMAS corpus also is a learner corpus that retained the students’ spelling and grammatical errors.

Conclusion

   As a conclusion, this article has attempted to present the relevance of corpus data investigating language development without having to analyze concordance lines. In this research is to compare the level of age group in investigate language development.

Application of using concordance in translation.

Translation is the action of interpretation of the meaning of a text, and subsequent production of an equivalent text, also called a translation, that communicates the same message in another language. The text to be translated is called the “source text,” and the language it is to be translated into is called the “target language”; the final product is sometimes called the “target text.”

Translation must take into account constraints that include context, the rules of grammar of the two languages, their writing conventions, and their idioms. A common misconception is that there exists a simple “word-for-word” correspondence between any two languages, and that translation is a straightforward mechanical process. A word-for-word translation does not take into account context, grammar, conventions, and idioms.

Translation is fraught with the potential for “spilling over” of idioms and usages from one language into the other, since both languages repose within the single brain of the translator. Such spilling-over easily produces linguistic hybrids such as “Franglais” (French-English), “Spanglish” (Spanish-English), “Poglish” (Polish-English) and “Portuñol” (Portuguese-Spanish).

Corpora, Serendipity & Advanced Search TechniquesMichael Wilkinson, University of Joensuu, Savonlinna Campus, Finland

Exploring corpora with concordancers can help translators to improve the quality of their translations by, for example, providing them with information about collocates; by helping them to choose between terms; or by enabling them to confirm intuitive decisions. But corpora also allow unpredictable, incidental learning: the user may notice unfamiliar uses in a concordance and follow them up by exploratory browsing. The article discusses the potential of corpora to throw up previously unknown information that may be relevant to a translation assignment, and illustrates how advanced search strategies can increase the likelihood of “accidentally” finding relevant information.

According to article “Using a specialized corpus to Improve Translation Quality “ by (Michael Wilkinson)

Corpora and corpus analysis tools

In the context of Computer Aided Translation Technology (CATT), a corpus can be described as a large collection of texts in electronic format. Electronic corpora can be “enriched” by, for example, annotating them with part-of-speech (POS) tagging, and this is especially useful in order to enable researchers to carry out sophisticated linguistic investigations. But, as I hope to show in the following, even an untagged corpus of texts (so-called “raw” text) can be a useful performance-enhancing tool in translating; for example it can be of great help in confirming intuitive decisions, in verifying or rejecting decisions based on other tools such as dictionaries, in obtaining information about collocates (words that typically co-occur), in reinforcing knowledge of normal target language patterns, and in learning how to use new expressions.Corpus analysis tools enable users to investigate and manipulate the information contained within a corpus in a variety of ways. For example, most corpus analysis packages comprise a “concordancer”, which will find all the occurrences of a search word, or search pattern, and display them in the centre of your screen, together with a span of co-text to the left and right. 

Corpora in Translator Education

In recent years there have been frequent recommendations by researchers and trainers in the field of translation studies to integrate the analysis of corpora into translator education. For example:“The methodology involved in making corpora and extracting terminology should be part of the teaching curriculum–not an optional extra–particularly given the pressure on translators to use computer-assisted tools.” (Maia, 2003, p 52).“The knowledge of how to compile and use corpora is an essential part of modern translational competence, and should therefore be dealt with in the training of prospective professional translators.” (Varantola, 2003, p 56).However, although corpus analysis tools have been extensively used for research purposes, it seems that, at least in translator education in Finland, the systematic use of such tools as actual translation aids has until now been rather neglected.

    It also seems that electronic corpora are not used widely by practising translators either, probably because they have not been exposed to the potential of corpus analysis tools during their own education and probably because of the unavailability of ready-made special-field corpora. Thus Jääskeläinen and Mauranen (2004, p 53) propose that courses on how to compile and use corpora should not only be integrated into translator training at the undergraduate level but also be offered as continuing education to practising translators.

   With this in mind, I began compiling a corpus of English-language tourism brochures in spring 2004, with the aim of using it to teach students how the competent use of electronic text corpora in conjunction with corpus analysis tools can help both the trainee translator and the professional translator to become better language service providers by enhancing both the quality of their work and their productivity, particularly when translating special field texts into a foreign language. (Many translators of non-literary texts in Finland frequently translate into their L2)

 Reference:

http://www.jostrans.org/issue07/art_wilkinson.php

http://www.accurapid.com/journal/33corpus.htm

The environmental impact of information and communications technologies (ICT) is generally insufficient, but usually information technologies have a positive environmental impact. However, ICT equipment contains toxic and hazardous substances and is energy consuming. In this regard, the study outlines three categories of environmental impact for ICT:

Environmental impact of business creation and development:  Manufacturing  ICT equipment uses resources and generates carbon emissions. The disposal of ICT equipment also raises environmental concerns;

Environmental impact of ICT use in business applications: The use of ICT  has a generally positive impact on the environment, for example, the switch from travel to video conferences;

Environmental impact of mass use of ICT over the medium to long term: For example, if more and more people work at home due to increased use of ICT, they are more likely to take leisure drives.

Traditional environmental assessment approaches are “insufficient to accommodate the digital technology revolution” and “cannot accommodate the challenge of measuring the impact of ICT on environmental sustainability”, concludes the paper.

A more predictive and empirical model of assessing the impact of ICT on the environment would be more beneficial in the long term.

This is one of the journal in found in the PTSL database

Economic And Social Evolution During 1.I-28.Ii.2007 Period

Abstract

This material is analyzing, on the basis of the computer indicators, the macroeconomic outcomes recorded by Romania within the first two month of the year 2007. this period means actually the first segment after the adhesion moment and might be evaluated as a sign for the trend which our country going to follow during the post-adhesion period. Under the circumstances, the analysis covers the data concerning the evolution of prices, resources of prime energy, constructions, domestic trade, services, foreign trade, tourism, wage gains, labor market etc. The available data are analyzed in comparison with both the situation being recorded for the similar period of 2006 year and the previous month. In general terms, there is a positive trend of the evolution of the main macroeconomic indicators which can be noted out this analysis.

URL: http://www.asociatiaconomistilor.ro/documents/simpozion_AGER_2007_engleza.pdf

In the 21st century transparency cannot be disconnected from information and communication technologies (ICT). ICT is now so much a part of business that it seems reasonable to say that firms don’t just use and provide information, they are their information technology (Johnson, 2005). ICT makes possible a level of transparency that was never before possible. Using ICT, corporations can make huge quantities of information available to all their stakeholders. And, because of ICT, consumers, contractors, shareholders, and other stakeholders can access this information at their fingertips. In principle, ICT could allow firms to become naked corporations (Tapscott and Ricoll, 2003) or completely transparent institutions, i.e. organizations that share all kinds of information concerning their business activities requested by the society (Vaccaro and Madsen, 2006). In other words, ICT can support firms to become open systems that interact in multiple ways with the external environment (Kling and Jewett, 1994). The Conference seeks submissions that focus on any aspect of the nexus of transparency in business, social responsibility, and the role of ICT. However, two main streams will be emphasized: the first is related to the concept of “transparency” as it applies to social organizations of various kinds including governmental, as well as business, profit and non-profit; the second is related to the impact of ICT on organizational transparency the impact of information and

communication technology (ICT) on individual firms, industry sectors, and the economy. It draws implications for policymakers and business leaders, focusing especially on recommendations for leveraging ICT more effectively. The chapter also builds on the findings of a study on productivity growth completed in 2001 by the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI). It is also supported by research that has followed the first MGI report and that extends the findings to the rest of the world. Finally, supporting case studies and insights are based on extensive McKinsey experience serving corporations to help leverage ICT to create value.In summary, this chapter has five key messages:

1. In the aggregate, ICT is not a “silver bullet” to increase productivity. ICT cannot by itself promote economic growth. It is, however, an essential element of any holistic strategy to improve productivity at the economy, sector, or

company level.

2. The main driver of productivity growth is managerial innovation. Structural changes in market regulation and competition act as triggers to stimulate innovation and facilitate the widespread adoption of new processes and products. Cyclical factors, such as short-term market pressure or demand fl uctuation, also play a role.

3. ICT has played a key role in facilitating managerial innovation. Evidence from sectoral case studies suggests that ICT has enabled many of the most important process and product innovations of the last decade.

4. Managing e-execution at a detailed level is critical. Successful implementation of ICT at the company level remains one of the major challenges faced by CEOs. Even within the same industry some companies seem to do exceedingly well leveraging ICT while others fail to realize value, despite signifi cant investment.

5. ICT’s enabling role means that ICT strategy must be subsumed within broader goals. ICT is effectively a tool to achieve broader performance improvements, be it at the fi rm, industry, or economy level. Therefore, policymakers must pursue broader strategies to encourage structural

reform and increase the likelihood that triggers will drive managerial innovation at the firm level. These strategies often include facilitating industrywide restructuring and increasing competition. At the firm level, successful ICT must support a business’s strategic imperatives and be driven by senior management to support clear internal innovation to improve performance.

Chapter 4

The Business Dimension

ICT: A Critical Enabler of Managerial Innovation

Scott Beardsley, Ingo Beyer von Morgenstern, Luis Enriquez,

Stefan Mytilineos, and Jürgen Wunram McKinsey & Co.

Chapter 4

The Business Dimension ICT: A Critical Enabler of Managerial Innovation 59 ICT can have a proportionally larger impact in third world countries, as it can become a catalyst for the transfer of best practice innovations from advanced economies. However, as is the case in advanced economies, ICT by itself will not deliver these benefi ts unless combined with structural reform. Introduction “[Y]ou can see the computer age everywhere except in the productivity statistics.”

Robert Solow, 1987

Between 1973 and the late-1980s, productivity growth in the United States dropped below the historic average.This occurred despite major increases in ICT investments throughout the economy, with major waves of computer

innovation and adoption taking place throughout the country’s businesses. This apparent paradox led Robert Solow, a distinguished economist, to make his famous statement. From 1995 to 2000, however, the U.S. experienced a reversal of fortunes. Measured labor productivity grew at 2.5 percent per year during that period. This was a dramatic improvement from the 1.4 percent rate achieved between 1972 and 1995. Labor productivity growth was accompanied by rapid economic growth, unemployment declines to 3.9

percent (the lowest levels in three decades), and inflation rates that hovered at around 2 percent. This acceleration in productivity was accompanied by a 20 percent annual surge in real business investment in ICT, almost double the rate

from 1987 to 1995 (Figure 1). Were these phenomena connected? Had investments in ICT raised the “speed limit”1 of the U.S. economy? Four decades after General Electric fi rst took delivery of a UNIVAC and

less than a decade after Solow made his famous statement, it seemed that the computer age might fi nally have showed up in productivity statistics. Although U.S. observations have prompted discussion around this “paradox,” the wider question of the true impact of ICT on an economy is relevant across the world. Indeed, a study performed by the McKinsey Global Institute on the impact of

ICT on productivity in Europe confi rms that patterns similar to the U.S. are also found in Europe. Given the importance of allocating resources and government effort in developing countries, the “paradox” question is at least as pertinent to the developing world.