Sunday, September 1, 2013

Creating an Effective Educational Program through Television


            Nowadays, the utilization of technology in education is a popular technique used by teachers in educating their students. Various multimedia tools are almost incorporated in all lessons of different subjects. One of the most used media in education is television. Generally, television is perceived as a relaxation medium (Zajc, Alic, Battelino & Tassic, n.d.). Television is a tool for people to get entertained or to obtain information. In a school setting, television is used for academic purposes through playing educational programs for students to watch. These programs help teachers to further explain concepts that are taught in a specific subject. It also simplifies these concepts through visual representation.  These educational programs do not only train the student about the subject matter but enhance their various senses such as visual and hearing senses. Thus, when creating educational programs, one must consider several factors in order for it to be effective in delivering its message to the target audience. An effective educational television program should be direct, clear, informative and age-appropriate to its target audience.

            For an educational television to be effective, investment on these cannot be kept low compare to other television program (Akyurek, 2005). Thus, in preparing educational television program, there must be a sufficient funding and materials in creating an effective program. Research works, script writing, program development, pre and post-production assessment are some of the necessary steps in creating an effective educational television program. Researching the background and expectations of the target audience is essential to the creation of script and program development. The data will become the basis for the over-all structure of the program itself. The script should be made simple yet informative for the target audience to understand. In the program development, in which the script writing is also included, the presentation style, production fund and time management, sequencing of scenes such as video footages and interviews are considered during this time. Assessment during pre-production is done through the reading of written text, assessment of dramatic specialties and education content and sending them to the producer-director for shooting after the necessary corrections are done (Akyurek, 2005). The finished program will be shown to a group of target audience for assessment before its broadcasting proper. Changes in the script will be made after getting the response from the audience. Afterwards, the program will be ready for broadcast.

            In the process of creating an educational television program, one must consider its affectivity to its target audience by having certain characteristics. Not all educational television programs are equally effective, or have an equally strong impact to its audience (Fisch, 2005). Therefore, having the following characteristics of an effective educational television program can have its intended message reached its audience.


1.      The language and the topic used for the program must be age-appropriate to its targeted audience. This is helpful in the process of comprehension of the watching audience.

2.      The educational content of the program should be clear and direct. The information must be easily understood by the audience for the intention of the program is to educate them. Also, this is also to prevent confusion to the audience when they watch the program.

3.      The program should encourage and motivate its audience in an active participation during the viewing. This could be done through an interactive video presentation which is included in the program. This would help the audience to be an active viewer rather than a passive one. By incorporating interactive video presentation in the program, the audience can have a better learning performance and higher level of learning satisfaction compared to those programs that do not have one (Zhang, Zhou, Briggs & Nunamaker Jr., 2006).

4.      Having appealing elements such as humors and diagrams that connects conceptually related segments can help the program grasp the attention of its audience during the viewing proper. It also helps simplifies concepts and how it can be applied to different problems or situation (Fisch, 2005).

5.      Repetitions of concept during the program can help the reinforcement of it in the memory of the audience. 

These are some of the important characteristics that one may consider in creating an effective educational television program. By incorporating these characteristics in an educational television program, one may be assured that the intended message in the program can be understood by its target audience.

            Educational television program has an effect to its target audience, especially to children. It is during these early life stages where learning is an important factor for human development. These effects can be seen in their academic performance and social behavior. Watching educational television programs has a short and long term effect in the academic performance of children. The immediate effect of watching these programs has to do with the academic readiness and prowess of the children before and during their pre-school studies (Fisch, 2005). These academic skills are letter-word knowledge, math skills and vocabulary size. Thus, allowing children to watch educational television program helps them become prepared to school in a much early stage compared to those who do not watch these programs. These effects have been observed on a longer term. According to Fisch, high school students who watched educational television programs during their early childhood days have high grade in subjects such as English, Mathematics and Science (Fisch, 2005). They are also observed to have a high academic self-esteem. In terms of social behavior, children who watch educational television programs have a positive effect to their social behavior (Fisch, 2005). This effect can be seen on several domains of social behavior such as friendliness, altruism and cooperation, self-control and delay of gratification, and delay of gratification. However, this effect can be mediated by values learned from their families and peers. In general, watching educational television programs can have a positive effect on students’ academic performance and social behavior.

            Having a clear, direct, informative and age-appropriate educational television program can help its effectiveness towards its audience. Also, these factors must also be observed in the process of preparation of the educational television program, from research to its broadcasting proper. Aside from these factors, there are also some characteristics that an effective educational television program should have such as an appealing program, clear and age-appropriate language and the like. Without these, an educational television program will lose its impact to its targeted audiences. Thus, creating educational television program is necessary because if its positive effect to its audience, specifically to children. Educational television program does not only restrict itself in providing academic skills that children need to learn but they also provide the necessary social skills as well, which is essential in having a well-rounded personality.

 References:

Akyurek, F. (2005). A Model Proposal for Educational Television Program. Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education, 6(2), 55-64.

Fisch, S. (2005). Children’s Learning from Television. 10-14.

Zajc, M., Kemal, A., Battelino, I., & Tasic, J. (2006). Challenges of Interactive Digital Television. Faculty of Electronic Engineering

Zhang, D., Zhou, L., Briggs, R., & Nunamaker Jr., (2006). Instructional video in e- learning: Assesing the impact of interactive video on learning effectiveness. Information and Management, 43, 15-27.

 

 

 

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Regulating Mining in the Philippines



              Land mining provides essential raw materials or ores that are needed in various purposes such as construction, jewelry, electronics and others. Extracting these materials from the earth’s crust depends on what type of raw material would miners like to obtain. But, generally, the most important step in initiating a mining activity is to locate first an area where a specific raw material is abundant. Usually, a geologist does the location-seeking task (Blatt, 1997). After that, the geologist will determine the mining technique appropriate for the chosen area. It could be underground, open pit, strip or placer technique (Carlson, Plummer, & McGeary, 2008). When the ores are mined, they are transported to big crushers in order to become fine materials (Mining processes, n.d.). These materials will be put in a flotation machine to separate the valuable minerals from unnecessary ones. After which, the needed metals are extracted from the minerals by using various methods such as smelting and other extracting techniques. Lastly, the extracted metal is purified through heat, chemicals or electricity.
            Finding a particular mining site in the Philippines is relatively easy since the country is rich with valuable metals and nonmetal resources such as gold, copper, nickel and other traces of metals and nonmetals. From the northern to the southern part of the country, mining sites are to be found, including those that are under the exploratory and feasibility study stage. As we can see in the figure below, there are two areas in the country where mining activities are heavily concentrated. One is in the north-west section of the island of Luzon, where the Cordillera Mountain range is to be found. The other one is in the north-east section of Mindanao, where the province of Surigao del Norte and Surigao del Sur are located. In both of these areas, copper and gold can be abundantly found. With this abundant numbers of mining sites in the Philippines, they should be regulated both by their respective company and the local government.

Fig. 1 Mining sites in the Philippines
            In several mining sites, accidents can also happen and its victims can either be humans, the surrounding environment or both. One accident occurred in February 2013 in a large scale commercial coal mine in Semirara Island in Antique where five miners were killed and five were missing as the said mine collapsed (Geronimo, 2013). The mining site, which is owned by Semirara Mining Corporation, is the nation’s only large scale coal producer. Another accident happened in Benguet in August 2012 where one of the tail pond of Padcal mine broke, thus spilling waste into the nearby Balog creek, which flowed into the Agno River and the San Roque Dam (Padaca spill, 2013). The said mine is owned by Philex Minining Corporation. After three months, another accident happened in Narra, Palawan. The Torronto mine, owned by Citinickel Mines and Development Corp., had accidentally spilled its waste into a river and irrigation canals, thus affecting farms and fish ponds. There have also been some accidents in small mining sites for the past five years as can be seen in the table below.

Table 1. List of Mining-related accidents in the Philippines within 5 years (2008-2012)
DATE
LOCATION
DETAILS
Sept. 22, 2008
Itogon, Benguet
Six small-scale miners died when they were trapped inside a flooded mine tunnel at the Antamok Gold Field. Ten others were rescued, most of them after nine days in the tunnel.
May 18, 2009
Brgy. Napnapan, Pantukan, Compostela Valley
Heavy rain for two days caused a landslide that buried the bunk houses of gold miners at the foot of a mountain, killing 24 small-scale miners.
Apr. 3, 2011
Tampakan, South Cotabato
Four people were killed and two survived when a section of an illegal mine collapsed due to heavy rains.
Apr. 22, 2011
Sitio Panganason, Brgy. Kingking, Pantukan, Compostela Valley
At least 14 people were killed in a landslide at an illegal mine site that the MGB had declared a "dangerous" area.
Jan. 29, 2012
Brgy. Palanas, Paracale, Camarines Norte
Two miners drowned when the water rose suddenly inside an illegal small-scale mining area.
Aug. 3-10, 2012
Brgy. Bila, Bokod, Benguet
A small-scale miner trapped in a tunnel that collapsed was rescued after a week.
Nov. 20, 2012
Brgy. Palanas, Paracale, Camarines Norte
Three miners were killed when a small-scale mining pit collapsed in the area.

            Accidents are inevitable in mining sites but there is something more that we can gain in mining. The mining industry creates jobs and wealth to the local people (Harvey, 2009; Waters, n.d.). These kinds of opportunities can only be grasped by those who live near the mining site. Thus, it can help the local people in upbringing their current status. In addition, mining industry has major impacts on employment, income and consumption that go much beyond the taxes paid by the mining enterprises (Villegas, 2013). This further strengthens the claim on how mining can be beneficial to the local government and its people. The resources that can be found in mining, such as metals and non-metals, are important not only as a financial source of income but as building materials and source of trade (Globerover, 2010). As building materials, they are very important since the metal resources that we get from different mining sites, become essential in creating buildings, from small house to high rising skyscrapers. As for the non-metals, they are important for other usages such as source of heat (coal) and potteries (clay).
            Mining site does also have disadvantages, which affect both humans and the surrounding environment. Global warming, climate change and pollution are some of the effects of mining to the environment (Perez, 2010). For example, the burning of coal produces gases such as carbon dioxide, sulphur dioxide, and nitrogen oxides which are considered factors for greenhouse effect, thus they contribute to the global warming which can further result in climate change and air pollution. Also, the surrounding area particularly the forest and local wildlife are ruined by the mining activity (Perez, 2010).Moreover, waste that comes from mining site has a lethal potential in poisoning nearby water bodies and affecting the water ecosystem and agriculture. Miners’ abuse of environment can also be seen through the numerous accidents in mining site (Geronimo, 2013). Therefore, ignoring safety precaution in this kind of working environment can cause human fatalities.
            There are advantages and disadvantages in mining but we can increase its disadvantages by regulating it. Both the local government and the mining company can have an important role in regulating mining activities here in the Philippines. For the local government, they must observe the existing and prospective policies and agreements to existing and future mining sites. In this way, they can maintain proper legal control over mining companies with regard to their respective mining sites. To further strengthen this kind of control, representatives from the local government should have a frequent, scheduled or surprise visits to mining sites. In this way, they can ensure that the mining companies really follow the agreed policies and whether they are implemented in the mining sites. If the mining companies fail to commit to these agreed policies, a corresponding sanction should be implemented immediately after careful investigation.
In order to minimize unwanted environmental damages, mining companies should consider first the location of the future mining site. They should analyze the abundance of specific resources that they would like to extract and their possible effect on the surrounding environment. The existing mining rules and regulations in the Philippines can be found in Republic Act No. 7942, which is currently known as the “Philippine Mining Act of 1995”. All the rights, regulations, safety policies and penalties of a mining site in the Philippines are stated here. By analyzing the content of the act against the current situation of mining sites here in the Philippines, we could say that some of the rules are not properly implemented to them. One example is the waste management of mining sites where most of the recent accidents are due to flawed waste systems in these sites. Therefore,mining activities here in the Philippines should be regulated in order to minimize human and environment-related accident and to obtain natural resources that can benefit the people.






References:
Blatt, H. (1997). Our Geologic Environment. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Carlson, D., Plummer, C., & McGeary, D. (2008). Physical Geology: Earth Revealed (7th ed.). Boston: McGraw-Hill/Higher Education.
Geronimo, C. (2013). Five miners killed, five missing as Semirara coal mine collapses. Retrieved from http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/294880/news/regions/five-miners-killed-five-missing-as-semirara-coal-mine-collapses
Globerover (2010). Advantages and disadvantages of gold mining in South Africa. Retrieved from http://globerove.com/south-africa/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-gold-mining-in-south-africa/4015
Haryvey, Y. (2009). Benefits of the mining industry. Retrieved from https://magazine.cim.org/en/August-2009/news/Benefits-of-mining-industry.aspx
Padaca spill released toxic heavy metal (2013). Retrieved from http://www.minesandcommunities.org/article.php?a=12143
Perez, D.Z. (2010). The disadvantages of coal mining. Retrieved from http://goarticles.com/article/The-Disadvantages-of-Coal-Mining/3662001/
Villegas, B. (2013). Distributing benefits from mining industry. Retrieved from http://mb.com.ph/Business/Business_Main/25508/Distributing_benefits_from_mining_industry
Waters, L. (n.d.). Australia’s mining boom: fact or fiction? Retrieved from http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/2876728.html

Monday, August 19, 2013

Defining Psychology...Reading Minds?

           The word “Psychology” is erroneously defined by most people, especially those who are not familiar to this field. According to Cherry (n.d), people perceived those who study Psychology to be super sleuths that use their understanding of human mind in solving crimes and predicting the criminal’s next move. This is not surprising since Psychology is quite young in terms of its inception compare to the other fields of knowledge such as medicine, engineering, music and the likes. Psychology is quite difficult to define precisely like many abstract terms (Haaga, 2004). The word comprises many ideas and compressing them into one line definition needs expertise from the said field. In addition, when people ask on what Psychology is, they argue whether it is a study of the mind or behavior (Henriques, 2011). This kind of idea only causes further confusion on how Psychology should be defined. This leads to a suspicion that the word “Psychology” is inherently fuzzy that resists precise definition (Reber, 1995 as cited by Lilienfeld, 2004). Henriquez (2011) has also defined three primary areas of controversies in the formal definition of Psychology: major ambiguities in the formal definition of Psychology, the definition separates animal Psychology from human Psychology and the definition needs a line between the science and the profession. In spite of these misunderstandings, specialists from various fields of Psychology and a prominent organization give their own concrete definition of Psychology.

            According to Coon (2000), the word “Psychology” comes from two Greek words: psyche (which means mind) and logos (means knowledge or study). The etymology of the word “Psychology” clearly defines Psychology as the study of mind, though as we shall see later in the history of Psychology, behavior was formally included in its definition. The American Psychological Association or APA, the world’s largest association of psychologists, defines Psychology as the study of mind and behavior. With this definition, it gives a general idea on what the field focuses on. According to Feldman (2010), Psychology is the scientific study of behavior and mental processes. As we can see, he included the word “scientific” which connotes a careful, step by step procedure in dealing with the study of behavior. Also, the inclusion of the word “mental processes” had made Psychology become a broad concept.  Cherry (n.d.) has a broader definition of Psychology as she defines it as an applied and academic field that studies human mind behavior. With this definition, Psychology can become an applied science as well as an academic one. To compress all these definitions, Henriques (2011) define Psychology according to the unified theory. It states that Psychology is the science of mental behavior and the human mind, and the professional application of such knowledge towards a greater good.

            Psychology has a long past but a short history. This could be pointed out with establishment of modern Psychology as a science began in 1979 in Leipzig, Germany by Wilhelm Wundt through his set-up of the first psychological laboratory which aims in studying psychological phenomena (Coon, 2000; Feldman, 2010). This epitomized the attempt of the field in becoming a natural science and separating itself from its philosophical origin. From this start, many ideas regarding Psychology has started to arise in different places with the aim of challenging each other’s ideas. These are also known as the school of thoughts, which is known as the dominating knowledge of psychology during a certain period. From that period, the school of thought flourishes through various researches until another one arises to challenge the dominating one. From Wundt’s perspective came Structuralism which focuses in discovering the essential components of consciousness, thinking and other mental states and activities (Feldman, 2010). Then, William James’ Functionalism is formed which aims on how the mind functions in order to adapt on its environment (Coon, 2000). Afterwards, Sigmund Freud’s Psychoanalysis came in which it deals with the unconscious aspect of the human mind. As a form of critic to the other previous school of thoughts, a new one arises in the form of behaviorism. John B. Watson’s Behaviorism deals solely on observable behavioral acts under an objective purpose (Schultz & Schultz, 2008). Another school of thought, which is Humanism, solely focuses on understanding subjective human experiences such as experience, problems, potentials and ideals (Coon, 2000). Last but not the least on the school of thoughts, namely Cognitivism, which deals on the process of knowing how information processing occurs to human to produce behavior (Schultz & Schultz, 2008; Coon, 2000 ). Although these schools of thoughts criticize the ideas of each other, they still provide the necessary foundation for Psychology to flourish through time.

            Like any other sciences, Psychology has also subfields that deal with certain areas that need psychological intervention for the solution of various problems. Some of them are mostly focused in research while the others are through the application of the field on a certain setting. First is the area of Abnormal Psychology, which is the study of abnormal behavior and psychopathology (Cherry, n.d.). Similarly, Clinical Psychology is the assessment, diagnosis and treatment of psychological problem (Cherry, n.d., Coon, 2000). These two fields primarily deal with various psychological disorders. According to Feldman (2010), Industrial-Organizational Psychology deals with work and job-related issues such as work motivation, satisfaction, safety and productivity. Next is Biopsychology or Biological Psychology, which focuses on how biological processes create influences in the human mind and behavior (Cherry, n.d.). In addition to the field is Social Psychology which is the scientific study of people’s thoughts, feelings, and action and how it affects others (Schultz & Schultz, 2008). Likewise, Educational or School Psychology is the study of learning and teaching in light of human’s age group and learning capability (Coon, 2000). Subsequently, Developmental Psychology studies human growth pattern and development across its lifespan in terms of cognitive abilities, morality, social functioning and identity (Cherry, n.d.; Schultz & Schultz, 2008). Another area is Forensic Psychology which deals with the application of psychological research and principles in the legal and criminal justice system (Cherry, n.d.). On the other hand, Cognitive Psychology focuses on the study of higher mental processes such as thinking, language, memory, problem solving, knowing, reasoning, judging and decision making (Feldman, 2010). Last, but not the least in the field, is Comparative Psychology which is the study and comparison of behavior in different species, especially between animals and humans (Cherry, n.d.; Coon, 2000). With all definitions, it is evident that the primary concern of Psychology is the welfare and development of the mind and behavior of people across the different settings.

            The definition of psychology has a strong relevance to various people, specifically to the society, the practioners of the field and to the students who are taking up this course as their major. Its relevance to the society is that it gives a better view and it also clears up ambiguous definitions that came from those who are unaware of it. Furthermore, it gives importance to the field since the society now has clearer view on it and on how it could be applied in solving problems. The relevance of the definition of Psychology to its practitioners is that it gives a more objective rather than subjective view of the field. Since psychologist aims the field to become a natural science, it is a great importance that its definition should be concrete and attainable. An implication of the definition for the students and future practitioners of Psychology, whether they are undergraduates or graduates, is that it gives a concrete foresight on what they would become and what they are studying about. This is important since this is where their training would start as future psychologists and for them to choose what field they would pursue if they decide to further enhance their knowledge about the field. In general, having a formal and concrete definition of psychology gives the field a sense of identity where everyone can agree upon and use it as an objective for future endeavors.

References:

Coon, D. (2000). Essentials of Psychology: Exploration and Application (8th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadswoth.

Cherry, K. (n.d.). What is Psychology? Retrieved from http://Psychology.about.com/od/Psychology101/f/psychfaq.htm

Feldman, S. (2010), Psychology and your life. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Haaga, D. (2004). Defining Psychology: What can it do for us?. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 60 (12), 1227-1229.

Henriquez, G. (2011). Psychology Defined. Retrieved from http://www.Psychologytoday.com/blog/theory-knowledge/201112/Psychology-defined

How does APA define “Psychology” (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/support/about/apa/Psychology.aspx#answer

Lilienfeld, S. (2004). Defining Psychology: Is it Worth the Trouble?.  Journal of Clinical Psychology, 60 (12), 1249-1253.

Schultz, D. & Schultz, S.E. (2008). A History of Psychology (9th ed.). Belmont, CA; Thomson Wadsworth.

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Unfocused Students


         Many students in schools nowadays show a lack of interest and motivation in their studies. In every school, while there are hardworking students, there are also lazy students who are not interested in anything about school. They just come to school, sit at the back of the class, talk and disturb the others. There may be some reasons for this behavior such as family and financial problems.

       The most common factor which influences the academic performance of students is family. If the parents are interested in how their child is doing at school, the student will be more interested in his/her lessons too. Educated parents generally show more interest in the academic performance of their children; however, this should be a practice common to all families not only to the educated ones. When the parents are not interested in the success or failure of their children, the child will not care about school or lessons, and will perform poorly. Another factor for the student’s lack of interest is the financial situation of his/her family. There are some students, for example, who think even if they pass the university exam, their families will not be able to find the money needed for their education. Apart from this, some students have to work after school; as a result, they cannot concentrate on their studies. When the difficulty of the lessons is added to this list, school becomes a nightmare for these students.

     It is possible to rescue these underachieving and academically uninterested students from this fate. The parents and the students themselves may be warned, or the government can give financial aid to these students. Maybe it is very difficult to completely solve this problem of student apathy and lack of motivation, but we can at least ameliorate it.

Saturday, July 27, 2013

Traffic System in the Philippines

                   Traffic congestion has been one of the primary problems of urban cities across the world. This is mainly due to poor traffic management and also to too much vehicles on the main streets in a particular time. This time is usually called “rush hour”. This is also experience in our local setting, especially on our main roads. This prevailing problem starts up during the industrialization of our country where engine powered vehicles becomes the main tool for transportation. This includes private and public vehicles.
 
                Providing solution for these requires a lot of consideration from two parties: the vehicle operators and commuters. Just recently, we have seen the local government of Manila in regulating buses in entering its premise. In this new ordinance, buses that are considered “colorum” or without proper registrations and without a respective terminal are prevented from entering the streets of Manila. Within a few days after its implementation, it has created a lot of mixed reaction from the commuters and bus drivers. MMDA (Metropolitan Manila Development Authority) has also implemented some ordinance which covers some major roads here in Metro Manila. A bicycle lane was created along EDSA, from MRT-Mantrade station up to MRT-Ayala station. This is to give options to commuters who need a quick trip between two stations when heavy traffic occurs within the vicinity. Buses that travel along EDSA are classified into three and each classification are given a respective loading and unloading area along the main road to lessen up bus congestion within the area.

                Traffic system here in the Philippines needs more further improvement which needs cooperation from the government, the commuters and vehicle drivers and operators as well. This kind of situation is generally unavoidable but with proper discipline from all respective parties and an efficient, working traffic system, we can minimize this to happen. We must abide to the basic rules of the road and whenever there are new rules to be implemented, all we can do is to adapt into it and slowly accept it if we found it inconvenient for us. These rules are not created just to make our traffic system to be more difficult but rather reconstruct it to minimize traffic congestion in our roads and streets. It will help us ease our traveling experience and to be able to reach our destination much faster than usual.

Saturday, July 13, 2013

Redundancy in Social Networking Sites


Since the boom of Internet in the late 20th to the beginning of the 21st century, social networking websites also start its influential bloom in the web arena.  Hundreds of these establish their own place in the Internet and offer unique but user-friendly services to prospective users. The most popular of these services are photo sharing, personal status updates and place tagging. Though creative in its nature, most of these services tend to overlap with other websites that we could find redundant in terms of offered services across these social network sites.

Social networking sites continue to evolve through continues variation of social services that could improve the user’s relationship with its connection. The most simple of them all is status update and sharing. This is to encode what we feel, what we do or simple what we would like to share to our connections. We could site Friendster as one of those pioneers in this service but since the decline of its popularity, Facebook, Twitter and other sites has also offer this service. Photo sharing allows pictures to be shared among the user’s connection, in single or multiple shots. Instagram is a prominent website for this though we could see Friendster, Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare also had this. One unique feature of Facebook for photo sharing is that we can tag connections to our shared photo for easy access. One last prominent social service is place tagging where we could share we the user is to his or her connections. Foursquare is popular on this while Facebook also have this service.

From these examples, we could see that Facebook have all these popular services. Thus, these implies a rich offer of social services from Facebook which all known social networking sites have. This could reduce users from other social network sites that offer the same service with Facebook. Shared social services across various social networking sites create confusion to user. This can also provide some sites to monopolize these services. In order to prevent this, some sites provides synchronized posting with other sites, provided that it is allowed by the user. From all of this, what is important to the users of these social networking sites is that they can provide connection to their loved ones through the power of Internet.

Saturday, June 29, 2013

The Rise of Human Civilization

            The progress of the human civilization, starting from the development of basic tools for the purpose of survival to the technological and social advancement of, has made humans as the most successful creature that ever walk the Earth. It is impressive to see that the human civilization flourishes with grandeur and sophistication as time goes by. They had also attained superiority over the other species here on Earth. But, in attaining it, the civilization had experience a lot of challenges and exerts a lot of effort in response to these challenges.

            During the prehistoric time, our ancestors have only one need in life: to survive. Our ancestors survive during that time through hunting animals. As the time goes by, they had created a better lifestyle through creating clothes from animal skin, forming small groups and making weapons from various metals to enhance their hunting skill. But the most important contribution of our ancestors to the development of human civilization is the proper control of fire. This skill has helped our ancestors survive the harsh environment during that time. Later on, they learn on how to manage plants as source of food aside from animal meat through agriculture. They also learn on how to tame and breed animals.

            As our ancestors expand their boundaries on Earth, small communities began to appear and later emerge as ruling cities and villages. These are all situated where the soil is rich and the water is clean and abundant. Communication and transportation emerges during this time. As the human population increase, simple political structures are created as a tool to control these early societies, giving way to the rise of empires and later on, as nations. The creation of philosophy, science and art had further advance the capabilities of humans to prosper. Technology plays an important role in developing the human civilization into a more sophisticated one. Technology helps the advancement of communication, transportation, agriculture and many more. With all the advancements that the human civilization had experience, it was able to reach what is beyond the sky: outer space But with this advancement, challenges also appear that comes naturally and from the humans itself. Natural calamities, human warfare and biological outbreaks have put human civilization into test. But in the end, human civilization remains strong and flourishes even more. 

            Human civilization today has improved a lot compare from the previous eras. It became more equipped with sophisticated tools in attaining its ever growing need and to face challenges from all aspects of life. Indeed, human civilization had grown out from its simplistic living to a more complex one. With all of this innovation, can human civilization further advance?

Saturday, June 15, 2013

Prelude: Into the Environment of Higher Learning


            It seems like it was yesterday when I first step out of the college campus in Letran and enter the mainstream of the corporate world. The adjustment in taking part in this new environment is overwhelming. It needs a lot of patience and determination to pursue a career that matches your academic training in the corporate world. But, sometimes, we will reach a certain point where we should consider the needs of our family and such; we must haste ourselves in getting a job. 

         And yes, I had landed to my first job in a BPO setting. Up to this time, I had been in various job settings, all in preparation for me to have a good background before pursuing my master. This also includes my financial and career stability. Ever since my childhood days, I consider DLSU as my school of choice in where I would pursue my college and, if possible, graduate study. Though I had studied in a different but good school, I still make it to a point that I will become a student of DLSU. 

        Currently, I’m now pursuing my graduate study in Industrial-Organizational Psychology. Though I’m still in my adjustment period where I need to balance my work, study and personal agenda s, I can still able to do well with my school works.  With a little bit of discipline and making a good list of priorities, I think I can be able to “survive” graduate studies with ease.