Tuesday 18 November 2014

My Academic Paper

I’m currently producing an academic paper centered on a report. My report is grounded by this question, Has the internet signaled the end for traditional music sales? Based on the journals and reports that I have discovered, many have concluded that the internet has signaled the end of traditional music sales. (The Internet is Changing The Music Industry) states that, with powerful search engines (Napster, BearShare) consumer can find songs quickly without the aid of retailers. This new distribution channel, if widely accepted and practiced threatens to do away with middleman in traditional distribution channels. (The Effects Of Changing Technology and Government Policy on the Commercialization of Music) asserts, The marriage of digital recording and Internet song swapping particularly exacerbated the industry’s piracy problems. A duopoly was created when members of the recording industry partnered with Internet portals to create an “on demand” subscription based music delivery model, a move which has the potential to impact the commercialization of music through increased demand and lower costs. However, consumers have not embraced this model due to its lack of portability as well as readily available “free” song swapping. (MIS Quarterly) affirms that Given the decline in music sales, there is significant research attention given to questions of whether and to what extent new technologies and media are responsible for the sales decline. With respect to peer-to-peer music sharing technologies, Rob and Waldfogel (2006) estimate that each album download displaces purchases by 0.2 albums. Similarly, Zentner (2006) finds that peer-to-peer usage reduces the probability of buying music by 30 percent. The study by Liebowitz (2004) similarly found that file sharing and mp3 downloads have resulted in sales displacement at the rate of 15 to 20 percent. This comes to say that the internet is slowly decaying the traditional music sales by first moldering the music industry.

Thursday 30 October 2014

VAK Learning Types
VAK Questionnaire is a self assessment where we find out our type or learning, this is an interesting questionnaire because we find out more about our self then we already know. VAK is an acronym which stands for Visual Audio and Kinaesthetic, these three are learning styles that is being used by us to learn something new either in schools or in working places. The way to identify what kind of learner are you is to ask a bunch of multiple question answers and each answer A, B and C is reflecting to V, A and K accordingly. At the end of the questionnaire the answers we chose shows what kind of learner are we. It’s amazing how our learning styles can be determined by completing a questionnaire, this shows that we humans can almost do anything that we want.
I have done the questionnaire and my result are A=7, B=13 and C=9 which is V=7, A=13 and K=9 this shows that I’m  more of an auditory type of learner compared to visual and kinaethestic. This caught me by surprise because I always thought that I was kinaethestic type of learner, this tells me that what I  think I am is actually not what I am. I prefer the kinaethestic learning style because basically I love getting my hands dirty when solving problems or searching for solution, kinaethestic learning is through  hands on experience, feeling, and doing. It’s physical experience on how we understand when we learn something new, this physical experience will help us in the future to learn something else in a more better way compared to before. But there is no wrong or right in the way we choose to learn because all these three types of learning have their own pros and cons, it solely depends on the individual itself on which type he prefers. In my point of view, I would to be able to learn in all these three types because it would be an advantage in learning different things example operating a machine, solving a mathematic equation and etc. The techniques we could use to help us learn through this three types is practicing because practice makes perfect. If only this questionnaire was brought to my attention when I was in school it would make me a much more better student.
This questionnaire really helps me know what kind of learner I am and to those who have difficulty learning something it is not because you’re slow but it’s because the type of learning method you choose is not suitable, so I would recommend taking the questionnaire and get to know yourself.

S.W.O.T analysis

SWOT Analysis
SWOT analysis is a planning method structured to evaluate strength, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, the SWOT analysis can be used for people, places example a tourist attraction, a product example an appliance or also a company. It helps us specify our strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats when we want to accomplish something. Quoting Sun Tzu on The Art of War “So it I said that if you know your enemies and yourself, you can win a hundred battles without a single loss. If you only know yourself, but not your opponent, you may win or may lose. If you know neither yourself nor your enemy, you will always endanger yourself.” 
I used to SWOT analysis to know what would I gain while I was in college, and what I got was interesting. Now strengths and weaknesses are internal origin while opportunities and threats are external origin, strengths and opportunities are helpful towards you and on the other hand weaknesses and threats are harmful towards you. For strengths I found out that I’m good in handling myself this because I’m 500 km away from home and in a new place I know how to handle and take care of myself. Other than that, I would say that I’m good when mixing with new people although I’m an introvert I found myself to mix with new people, I have few friends already in college and there’s more to come. My weaknesses are the tendency to be lazy and not being punctual, these both weaknesses I have to work on in order to become a better person and also a better student. Opportunities, I have to think that I will meet a whole range of new people from different background and cultures, and also to learn new things that would better my chances to live a better and comfortable life. Meeting a diverse new group of people would help me learn their do’s and don’ts so this would help when I’m in a new place somewhere far from home. Threats would be failing a subject and time given to finish up an assignment or a project. Failing should be an option for me because the thought of failing would really make anxious and give me anxiety whenever I turn for up for examinations. Time is threat because as I said earlier I have the tendency of being lazy and I fear if I do not meet the deadlines that would result in me failing or getting low marks.
So this is my SWOT analysis and by doing this I’m able to work on my weaknesses and able to counter my threats. This is great if you’re looking for a solution in solving a problem which you think is there is no end or whether it is hopeless. 

Tuesday 28 October 2014

Learning Experience,

As a kid our very first form of education is informal education. This type of education is just basic stuff like being read to, watching videos, listening to rhymes or even just watching educational type cartoons. My parents wanted their kids to learn fast so they thought me and alphabets, and numbers. At the age of 5 or 6 parents will send their children off to kindergarten to learn more. In kindergarten i learned  to interact with other children. In my opinion interacting between children at a young age is important, this helps the child to express themselves and experience the 'outside world'. Kids at a very young age are ambitious because being new to the world they tend to do many things like maybe riding a bicycle, scaling the furniture and running around thinking they fast as lighting which results in them hurting themselves, i wondered if i have felt much pain during my young age compared to my present age. Some parents spend their time by passing on the knowledge they know on to their children, if its an athletic family maybe the parents will teach them to ride a bike or play football on the other hand if their parents are the academic type the parents might teach them the piano or buy them a rubix's cube and help them solve it, my parents bought me a rubix's cube and played football with me. This is a type of learning where we interact with one another to learn something new. Then comes primary school, this is where children learns discipline through the schools strict rules and regulations. Children might be innocent but mischievous as well, i was once creating mischief in the house and school till rules and regulations came along and it disciplined me well enough. In school i learned more about maths, writing, reading and etc. The time we spent in school helps us better ourselves two aspects interaction and knowledge. After primary school we head on to secondary school this where important exams will be taken. I was first active and excited going to school till the day tests and exam was introduced to me, back in primary tests was easy but in secondary we constantly need to study in order achieve the results we want. I got frustrated but forced myself to go to school, everyday learning something new wasn't an easy thing for me but it was fascinating to know about how things function example in biology classes where we learn about the organs in our body. That's through formal education, informal is where we take part in extra co curricular activities where i learned about being a scout and a maths and science club member. In secondary school we will make up our mind in what we want to be in the future it is where we pursue our studies in area that we want. After secondary school while waiting for results we are free and this time we set off to find part time work, i worked part time at a cafe, a gym and and also free lancing sales promoter. This part in life is where we learn about the 'outside world' more. I now know that the working world isn't all work but politics, back lashing, stress, bias schedule and even unfair workload. So i had my share of the working life, and i as well don't want to work as waiter or promoter again so i continued my studies, working life is not all bad there are good skills we could learn, like typing out documents, using excel, interacting with customer, learning both soft and hard skills and we learn also to be responsible and learn the value of money. In my college life now, im currently doing my degree and i have learned to work in groups interacting with new people from different cultures new things to help me better my chances in getting a job in the near future.