Referencing

Referencing is an important aspect for everyone who does research , specially students like us. there are many projects and assignments that we get to submit in our academic career and lately in various job fields. Referencing is done mainly to avoid plagiarism and give credit to the original author from whom we take information to our projects. it is also used to refer back to the original source so as to get further information to whoever that is reading your work.

there are any ways that we can give credit for the original author. using quotations, adding citations, writing down the reports in your own words etc. when writing references there are certain information that we should include in our references such as the name of the author, published year, name of the publication, relevant page numbers etc.

there are many referencing conventions such as Harvard referencing, APA, OSCOLA, British standard numeric and MLA.  we use the Harvard referencing method in our assignments as its the accepted convention of the Staffordshire University.

team roles test

my result.......................DRIVER!!!

according to the description of the team roles the driver is described as follows:
"The driver is generally very ambitious and energetic. He or she may appear as impatient and impulsive. The driver is a strong motivator and will challenge others at crucial times. Although the actions of the driver may sometimes seem somewhat emotional, they do play a crucial role in pushing the team forward to succeed."

this is almost a perfect description of me!! i am really patient and impulsive most of the times. and also emotional at times but not much of a challenger! well it seems that this is almost accurate test!!! now have to find my other team members with the varying personalities!!!

$86,400

what will you do if you get $86 400 everyday and you have to definitely spend it within the day???

that was the question in all our minds last session!! there were many interesting things that came up but only siddeek was able to come up with a very expensive way of spending the whole amount of money!! :P :D if i had that i would have gone on a world tour but the only problem is i can't do it within a day!!! well this activity was actually done in relation to time! do you know we have 86,400 seconds per day??? it comes as

                    24 hours per day*60 minutes per hour*60 seconds per minute=86.400 seconds

this time that is spent for the day will never come back and its our responsibility to make the maximum use of each and every single second without wasting. if we plan properly our tasks, we can actually make use of this time effectively and not complain about not having enough time to do this and that.

we also did a trust exercise where 2 people were told to select groups and then by using chairs we had to make a ladder and a person had to climb it. each member should support the ladder. i was in chalitha's group ad mihiri was the "guinea pig" of our our group! even though siddeek's team managed to get it faster than us we built it taller than them and it was a bit more riskier!!! anyway sir said that both the teams were winners as one was faster and the other was taller!! :D :D

time management

on the day that we started time management, my friends and i got late to class by about 5 minutes!!! but luckily sir had not started the session yet!! :D :D

so we were given some papers with various activities about time management! 1 activity was about rating the way you do and spend your time in various activities like talking on the phone, surfing the net etc etc. in this whoever got below 10 points are the best time managers while all the people above 10 should do more of time management! AND the whole class was above 10!!!!! :D :D i got 12 points which was the lowest (there were others too with 12) . well i guess now all of us should do some serious time management!!! :O

the next exercise was about allocating time for the basic activities that you do in a week such as sleeping, eating, studying, traveling etc. according to sir, 65%-75% is the best range to be in as you balance and plan and do the work. whoever is below 65 means that they r wasting time!! my score was 79% which i was very happy about as i was in the right range!!!

next activity was about writing the favorite traits of 4 things that sir said. the description is show below

1. Dog - the way that you want people to think about you

• friendly-you want others to think that you are very friendly and approachable
• ferocious-you don't like others to come much near you
• intelligent-you want others to see you as a intelligent person. problem solver 

 2. sea-your lifestyle

• calm-you don't like anything out of ordinary. should be the same routine always
• deep-you don't like others prying to your personal life. a loner
• rough-you are a party animal (given the chance)

3. horse-the way you think about life, how you achieve

• fast-you achieve your goals no matter what the cost is and as fast as possible. looks for shortcuts
• slow-you think and plan and analyze very carefully before doing your work and see the best possible way to get it
• faithful- you have both the above qualities

4. coffee-how relationships are to you

• light-just intellectual talking without any physical connections
• normal-have both talking and physical connections
• black-based mostly on physical connection

well i have highlighted my choices in red, though most of the things turn out to be false for me!!!  for example, i'm definitely NOT a loner and very much of a party animal when i am given the chance! so anyway this is a basic psychological analysis that is done in most interviews etc

                                            
                                            don't give 1 minute more or 1 minute less!!! :D






 

"teachers ruin creativity of students" -debate

blogging after a looooooong time!!! couldn't update this week properly due some personal reasons!! 

the best part of last week's sessions was the debate! it was based on the topic "teachers ruin creativity of students"!! it was rather and interesting topic. i was one of the moderators of the debate along with harshini and hamza. Ms. Manesha was present as the judge. well talking about the debate, most of us thought that it revolved around the "2+2=4" theory brought out by the proposing side. they went on to say that even though teachers tell us that 2+2=4, they don't tell us the reason behind it and so on and EVERY single debater talked about that point which was actually irrelevant, in my opinion. eventually the winning team was the opposing team, but according to the judge, the debaters did not bring out much points to strengthen their arguments, which i thought was true.

there were some real good points for the opposing team that they could have put forward. one was the thing that a member from the audience pointed out, that teachers actually don't have anything to do with creativity because students themselves should think out of the box and develop their creativity. my opinion is that teachers do indeed  help creativity! for example, we were supposed to make something out of discarded items a few days ago, and we saw a lot of different things that students had made! it was actually something creative that we did, because after all we converted garbage into something nicer and useful. this indeed needed some creativity and if our teacher had not given us this chance, this activity, to do at home, then we simply won't even think of turning a piece of garbage to something more!! i think this is a perfect example of how teachers help creativity! they help by giving us a chance, or motivating!

there is also the fact that was brought out that teachers don't understand students, as in the case of Einstein or bill gates, where they were ignored or kicked out because of their creativity. true some teachers will not understand what students try to do but that doesn't mean everyone is like that. we can try by explaining in more simple terms to them or simply going to some other who will actually grasp what we say!! by telling "teachers help creativity" simply means that teachers actually gives the chance for us to discover our hidden talents and skills. its up to us actually to take that chance or leave it. therefore my opinion is that teachers do not ruin creativity of students!!

my motto

my motto = "never do anything with an empty stomach"!!!! :D :D :D

yes that's right it is my motto!! hehehe it came as a result of my love for food!! and i always try to live upto it!!! :D

well we are supposed to create a personal portfolio and update it...hmmmm have to think and do it well.. and also have to take that "active listener test" and analyse myself as to whether i'm a good a listener or not!!!

continuation

well as i said yesterday, continuing with the diverse ideas of creativity among our colleagues, there were actually some really "innovative" creations amongst us!!! :P well the girls had some really good things (obviously :P :P) there were photo frames, wall hangers, and ornaments. 1 girl brought a bracelet made out of tamarind seeds which i thought was a really nice work! certain people had made lovely pen holders. then there was a lovely turtle made with coconut shell and also a dessert cup out of coconut shell.

well moving on to guys..... their creations were absolutely PRICELESS!!!! :D :P i can't decide which was the best because everyone was creative to their ultimatum!!there were paper boats, rockets, half a coconut and so forth! its hard to explain actually because witnessing the situation would be the best!! but i think the best was the plastic bottle that was converted to a small compartment to put on little stuff like coins. it was actually a new idea and as sir said, if it was nicely decorated it would have been great.

so this activity helped us to bring about our skills that some of us might even didn't know that existed and it also helped us to think in a new way, out of the box , because we were supposed to come up with a creation out of waste materials so that certainly needed at least a bit of brainstorming!!