Critical Reflection

It was the first time during the course of my study whereby we had to give feedback to our peers on their essay and feedback was also given to me by my peers. Other than peer feedback, we received feedback from our tutor as well. A clear guideline was given to us on how we evaluate our peers’ essay. This guideline is useful as it had helped me to evaluate my peers’ work effectively and efficiently.

I feel that the critics I received from my peers were beneficial as it has helped me to improve my writing in this course. For example, my peers were able to spot grammar mistakes in my essay which I would not have spotted that myself. Furthermore, the feedback received from my tutor was useful whereby he highlighted the main problems in my writing. With his feedback, I can improve on the language use, content and organization in my subsequent essay drafts. In addition, reading my peers’ writing can help me to learn the positive points in their writing and also learn from their mistakes. This is so that I can incorporate good writing skills and avoid making the same mistakes as my peers in the future writings. However, as my basic foundation in English language is not strong, I was worried that my feedback was not useful to my peers or even given incorrectly.

The significant of this feedback exercise gave us an opportunity to evaluate our own writing as well as our peers critically. It has helped me to edit my own writing better as now I know the language mistakes I tend to make in my essay like subject-verb agreement, so I will look out for those repeatedly mistakes before I submit my essay. Through this feedback exercise, I have also learnt to think critically when evaluating my peers’ writing and giving constructive feedback to my peers.

In conclusion, I feel that the feedback exercise overall is very useful and beneficial.  In the future, I should seek feedback from different groups of people such as my peers or my tutor for my first draft of report. This is so that I can edit my subsequent drafts with the feedback I received and eliminate as many mistakes I can. 

(376 words)

Reflection on my Presentation

Although I have rehearsed a few times at home before the actual presentation, I still did not overcome my nervousness when I presented in class on Monday. I have a problem of looking at my script too much when I was presenting.  I do not feel confident enough to present without a script because I always tend to get overly nervous during the actual presentation even if I had memorized my content beforehand and blank out.  I also focus on my slides too much that instead of me being the center of focus, my slides captured the audience attention more. To improve on my presentation skills, I feel that I have to engage the audience more.  I could use storytelling or emotional appeal to deliver my content to the audience. In this way, I will be able to capture their attention and also the audiences will remember the main points of my presentation better. I find that this presentation component is useful as I can learn from my mistakes and also learn from my classmates. I enjoyed the presentation given by my classmates. I can improve on my presentation skills with the feedback given by my tutor and classmates thought this exercise. 

Essay draft 4 (final)

Cyberbullying among children and youths is one of the problems which arises due to the use of social media. Cyberbullying refers to the use of electronic media, especially the social media, to threaten, intimidate and upset someone (Media Literacy Council, 2015). It can come from friends in school or even online friends made in social media platform. This cyberbullying behavior has become a problem because it can lead to potentially adverse effects in the victims like psychological trauma, and in the worse cases, it has caused victims to commit suicide. Online bullying is especially prominent in Singapore. According to a study done by Microsoft in 2012, Singapore has the second highest rate of cyberbulling globally among children and youth between the ages of 8 and 17 (Baig, 2014). This study was conducted by asking children about negative experiences they had online such as being called mean names, being teased, etc. Similarly, Touch Cyber Wellness has done a survey on 1,900 primary school students and 3,000 secondary school pupils. It revealed that 1 in 3 of the latter population had been bullied online, while 1 in 4 surveyed admitted to having bullied their peers in the online sphere through social media platforms (Baig, 2014). The trend in primary school is similar whereby 1 out of 5 students had been taunted on social media platforms. To curb this problem of cyberbullying among the young people and youths, efforts have been taken by the government such as legislation by private organizations education on cyberbullying awareness. In order for these measures to be more effective in countering cyberbullying, close cooperation between the parents and educational institutions is required.

One existing measure taken by the government is implementing the Harassment act in 2014 (Attorney-General’s Chambers, 2104). This new act give more protection to the ordinary citizens including children who are using the internet in the form of punishments such as fines and custodial sentence to the cyberbully depending on the severity of the offender’s action. While the act applies equally to children and youth, if a child between ages of 7 to 16 is convicted, he or she will be dealt with under the Children and Young Person Act (Tham & Hoe, 2014). This law ensures that everyone regardless of age is accountable for the crimes committed online through social media platform or websites. However, the measure may not be effective as there is no guideline on ascertaining the identity of an anonymous offender. Thus, the identity of the anonymous bully can only be traced if educators and professionals who work with the youth are given the resources to do so. Furthermore, if the victim does not report the case of cyberbullying, there is no way to enforce this law. The offender may be left unpunished and continue his wrongdoings. At the same time, school bullying in the form of cyberbullying is a complex problem which cannot be adequately resolved through legislation. As the offenders might be young and immature, they may commit mistakes unknowingly due to poor judgment. Thus, the laws should be more lenient towards children.

In order to create awareness on cyberbully issue, private organizations such as Touch Cyber Wellness have been proactively educating children and teenagers on the consequences of using social media in a negative way and encourages them to use the Internet in positive ways(Touch Community Services, 2014). For example, Touch Cyber Wellness has reached out to more than 320 schools and 900,000 individuals through CRuSH (Cyberspace Risks and where U Seek Help) in promoting awareness in cyberbullying issues. Furthermore, other organizations such as the Media Literacy Council have partnered with Facebook to provide new safety resources for teens, parents and teachers (Media Literacy Council, 2015). These include important tools which give them information on what they can do if they experience something upsetting, recommendations to adults who want to help, as well as guidance to the person accused on why they have upset someone and how they can make it better. Education on cyber awareness seems to be an effective method in bringing across the anti-bully message to the youths. However, there are still cases which can go unnoticed if the victims themselves do not seek help or do not know that they are being victimized. As cyberspace extends beyond the bounds of the school, parents have to be more cautious about their children’s online activities. Thus, close cooperation between parents and schools is required to help identify children who are victims of cyberbullying so that appropriate steps can be taken.

In an effort to encourage such collaboration, the Ministry of Education (MOE) should encourage schools to establish a form of a bullying prevention coordinating committee. This committee should be in charge of developing school wide rules and sanctions against bullying, and events to raise school and community awareness about bullying. This is because research was done on 4500 Americans students in 2010 which found that those students who felt their parents and schools were not dismissive of cyberbullying and would punish them for such behavior were less likely to be involved in cyberbullying (Tan, 2013). In addition, parents should instill moral values in their children like teaching them to be responsible for their own actions. Parents and schools play an important role in deterring cyberbullying behavior through instilling moral values in the young people and teaching them the proper behavior when using social media.

It is evident that cyberbullying is a growing issue in today’s society. Anonymity online can be misused, allowing individuals to threaten and victimize the children and teenagers who use the internet often. With the implementation of the Harassment Act of 2014 in Singapore, offenders will be punished, which serves as a warning for those who have not been caught. Moreover, education and safety resources provided by private organizations can help to reduce the occurrence of cyberbullying cases. However, there also has to be close cooperation between parents and schools as they play important roles in monitoring the children behavior and instilling moral values in them. All in all, the preventive measures taken by the government, school and non-profit organization will help in countering cyberbullying in Singapore but they are not able to completely prevent the occurrence of it.

(1035 words)

References


Attorney-General’s Chambers. (2015). Protection From Harassment Act 2014. Singapore Statutes Online. Retrieved from http://statutes.agc.gov.sg/aol/search/display/view.w3p;page=0;query=DocId%3A%2207275b05-417a-4de5-a316-4c15606a2b8d%22%20Status%3Ainforce%20Depth%3A0;rec=0



Baig, N. (2014). 1 In 3 Students In Singapore Have Been Victims Of Cyberbullying. Retrieved from https://sg.news.yahoo.com/1-3-students-singapore-victims-070013753.html


Tan, T. (2103). Tackle cyber-bullying in Singapore before it gets worse. The Straits Times. Retrieved from http://yourhealth.asiaone.com/content/tackle-cyber-bullying-singapore-it-gets-worse/page/0/0


Tham, Y.C., Hoe, P.S. (2014). How far does harassment Bill go? The Straits Times. Retrieved from http://www.straitstimes.com/the-big-story/case-you-missed-it/story/how-far-does-harassment-bill-go-20140318


Touch Community Services. (2014). Youth Service Group. Touch Cyber Wellness. Retrieved from http://www.touch.org.sg/touch_cyber_wellness


Media Literacy Council. (2015). Press Release. Facebook and the media literacy council launch new safety resources for teens, parents and teachers in Singapore. Retrieved from http://www.medialiteracycouncil.sg/press-room/press-releases/Pages/BullyingPreventionCentre.aspx#sthash.eMhccH1Y.dpuf

reader response final

The article titled “The Challenges and Opportunities of Social Media” (Newton, 2014) states that social media is a critical concept for all businesses. The author discusses the different challenges and opportunities of using social media for businesses. He claims that social media is crucial for improving sales and it is advisable to allow employees’ participation in the platform. Of course, businesses have to know ways in attracting their target market and engaging them through the right social media platform.

Newton also mentions that “social media is a concept that most organizations are realizing they have to embrace.” This is indeed true based on the fact that social media tools can help to increase sales provided that businesses choose platforms which are suited to their targeted pool of customers and that they also have the capability to retain these customers. As a frequent user of social media, I usually browse through different platforms for new updates on products such as clothing, accessories and shoes. If I come across a product I like on Instagram, I visit the online store and purchase it. This shows that social media serves as a good advertising platform for businesses as they can make use of it to increase their brand exposure and their web customer traffic. Moreover, there is a growing trend in the users of social media. According to statistics provided by Statista (2015), the number of social network users worldwide has climbed from 0.97 billion in 2010 to 1.79 billion in 2014. This suggests that businesses might be able to achieve higher market penetration through social media due to the rising numbers of user.

The author also points out another important point, which is a business choosing its active sites. This is largely dependent on a business’ targeted market. For instance, if the target group is youths, Instagram, Twitter and online blogs are better choices as compared to Facebook as users of these platforms are mostly from the younger age group. However, just being active is not enough to attract new customers; for example, businesses which aim to target young people have to engage these customers by using entertaining and interesting posts Being a consumer myself, I am more attracted to sites which uses interesting elements to promote their products because this leaves a deep impression on me. This is supported by the article “2014 Statistics and Trends for Businesses on Social Media” whereby one of the five reasons why people follow brands on social media is for its entertaining content (Karr,2014).

In addition, the two other reasons why people follow brands on social media are for its customer service and ability to offer feedback (Karr,2014). Before buying a product, most people read the buyers’ reviews of the product and the feedback provided by the seller as these have an influence on their purchase decision. In order to provide feedback more efficiently, Karr suggests that an organization should set up a social media team to handle any matters regarding the platform and allow all employees in the organization even those who are not in the social media team to participate instead of blocking social media applications. This is a useful concept that businesses should adopt, as providing prompt feedback to the consumers can improve customer satisfaction. Eventually, it can translate into higher sales for the company.

In conclusion, the author has mentioned social media is a useful tool for businesses and relevant to all businesses regardless of their sizes or nature as they can help to boost their sales level. Nonetheless, social media is only useful if businesses choose the suitable platform for their targeted customers and they must also have the ability to retain them.


(612 words)

References


Karr, D. (2014, October 1). 2014 Statistics and Trends for Businesses on Social Media [web log post]. Retrieved from https://www.marketingtechblog.com/2014-statistics-trends-businesses-social-media/

Newton, P. (2014, June 18). The Challenges and Opportunities of Social Media. Retrieved from http://www.intelligenthq.com/social-media-posts/the-challenges-and-opportunities-of-social-media/

Number of social network users worldwide from 2010 to 2018 (in billions). (2015). Retrieved from http://www.statista.com/statistics/278414/number-of-worldwide-social-network-users/

Outline for peer and tutor feedback

What happened? (describe the experience)

• I am supposed to give feedback to our peers for their essay writings 
• I also received positive/ negative feedback from my peers and tutor
• I find the feedback useful as I can know my strengths and weaknesses in the my writing

Why/how did it happen? What factors contributed? How do u feel about it?

• I was given guide lines from my tutor to which what is expected of us for the feedback
• I have to give positive and negative feedback to my peers 
• My peers were able find mistakes in my writing which I myself would not have spotted them
• I find the feedback given from my peers and tutor useful 
• I can improve my writing skills with the feedback given
• Looking at my peers’ writing I can learn some positive points about their writing which I do not have in my writing, this can help me to improve
• The tutor will highlight common mistakes made by the class so everyone can learn from each other
• I feel that my English in terms of language use is still incompetent so I worried that my feedback is not helpful to my peers or I wasn’t able to spot any mistakes in my peers’ writing
• Not sure if the feedback given by my peers is correct or wrong 

What is your new interpretation of the experience? What is the significance? What did you learn about yourself and others?

• The significance of this peer feedback give us opportunity to evaluate our own writing as well as our peers
• I have learnt the importance of doing an outline before writing an essay, good organization, content and language 
• Editing is very important to minimize mistakes in use of language

What will you do as a result of this experience? How will you use it to inform your future? 

• I will learn from my mistakes and apply in my future writings
• I must remember to edit my essay a few times before I submit
• Must also remember to do my end text citations properly