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Friday 21 January 2011

Best Online Resources for Students By Syed Talal

These days internet has become an invaluable resources for students. There’s no question that these days students can further their academic success by appropriate use of it.
But due to the sheer vastness of the Internet, finding relevant information can be a bit of a challenge as well as time consuming unless you know exactly what you’re looking for.
So here I present various resources of use to a student that I have come across.

Library.nu:
Link: http://library.nu/
The new home of Gigapedia, which hosted the biggest collection of e-books relating to any subject imaginable on the internet. It has always been of great help to me since one can find almost any textbook or solution manuals on it.
It also has novels, autobiographies. In short, if you need an e-book, this should be your first stop. The site requires registration to search for documents though. Most of the files are hosted on rapidshare, hotfile, ifile.it etc.

Free Ebook spot:
Link: http://www.freebookspot.biz/
On the rare occasion when you cant find a specific ebook on Library.nu, chances are free ebook spot has it. Between these two sites, I have found almost every book and novel I have ever searched for.

MIT OCW:
Link: http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm
Its an online project started by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which is one of the most prestigious universities in the world.
Basically, selected courses (being offered at MIT) are available here. There are lecture notes, quizzes, their solutions and even videos of the lectures delivered in the class rooms.
Students can access all the content for free and without registration.

Yale OCW:
Link: http://oyc.yale.edu/
The principle is same as OCW offered by MIT, but the range of topics in the introductory courses available here, are related more to the arts.

Cramster:
Link: http://www.cramster.com/
Cramster is basically a community of students and professors etc, who offer help with studies. They have step by step solutions to many textbooks and there’s an community of experts who answer any questions you might have as well as guide you with your problems.
Catch is, its not free. You can register for free but free members get limited access to the resources, but in most cases its adequate, specially when coupled up with the above sites.

All Free Essays:
Link: http://www.allfreeessays.com/
This site offers free access to thousands of essays, reports and papers written by students from all over the world.

Simple English Wikipedia:
Link: http://simple.wikipedia.org
No doubt Wikipedia is an invaluable source of information. But sometimes the language in which it is written can a bit too technical. Which makes it difficult to understand for people whose first language isn’t English.
So here’s the alternative. Simple English Wikipedia is the same as Wikpedia but all the articles are written in easy to understand English.

Khan Academy:
Link: http://www.khanacademy.org/
Khan Academy aims to be a world class education to anyone, anywhere and it does that by providing video lectures of thousands of topics from all subjects.
The quality of the lectures provided here is simply superb. An easy to understand approach is given to every topic. If you are having issues with any topic, specially from Mathematics and Physics, I highly recommend Khan Academy.

DogPile:
Link: http://www.dogpile.com/
Dogpile lists all results from the four major search engines namely, Google, Bing, Yahoo! and Ask. So its a far more effective tool for finding relevant information. It has a ton of features including side by side comparison of search engines etc. Check it out for yourself.

Microsoft OneNote:
Link: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/onenote/
OneNote is one of the best notetaking softwares I’ve come across for a long time. It has brilliant features like adding images, audio clip, free hand drawings etc to your notes. Its not free, but then again, we Pakistanis are not known for the massive profits we provide to the companies. For a free alternative check out EverNote. Its equally capable, if not better.

By the we recently did a list of must have iPhone apps for students. You can check the list here.

You are welcome to share links that you have found useful in the comments section.

Source:  ProPakistani.pk
 ·http://propakistani.pk/2011/01/21/best-online-resources-for-students/#comments
Friday, Jan 21, 2011

Thursday 20 January 2011

Laptop Vs Mobile Phone for School Girls, which is better? Samia Adnan



Many of the students are using mobile phones and some insist in having a laptop too, so should they have both or any one of these gadgets but which one of the two is better for them?

The school going girls are not mentally matured, thus they are more attracted and inclined towards the social evils and immoral activities. They do not like taking guidance from their elders and like to undergo different experiences themselves.

Mobile Phones Can Easily Get Un-noticed: They can easily take their mobile phones with them at school and tuition centres – unnoticed by their parents. They should only own a mobile phone when they get really mature enough to use them properly. I think girls should not be allowed to have a mobile phone until they reach to 14 grade (Graduation).

School have Strictly Prohibited Mobile Phones: Almost all the schools in Pakistan have implemented policies that prohibit using mobile phones in school. They even rusticate those girls who are found with the mobile phone. Many girls bring their SIM card instead of a mobile phone and they use their SIM on a mobile phone brought by one of their classmates. Therefore, school administration and parents should make sure that the girls do not have a SIM card with them – they should check them and their belongings (books, school bag, hair bands, water-bottle, lunch box etc.). Now many of you might be thinking that how their daughters and sisters can contact home if they are away – simple – they can make a call with the permission of their school administration via school’s landline number. Many girls use the mobile phones in washrooms.

SMS/MMS: Many school students are addicted to the SMS service . Some also send their pictures via SMS to the opposite gender – especially when they have made friends in co-ed schools and tuition academies. According to a survey the most text messages are sent by teenagers. Texting can also have adverse affects on one’s health.

Wastage of Time: The students waste their valuable time in sending and reading text messages, playing mobile games, use mobile applications – instead of wasting that time in their studies. Mobile Cellular companies are also introducing ‘Youth Packages’ and SMS-bundles offers to promote their business and indirectly spoiling the youngsters. The students are seen messaging and calling late nights as they have subscribed to these packages. Parents should make sure that their children have a mobile phone and if they have then make them use post-pay package so that parents can monitor on their daughters.

Use of Laptop for doing the School Homework: Laptop is a better for school girls as they can compose their assignments and search for the materials for their assignments from the internet. Not only this, they can have a record of their assignments in their laptop. The laptop will also help them in making PowerPoint slides to aid them in their classroom presentations.

Observe School-going Children when they Use their Laptop: Laptop is better for school going girls because – if they do not have a mobile phone they would not be able to give their mobile phone numbers to boys and strangers – is it that simpel? No! they can communicate via internet too. It is the duty of the parents that they observe their activities on the internet and disallow them to make accounts on the social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, MSN Live Spaces, Hi5, Friendster and Orkut etc. School going girls (boys too) should not be allowed use on the Instant Messengers and visit websites with Chat feature and web-messengers. As many school students trick their parents and even school staff by using web-messengers – as they can be used without being installed on the system. Parents should make sure that the girls do not upload their photographs on any website or given their contact details or information, as some girls join different discussion forums too. Parents and school Computer Lab Dept should install programs like NetNanny www.netnanny.com and Spector Pro etc. in the computers, to keep a check on the and restrict their activities by blocking some websites that are not fit for them – including Social Networking websites and YouTube etc.

Also read:

Friday 14 January 2011

Have a Blast in Biology Class!

Ask the average student to name the most boring class and 7 out of 10 are likely to name biology and chemistry. That could change radically in a couple of months when an online interactive education game that is currently in the final phase of development by a team of biologists and computer programmers in the United States, is ready.

Meta!Blast, a real-time 3D action-adventure game promises to put students in the pilot's seat, allowing him or her to shrink down to microscopic size and explore the vivid, dynamic world of a soybean plant cell spinning out of control. One can interact with numerous characters, fight off plant pathogens, and discover just how important plants are to the survival of the human race. The goal of the application is to dynamically illustrate modern concepts in cell and metabolic biology, prepare students for their public role, and stimulate students to join the biological and medical teaching and research professions.

"The interactive software module on cell biology will immerse students in a three-dimensional, biologically-accurate plant cell. Biological concepts will be parsed into student tasks, while keeping these in the context of the whole environment. Meta!Blast will combine simulation technology with accurate biological information, allowing students to explore and interact with a cell to discover concepts such as cellular energetics, gene function, cellular defenses against pathogens, and the consequences of compartmentalization. The application will dynamically illustrate modern concepts in cell and metabolic biology, prepare students for their public role, and stimulate students to join biological and medical teaching and research," said Eve Syrkin Wurtele from department of genetics, development and cell biology at Iowa State University, who is leading the project to make cell-biology a fun-to-learn experience.

Wurtele was in Kolkata to give a talk on A green world of biological network and plants: Turning Air to Oil' to students at the Birla Industrial & Technological Museum, Kolkata. She has been touring the country to interact with students and teachers to get them interested in microbiology and make them aware of Meta!Blast that would be available for use in classrooms and homes soon.

Meta!Blast will provide a medium a dynamic virtual cell that lends itself to the comprehension of cell biology. Building and populating an accurate 3D representation of a plant cell was a huge challenging and the team spanned numerous disciplines with faculty and students in biology, art, computer science, music, and game design constructed the compelling and accurate virtual cell. The game will be tested by 5,000 students in 20 high schools in Iowa and Mississippi in the next semester before being released worldwide.

"Knowledge of cellular structure and function has increased dramatically with the advent of modern molecular and computational technologies. Helping students understand cellular dynamics is a major challenge to educators. Meta!Blast will contain virtual plant cell containing a prototype chloroplast in which students can enter, activate light reactions, including electron excitation, and create molecular oxygen and ATP," she said.

Wurtele has been researching metabolic networks in plants and how they can be regulated to manipulate the levels of valuable compounds both natural ones already available in plants and add different genes to create new compounds. "Plants produce a wide range of nutrition, energy, industrial materials, fibre, medicines, flavours and fragrances and designer compounds. We are trying to develop a small molecule that can be used by chemical industry to replace the molecules derived from petroleum," Wurtele added.

Source: Times of India
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kolkata-/Have-a-blast-in-biology-class-with-virtual-game/articleshow/7007084.cms