EM-TECH INTEGRATION PAPER

      Our Emerging Technologies (EM-TECH) subject is different from any other subjects that we usually enroll at school. Unlike other subjects, EM-TECH does not engage students in lots of lectures and exams. Although we have some class reportings in this subject, it is still different from our subjects before. Why is it different? Because this subject not only teaches us things on the educational side but also teaches students the values that they need to learn outside the four corners of the classroom. EM-TECH gave us the chance to explore our skills and at the same time explore the world that surrounds us. It helps students to be aware of how people and machines behave in our world today, the world of emerging technologies.

Personally, I gained a lot of knowledge from this subject. Every activity that we do is a challenge for us, and each one of them teaches us some important lessons that we need to learn. For our first activity in this subject, we shared some relevant topics to our fellow classmates through our class reportings. In this activity, we are the first reporting group to share some new and innovative hardware technologies inside the class. Being the first group, we should somehow be the role model of the class, so that the other groups would aim for something good or better than us when their turn comes. Team work is also very important for this activity in order for us to choose a good topic to report on. We worked as a team to produce a good output and at the same time to meet the expectations of the people who listened to us. This activity gave us the chance to share our knowledge on the new technologies, as well as personally gain knowledge through the researches that we made within the group.  

Next activity that was required in this course is to conduct a seminar and invite a speaker who will give a talk for the said symposium. This activity may be the most challenging activity for the entire course, because you should invest a lot of time in finding the speaker who is available for the symposium. As we all know, people in the world of business is very busy and not all of them have the time to accommodate students like us. In addition to that, we just offer the speaker a token of appreciation and not all would agree to deliver a speech with being paid. It was hard to find a speaker, but it taught me to have the initiative to do things without being said and do things earlier, because we really can’t look for a good speaker in just one day. It takes time to invite someone who will be willing to participate in our school activity. Moreover, looking for a speaker is not the only problem. After finding one, the group still have to set the venue, date, time, and coordinate with the school before you push through with the activity. This teaches us to be very responsible, because the activity takes a lot of responsibility. Cooperation and team work is also needed, because the group members should divide the tasks properly because it will be very hard if only one member of the team will be doing all of the preparations for the seminar. Every member should be responsible and should take the initiative to do the things needed especially when the assigned member is busy or is not available to do the task.

The seminars that I attended, on the other hand, gave me an overview and added knowledge of the new emerging technologies that are present in our world today. We are I.T. people and being part of the computer world we should be knowledgeable on the new technologies around us. It will be an edge for us to know the latest trends that will also be useful for us in the near future. The first seminar that I attended is entitled “Hello World”. This seminar discusses about mobile contents and applications and how it emerged until today. As youngsters who are commonly users of gadgets like this, we should be aware of how mobile applications began and how it was innovated to make it more user-friendly and appealing to the eyes of the people. The second seminar that I attended is the No SQL seminar. This sounds familiar to us I.T. students, because we use My SQL for our projects, but this topic is another form of database that was used by other companies. It helps us to be aware of something beyond our knowledge which we might encounter next time after we graduate. Cloud Computing is another interesting seminar that I attended. As I wrote in my blog before, I was interested with this topic because I wanted to know why and how it was called in such a way, then I learned that the “cloud” is used as a metaphor for the internet and the cloud drawing is used to represent or show the networks. As internet users, we should be knowledgeable in cloud computing such that our data should be stored in a place where data are secured and less expense is needed for it to be stored properly. The next topic is also very useful for us especially when we plan to make our own businesses after we graduate. It is about the evolution of Business Intelligence. The speaker gave us an overview of how Business Intelligence is connected to information practices. Faster decision making is also a benefit of using this which will greatly affect businesses during our current time. Lastly, I attended the 4G WiMAX-Tribe seminar. This is a wireless broadband internet provider similar to the well known Globe Tattoo. For me, it will be useful for us students and not only for us but also for other businessmen who needs access to the internet for important purposes. Being one of the internet users, we should be aware of the competing internet providers all over the world so that we should know which one would be more effective to use and has greater benefits. To sum it up, these seminars are preparing us for our new world, because sooner or later we will be entering a new chapter of our life. We should at least have some knowledge on these things considering that we are already in our last year in college, and will soon be stepping forward in looking for our future careers.

Another requirement for our EM-TECH class is to have tutorial sessions with the lower batches for our social credits. This activity tested our patience in teaching our fellow students inside the university who is willing to learn some new things from us. I was also hard for me to have tutorial sessions because I’m currently taking up my OJT this term and I’m not going to school every day, so I just do tutorials sessions during Saturdays. The lower batches were not hard to teach because you can see that they are eager to learn and I am also happy that at least I had the chance to share my knowledge to them. These tutorial sessions also gave me the chance to recall all that I know and refresh my mind on the things that I need to teach them. Moreover, it gave me the chance to know new people and also give some advices to them based from personal experiences on the course.

The new programming language that we are required to do for this subject is also another learning that we gained from this subject. We chose to make a Facebook Application using PHP, but we had a hard time integrating the application to Facebook because we haven’t encountered it before. Our group really tried our very best to have the best output that we can come up. Again, the lesson that we got here is to learn to manage your time together with other important things that we need to do.

For me, EM-TECH is a course with lots of requirements, but this is one way to test the students on how responsible they are to meet every requirement that is needed from them. As I’ve said earlier, I’m taking up my OJT together with this course and I find it very hard to manage my time, but still I was able to cope up with all the activities for this course. I can say that this course is very helpful for I.T. students like us and important values were gained from this course. It is also a good example of what people say that lessons should not be spoon-fed by the professors. Students should know how to explore on their own and find out new things on their own, so that they would learn to be independent.

EM-TECH SEMINARS DAY3 (August 14, 2010)

I wasn't able to attend the seminar last August 14, 2010 because I'm sick. I attached the doctor's certificate below.

EM-TECH SEMINARS DAY2 (August 7, 2010)

FOURTH TOPIC: Evolution Business Intelligence

Business Intelligence is said to be a computer-based technique that can help spot, gather, analyze, or provide access to important data that can help users make better business decisions. The speaker gave us some preview on the evolution of Business Intelligence as well as how Business Intelligence is connected to Information practices. In addition to that, the speaker says that through the use of this, users can process massive volume of data, which can be expanded through the use of social networking sites.

Business Intelligence gives us some important benefits as discussed in the seminar. These benefits would be accuracy of data and at the same time improves data security. It also helps users to have faster decision making. Lastly, it enables users to generate meaningful analysis. I think Business Intelligence combined with information practices will help businesses improve efficiency when it comes to decision making. This seminar gives us some knowledge on handling business in the future, especially those who aspires to be one of those well-known businessmen in the future.

FIFTH TOPIC: 4G WiMAX-Tribe

4G WiMAX-Tribe is a wireless internet broadband service provider that is similar to the well-known Globe Tattoo that many people are currently using. It utilizes 4G technology called WiMAX or Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access that provides wireless transmission of data using a variety of transmission modes. It is said in the seminar that $G WiMAX is the fourth generation of cellular communications 10 times faster than they are on current. It says that it uses more bandwidth which is faster compared to other broadband. It can also access Multimedia rich websites and is said to have a long-term evolution. Discussing the trend of the 2G, 3G, and 4G in terms of browsing internet on the phone, Wi tribe is a 4G WiMAX which has a 1 GB data transfer rate of 2mbps.

In this case, the 4G WiMAX-Tribe is very useful especially for us students and for people who are working. We can access the internet anywhere we want and it is faster compared to other broadband. I researched its price and found out that Wi-Tribe will be offering its unlimited Starter Package at 998 pesos per month with 1Mbps actual speed (up to 3GB download volume per month, speed tapering at 256kbps in excess of 3GB). Surf between 1AM to 7PM and your 3GB download volume capacity will not be affected. It uses a wi-tribe BOOM 4G Broadband Modem (Motorola “MOTOWI4 CPEi 150″ Home Modem). I think this would be very useful for us especially people who loves downloading games, videos, music, movies, and the like in the internet. For students like us, it can be useful for our school researches and some video tutorials that we need.

EM-TECH SEMINARS DAY1 (July 31, 2010)

FIRST TOPIC: Hello World

The first seminar topic that we watched is entitled “Hello World”. The seminar was about mobile contents and applications.  The speaker discussed how the mobile technologies emerged. She explained to us how the mobile phones that we are using evolved starting with the first mobile phones made by HTML5. There was a quick flashback from the mobile phones during 1998 to 2011. Mobile phones has become more high-tech as they evolved with the N-series. New phones are already software internet capable which enables them to have WI-FI internet connection ready. There were also some differences in the games from the old phones to the new phones. The speaker also gave us a glimpse of worldwide trends. Motorola released their 2008 Razor, while Apple released their iPhone in 2009 and 2010. Hardware improvements are also very visible such as the 5 megapixel cameras. Nowadays, touch screen phones are also a “hit”, which makes mobile phones PC-like.

As time evolves, mobile phones also evolve which makes technology more easy to use. Some phones are already very similar to what a computer does, and it’s more handy or easier to bring anywhere. The features of new phones compared to the old ones are more high-tech which encourages a lot of people to have their own. The seminar about emerging technologies helps us to be aware of how mobile technologies evolved as we grow up. We are also witnesses of the emerging mobile technologies, but we should know the history of how it began and how mobile developers think of new innovations to make mobile devices more helpful for the users and easier to use. The topic was interesting because teenagers nowadays are very conscious on the new “hit” technologies especially mobile phones.

Second Topic:  No SQL

SECOND TOPIC: No SQL

The second topic in our seminar last July 31, was about the NoSQL or No Structured Query Language. The title was a big question for me because as you read the title it is somewhat against using SQL. And mostly, or all of us in our course is using SQL for storing data in the database of the system that we are creating.

First, the speaker gave a recap or preview about the SQL. It is said to be a relational database management system. I think all of us who watched the seminar have an idea of what SQL is all about, but we don’t have an idea why the title of the topic is No SQL. She said that using SQL, relationships are hard to scale as well as transactions. Vertical Scale also increases server capacity. Moreover, loosely structured are usually not relational.

As we can see this seminar gave us an overview of the positive and negative effects of having No SQL since we are also one of the users of SQL for our projects in school and of course to its other users as well.

THIRD TOPIC: Cloud Computing

As I have researched about Cloud Computing before on Wikipedia, it says that cloud computing is an Internet-based computing, whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices on demand, like the electricity grid. I’ve researched on this topic before because I was thinking of using this topic for our group’s seminar and I’m really interested on this topic. Unfortunately, we can’t find a speaker who is knowledgeable on this topic. Moreover, I was also curious on why it is called “Cloud Computing”. I want to know how it is related to the “clouds” that we see in the sky, and I have found out that it is not literally “cloud computing”, but the cloud is used as a metaphor for the internet and the cloud drawing is used to represent or show the networks.

The key features for using cloud computing was also discussed in the seminar. There is an advantage of value for money. With cloud computing cost is claimed to be greatly reduced and capital expenditure is converted to operational expenditure. Maintenance is also said to be a key feature because cloud computing applications are easier to maintain, since they don't have to be installed on each user's computer. They are easier to support and to improve since the changes reach the clients instantly. Device and local independence is also an advantage since it enables users to access systems using a web browser regardless of their location or what device they are using. However, security is somewhat a disadvantage because there can be some loss of control over certain sensitive data, and the lack of security for stored kernels.

Hybrid Clouds were also discussed in the symposium. This environment consists of multiple internal and/or external providers. However, human capital may be lacking. In order to use this we should look for IT people who are willing to learn and adapt quickly with this. In addition to that, data might not be cloud worthy and it would be too big to scale.

Lastly, the seminar gives us some tips on how to consume cloud computing. Using server, it should be per hour, with bandwidth and storage it should be per gigabyte. I can say that I’ve learned something new and interesting in this seminar. I know that this topic would be a huge and wide topic, but with almost an hour the speaker gave us some knowledge on this Cloud Computing. And I think it is very useful for us especially internet users like us. We should at least have knowledge on this, because as time pass by we are getting more dependent on the internet.