Phuong

Week 6

Date: 5th August 2007
Topic: In-class activities/Discussions

In class, we have done interesting and useful activities. The lecturer gives us hands-on about many different kind of businesses and each team has to select one to discuss, analyze, and present ideas in front of class. With this exercise, we are able to look through the problems quickly, express and screen ideas, combine ideas, discuss and make decisions together. Also, we can know and understand more clearly about the information flow and management within a intelligent business and how a business uses IK and KM tools to support them in managing information resources. We also have a chance to listen to other teams' ideas, make a comparison, present our ideas, fulfill gapping knowledge and get feedback from the lecturer to know how we did. I think these kinds of activities help putting us in a real situation and help us building a good structural and effectively information system for running a business.

Date: 5th August 2007
Topic: Hands-on exercises

In practice class, I sometimes cannot get at the lessons, so it takes me time to ask friends and may continue to get lost. The useful thing is that the lecturer gives some written instructions which help me not only understand the lessons clearly but also easily follow necessary steps of doing things. Moreover, I can keep those papers for practicing and improving at home. Hands-on exercises give me much experience in doing new things such as wiki, feeds, links, forum design, find information, get information for my needs, etc. These knowledge would be very useful for me in my future career or future business because information management is very important today to make the business flow smoothly and work efficiently. I also understand the importance role of information and knowledge management in making an intelligent business connected, shared, structured and dynamic to environmental adaptation.

Date: 5th August 2007
Topic: Wikidot

Create and acquire information: The Wiki page with structural and flexible design helps me identify what information I need for my purpose. For example, I just go to 'Meetings' category on the top bar menu to see records and discussions of my team. Or, I can see how many members of our wiki and who are the administrators by going to 'Members' category in Site Manager. Probably, Wiki also matches with our statement GO AND GET MANAGEMENT which allows us to easily use and manage our information resources. I can also create pages in the Wiki, put information, and edit the existing pages according to the team's unanimity.
Share information: The Wiki page also helps me easilu share information with team members. I do not need to send email, sms, messages. I just need to put information on the page or make some changes in its design, and every members can see and update. Or, even when we are not in the agreement of some problems, we can post threads and discuss together. Therefore, I think Wiki is a very useful and easy tool for us to keep in touch and cooperate with each other.

Week 7

Date: 7th August 2007
Topic: Search engines

On Monday, I have been studied how to use search engine to search information I need. I have been using Google as my favorite engine since I know the Internet, but now I know more search engines with the same function of searching but in different formats and layouts. I am more interested in using visual search engine which gave attractive images, connected links in a direction map while some other engines are similar to Google. Many search engines are built for various kinds of personal purposes and interests. They help user to reach the relevant information resources quickly and conveniently. I am wondering whether I can make a search engine in my wiki and I will ask teacher and friends for instructions. However, I think Google is also the most popular and convenient engines because of its simplicity, search speed and huge information resources. On the other hand, some engines are quite slow to search and often stopped when I go further into the search sites although they give beautiful visual contents and designs. In addition to Google which contains all reliable and unreliable information, Google Scholar is the best choice for people who want to look for reliable and formal sources.

Week 9

Date: 21st August 2007
Topic: Virtual classroom

I participated in a very interesting virtual class by using virtual classroom service available on RMIT Blackboard. This virtual classroom allows me to connect, discuss, and share information related to our assignment with my members easily and quickly. Although we are in different places, we can easily get into this class and study online. Moreover, this classroom is very convenient for me to send files, emails, record the conversations and manage forum as well. I think I can take advantage of discussing with my members and sending documents at the same time just like Yahoo messenger. However, this classroom is only used by team members, no other people can join this room which enhancing the effectiveness of work and ensuring security. We are quite fond of this virtual tool and we will use it effectively for our assignment outside the class. The only disadvantage of the vitual classroom is that I can not know when my members are going to join the forum. If we want to use this, we have to tell each other first and set meeting schedule so that all members are ensured to join at the same time for discussing and sharing information. So, Webems and email system of virtual classroom are convenient for members to leave messages and announce a particular online meeting with time and date specification.

Week 11

Date: 4th September 2007
Topic: Virtual classroom and Xerox case

I spent a very interesting discussion with my team members on last lecture with the help of Virtual Classroom on Blackboard. This time I knew how to join a general virtual classroom in which all students of the class can join and discuss just like the team virtual classroom. With this bigger place, I think the conversation will be extended and involved in more and more people.
Then, I was back with my team virtual classroom on the case of Xerox. Although I had already read the case at home but I did not really understand some aspects and could not answer the questions at all. Only while discussing with my team, I could understand the case clearer. That Xerox, a repairing company, has the problem of whether or not letting mechanicians make decisions on customer-related problems and how to share tacit knowledge and experience between mechanicians most effectively. Xerox is considering the selection of computer-based knowledge base which can act as a human in daily and normal problems solving. However, the knowledge base is not really useful in some sudden and special circumtances, it does not totally become a human but a machine only. The final solution is coming up with artificial intelligence which can give better advantages for Xerox. However, I think to share information and knowledge between mechenicians, it is the best way to allow them make decisions on their jobs and hence the problems can be recognized, solved and learned through.

Week 12

Date: 11th September 2007
Topic: Assignment 4

This is the final assignment of our team which is involved in Knowledge Management within an organization. We hardly found a suitable company for this assignment but early agree on the final company. The choice is Wings Logistics (VN) Ltd or TCI Company. We organized an informal meeting to divide tasks for each member and discuss on what we need to write about. This meeting helped us understanding our roles, clearing all tasks and solving problems together. Moreover, the task was divided based on the part of each person in assignment 3 to make sure there was a link between 2 assignments. Then, we kept going on our tasks and sometimes we called each other to ask for necessary things. The communication of our team was mostly telephone, email, chat tool and sometimes face-to-face contact when we met each other at school. Staying in touch with each other, we could exchange information, get on certain decisions and correct mistakes or mismatches quickly. We always wanted make the team work be fluent and not so complicated. Moreover, we understood each other and easily got on the same opinions; thus reducing conflicts and useless controversation. During the process, if anyone found something which might be relevant to other people's tasks, the prefered action was sending it to that person. About my part, I was responsible for knowledge enhancing technologies and most of the information I got from assignment 3, so I did not take much time searching and paraphrasing. However, it was essential to focus on the issues and current situation of the company obtained from the interview. The interview was conducted with a company's manager whom Lan has known before, so the atmosphere was quite comfortable and friendly. At last, all team members had to send their parts to Thao who was the assignment collector and corrector by the team's due time so that Thao could check content, correct gramma and speling and re-send to each member to make necessary corrections. Therefore, our team's assignment 4 was submited on time and I was very pleased with the design and content of our report as well as our effort to put into the report.

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