My Exploration of Cork City and Picture Editing!

I explored the historical places of Cork City and chose to give a historical background on The English Market as I discovered it has a very long history and I really enjoyed my visit there. It is an indoor covered market that is open Monday through to Saturday from early morning to evening. You may find yourself stumbling into this market several times as it has several entrances including Grand Parade, Princes Street and Oliver Plunket Street, so no excuse for missing out then! This market, which is as much an institution as UCC, was born way back in 1788! It has grown and developed ever since, quite the achievement! As is the fact, which their website reminds us of, is that;

It has survived the Famine, revolutions, wars, fire and economic decline.

The markets website is quite helpful in highlighting what the market has to offer, it even has a 'You and Your Baby' section; as well as giving nutritional information, this shows how it caters for everyones needs as it does too for a diverse population. It reminds us of how people used haggle back in the old days and that this can still be seen today by those who are up to the challenge! It informs us that

The quality of produce being sold in the market today is of the highest standards, supported by the long standing Irish tradition of friendly and personal service.

*What Can Be Found Inside? *

There are up to twenty butchers inside but Flynn's Butcher is unique as it is a father-son tradition with their own known meat named 'Kaisler'. Moynahan has all the necessities for the famous Irish breakfast. Chicken Inn offers some of the best deals to be found in the country! Fresh fish from such ports as Donegal can be found at Kay O' Connell's Fish Market. My favourite part of the market is The Chocolate Shop. I have done a lot of shots but I had never done a shot of chocolate until I discovered The English Market where a shot of chocolate can be bought for a euro! Yum yum yum! One is completely spoilt for choice when it comes to bread as there is like forty different kind of loaves available to buy! Which has to suit even the most fussy of bread eaters! Lots of variety can be got at The Olive Stall, as it is commonly known though the sign is in Irish. This stall offers things from Greece, Spain, France and Italy! So your taste buds can have a field day! A European element can be found again at the French style patisserie Heavens Cake. For all the fans of Italian food like me our tasebuds can be satisfied by Iago where Italian style pasta and sauces can be bought. The English Market is beautiful to walk around and if one really wants to soak in the atmosphere go to The Farmgate Cafe which is an upstairs restaurant in the market. You can look down on the market and at certain times can enjoy eating to the sound of piano playing.

An article on a tour advising site summed up the experience of The English Market when it said it;

is a pleasant opportunity to combine shopping, dining, and a cultural experience all in one.

I am sure all would agree with the Markets site when it says;

The atmosphere is reminiscent of bygone times and especially on a wet and windy day its nice to stroll through and remember that as much as things change, they stay the same.

The English Market is a must see historical place in Cork City not only for the hi story it holds but also for the smoothies that can be had there! :) 

Web Logs and Online Discussion as Tools to Promote Reflective Practice_Pedro Hernández-Ramos, Santa Clara University

This article discusses the possibilities and benefits of incorporating blogs and online discussion forums into teaching. The goals of using these tools are outlined as being useful in exposing students to computer-supported communication and collaboration and also as an encouraging tool to promote 'reflective practice and a better understanding of the pedagogical and learning benefits derived from integration in these technologies.' Firstly the challenges which face teachers are described. These include; how to make them realise their role as construtivists 'producers of information and knowledge-and not "just as teachers"-objectivists-who are solely in a transmission role.' It states that teachers need to find their professional voices and a means to be heard and it offers technology as the means to achieve this.

Teachers thus use technology to; 'enhance their productivity and professional practice', 'to engage in ongoing professional development and lifelong learning', 'evaluate and reflect on professional practice to make informed decisions regarding the use of technology in support of student learning' and apply technology to increase productivity as well as a way to communicate and collaborate with peers, parents and the larger community in order to nurture student learning. For a time journals have been encouraged to help students think about their own learning and that by completing journals their learning would be improved. However a problem exists with this approach to learning as students may often 'bias their writing to what they think the instructor wants to see' so the process can to a certain degree become almost pointless. While Nicholson and Bond (2003) said, "electronic discussion boards can play an integral role in the development of preservice teachers...they benefit preservice teachers in terms of time, scheduling, and geographical issues...provide emotional and intellectual support and fast a sense of community...promote growth of reflective discourse.'

Discussion boards have been around longer then blogs, therefore the use of blogs in education are still being explored and developed. Blogs are used to 'encourage writing, but in a public space,...motivates students to spend more effort in the process...as not just instructor or peers seen it but a wider, unknown audience.' Blogs are also useful as a collaboration tool in the classroom. I think that more teachers need to recognise the use of blogs and discussion forums as Levin and Camp (2002) argued that teachers are unlikely to improve their practice without reflecting on their performance which they can do through the use of such tools as blogs. 'the difference between a "public" voice addressing an unknown audience (the blogs) and a more "private" voice where all participants were known to each other', this point I feel is crucial to how the use of blogs can be so beneficial as the writer of the blogs is now writing to a larger audience which can result in the writer gaining comments from the readers of their blogs, thus they can learn more from what they write in comparison to just writing for a smaller audience which offers less feedback.

An important point about blogs is made which is that blogs can be used by everyone of all levels and not just those who are advanced in using technology. The methods used in this article are similar to our class where by they made a blog, sent the link to the teacher and then respond to questions posed by the teacher as well as commenting on others work. The results were interesting reading. Most of the students recognised it as a medium 'for self-expression, access to information, and community building'. Others admit that they had no idea of its potential prior to using them. Two of the goals behind their use of the blogs were; to write to a wider audience and to recognise oneself as a creator of knowledge or at least acknowledging ones views are worth the consideration of others. Interestingly though only 5 out of the 56 students who underwent the use of the computer based tools said they will use blogs when they teach. Others said they were unaware of what technology would be available at their place of employment while some other students failed to recognise the point of using them.

"Reflective journal writing offers instructors a window into each student's mind and assess the degree to which they are making progress toward desired learning goals in a given course or program of studies". Blogs and discussion forum similar to this and are used in the hope of resulting in better learning. This example was "successful in promoting reflective writing". The fact that blogs can allow the teacher a deeper insight into their students minds is essential to the development of teaching and learning as the students are offered an outlet to express themselves instead of opting towards writing solely for the correcter of their work. I believe it is a good idea for such technology tools to be incorporated in the classroom as students need to be aware of the possibilities and benefits of the technology that is available today. Yet obviously a balance should be the set up within the classroom as such technologies are not to everyones liking and what exists at the moment in most schools, which is like the ones I attended the relationship which exists between a teacher and their students is important as the students need to be aware of how they are progressing on a more intimate level then on the Internet where the encouragement or praise that they receive is from an audience which they ultimately cannot see! While within the classroom they can be encouraged amongst their peers. The incorporation of such tools would be beneficial as they could express themselves openly and then perhaps discuss it in class which will allow a better interactiveness within the classroom and would allow teaching and learning to progress steadily.   

The History of Humanities Computing- ed. Susan Schreibman, Ray Siemens, John Unsworth

This book traces the history of the relationship between Information technology and the Humanities. The start of this relationship may have been in 1949 when Father Roberto Busa created an 'index verborum' which included 11 million words of medieval latin, 1974 saw the first printed version. His achievement was thus recognised when he became the first recipient of the Busa award to signify his achievement in applying IT to humanastic research. The relationship blossomed with the coming about of COCOA which was modeled on a format developed by Paul Bratley, it proved very influential and other schemes derived from it, according to Hockey, its ability to deal with overlapping structures outstrips that of almost all modern markup schemes, which suggests that it was an important step in the relationship of IT and humanistic research. The most important breakthroughs I believe came about from the 1970s to the present day. These included the Oxford Text Archive founded in 1976 which was to ensure that a text a researcher had finished with was not lost, this could be seen as the beginning of a digital library. During the mid 1980s to the early 1990s the PC and Electronic Mail were discovered. 1985 at a ALLC Conference in Nice email addresses were exchanged which saw the beginning of a new era of immediate communications. The early 1990s saw the era of the Internet, which I find extremely important and useful when it comes to researching for history. Academics were the first to recognise its potential while libraries were soon to follow by putting the content of their collections on the Internet. It also allows for collaborative projects which is useful as the Internet is a huge space which can provide one with a wealth of information.

Chapter 5 declares that a culture war existed pitting the 'new' history, which is that of the Internet and is influenced by social science theory and methodology, against the traditional practices of narrative historians. There are many ways in which historians have made use of computing technologies. The 1940s saw the first phase that of quantitative history which used mathematical techniques. 1960s saw the second phase which was an emerging field of social science history in which statistical techniques were used. The third phase is the PC and the rise of the Internet. Not everyone looked upon these developments so favourably, as a British historian said; 'The declining importance of the so-called grand narratives of national and class histories, and the fragmentation and loss of cultural authority of scholarly history in the face of increasingly diffuse popular and political uses of 'history', cannot be separated from the impact of the new technologies.'

I looked at chapter 26 as my proposed thesis topic involves film. It states that 'cinema was a serious form of expression, an art form involved in the production of thought.' Such expression is one of the reasons I would like to research film as I believe it bears a significant impact on its audience and can thus display portrayals that the filmmakers believe and can in turn influence the audience to believe the same. 'the literary scholar, the historian...can literally bring the work under study into her own text to prove a point, illustrate an argument, and provide the text to prove a point, illustrate an argument, and provide the text and context for analysis. The film scholar cannot.' This problem was solved when 'image overlay hardware that put a moving image from a tape or disc directly into a window on the computer screen.' 'He creates an alternative world of the alternative world that the film itself creates...filmmakers make us see what they want us to see.' It is with this final quotation in mind that I wish to explore the portrayal of the IRA in film as it is to distinguish between the different portrayals in the hope to discover the most accurate portrayal of the IRA in relation to the history I aim to achieve, and not to always see what it is that the filmmakers want me to see.