The value of creativity?
Posted by: ashleytan on: January 27, 2012
It’s Friday and time for something light-hearted.
How many creative people does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
If the video above is any indication, the number is irrelevant. Creative people might not screw in lightbulbs.
Sometimes you need creative people to come up with unorthodox solutions to problems. Sometimes creative people come up with solutions to problems you did not know exist.
Sometimes they are creative to entertain. Yet other times they serve no purpose other than to just be creative.
No change
Posted by: ashleytan on: January 26, 2012
My reaction to reading Edudemic’s How Technology is Changing Education as We Know It was mixed.
If education is made up of two main elements, teaching and learning, then I think that technology has done much to change learning but little to change teaching.
One of the key affordances of technology is providing access to resources. A learner does not have to wait to be taught. He or she can teach himself or herself if there is enough access.
On the other hand, teaching has not evolved much. It is still delivery-oriented instead of experience-oriented. Ask most learners to draw or describe a classroom and you will see what I mean. The fact that we even associate teaching with a classroom shows that there has been little change (this Swedish school bucks the trend).
The sad fact is that most classrooms today still limit access via technology. Teaching takes precedence over learning. Without this access, teaching can prevent learning.
Decision tree
Posted by: ashleytan on: January 25, 2012
This video is not only an introduction to the talent at the Centre for e-Learning (CeL), it is also a demonstration of what I like to call a “decision tree” video.
This type of video takes advantage of YouTube’s annotation tool to add “hotspots” at any point in a video that link to other videos. In the video above, you get links to the CeL team videos near the end of the video. At the end of the team videos, you get links to the videos of each team member.
While we used this video to showcase the talents in CeL, the same technique could be used provide users with choices in scenario-based learning. We will be working on one such video soon.
Many thanks to Choo, our tech-admin for the idea to shoot the promotional videos, to Niko for marking up the videos and to the rest of my department for being good sports. You can tell we are not actors, but we are good at our day jobs!
Go with the flow
Posted by: ashleytan on: January 24, 2012
Sometimes you get interrupted. Sometimes you get mad. Sometimes you go with the flow.
Shuffling Tigers
Posted by: ashleytan on: January 23, 2012
Today marks that start of the Lunar New Year. It is the Year of the Dragon.
We will see lots of lion dances over the next few weeks.
Depending on where you stay, you will also hear a lot of them whether you want to or not. I would not mind so much if they added some variety like the troupe above.
Those lions certainly aren’t dragon their feet! Actually, they are tigers (different heads), so that might explain the unusual behaviour.
Many thanks to Cheryl for sharing the video with me last week.
Same old, same old? Nope!
Posted by: ashleytan on: January 22, 2012
It is my birthday today. Bless serendipity, I came across this quote:
This is practically my mantra. I am all for looking back and reflecting. But I you can only go forward by moving forward, one mistake at a time. Onward, ho!
Alone with my thoughts
Posted by: ashleytan on: January 20, 2012
I read two seemingly unrelated articles recently but came to the same conclusion. It is important to be alone with your thoughts.
The first article was a satirical piece at CNNGO on the top 10 most boring things to do in Singapore. I found item #3 (taking walks in a mall) to be particularly sad but true.
We are so short of space that a walk does not happen in nature but in our concrete jungle instead. You cannot hear yourself think in the constant din of such a place. For me that defeats the purpose of going out on a walk.
The New York Times had an interesting article about countering group think by being alone with your thoughts. It highlighted how solitude could promote creativity, productivity, deeper learning and even personal well-being.
The article was not positioned to be misanthropic or anti-collaboration. It was recommending a balance in what seemed to be mindless pursuits that result from group think.
I can relate. I am so protective of time and space for myself that I schedule meetings with myself in my public calendar so that people know when to leave me alone. I am also hoping that staff at CeL use their 10% time at work to learn to be with themselves.
Unnecessary near work?
Posted by: ashleytan on: January 19, 2012
My son had a health check at school. After his eye exam, he was given a postcard with “helpful” tips from the Health Promotion Board.
This is part of that postcard. I have excluded the parts of the card about washing your hands regularly and a five-question quiz at the back (in tiny font, I might add).
I wonder why the “unnecessary near work” is all technology-oriented. Was this to contrast with the unwritten but implied necessary near work like reading, slogging over assessment books and even more reading?
We should focus on what is important here: The preservation of good viewing habits regardless of the type of close up or near work.
For example, even though I am already near-sighted, I use a Chrome extension, 20 Cubed, to remind me to look away from the computer screen every 20 minutes. My wife and I insist that our son take breaks from close up work every 40-45 minutes. If he is on a mobile device, he uses the built-in timer to remind him.
We are using the tools for work and play to remind us of good viewing habits while at work and play.
The advice in the card is an unnecessary attack on technology. If well managed and well leveraged, the very things labelled unnecessary are necessary for the well being and healthy future work life of kids today.
SOPA blackouts
Posted by: ashleytan on: January 18, 2012
If you do not know what SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act) are, watch the video below.
Video source
While the Act originates in the USA, it is no exaggeration to say that it can impact the rest of us by affecting the very integrity of the Internet.
Student warning! Do your homework early. Wikipedia protesting bad law on Wednesday! #sopa—
Jimmy Wales (@jimmy_wales) January 16, 2012
Several Web sites are planning 12 or 24 hour blackouts today to protest this Act and to pressure policymakers. CNET reported Wikipedia’s announcement that it would join the fight by shutting down the English version of Wikipedia today for 24 hours (starting at 1pm Singapore time). If you need offline access to Wikipedia, consider these tips at LifeHacker or CNET.
For me, this is about the entertainment industry hiding behind laws instead of evolving and leading change. It is also about the consumer-as-creator standing up for their rights and pushing for change. CNET also reported how US Congress has already backed down on one of the measures in the Acts.
There is a parallel in education. The system is slow to change because it struggles to embrace logical disruption. But I think that is where the similarity stops. We do not yet have large enough bodies of educators standing up for change. (There are small pockets here and there, but nothing on the anti-SOPA scale.)
If like me, you follow on Twitter, blogs or other social media the minority who strive for change, it might feel as if we have that critical mass. But that is perception, not reality. I do not think we are quite there yet.
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