Archive for September 2008
Shift happens!
Posted by: ashleytan on: September 30, 2008
For some reason or other, my primary RSS aggregator, Bloglines, does not read Edublog feeds very well. I know because I maintain a personal blog at EduBlogs, but don’t get regular feeds even though I write entries in that blog every week day.
Worse still, I may have missed some thoughts that my preservice teachers have [...]
One-on-one computing in NIE
Posted by: ashleytan on: September 29, 2008
A few days ago, I blogged about what I shared with NIE colleagues on what I was doing with wikis during practicum. After reading some of my preservice teachers’ blogs, I realised I forgot to mention something else.
It was Vincent’s post in particular that jolted my memory. He had bemoaned the fact that:
“even at NIE, [...]
21st Century Learning Environments
Posted by: ashleytan on: September 26, 2008
This week marked the start of my introduction to my preservice teachers to what I call 21st Century Learning Environments.
They will be exploring Second Life* as a multiuser virtual environment and NIE’s very own Classroom of the Future as physical realisation of what learning environments might look like in the not-too-distant future. I am also [...]
MOE Workplan Seminar
Posted by: ashleytan on: September 25, 2008
I attended the MOE Workplan Seminar 2008 this morning. This seminar is held once a year, typically for the Education Minister to reflect on the past year and to shed some light on the path ahead.
You should be able to see a press release or a copy of the speech soon. I had intended to [...]
Wikis for practicum
Posted by: ashleytan on: September 24, 2008
I presented my use of wikis for practicum at the Fusion Learning event at NIE today. I hope that my audience “got” my message within the 10 minutes I was allocated.
We are preparing practitioners, not students of educational theories. Trainee teachers should be maintaining e-portfolios to showcase their knowledge, skills, and attitudes as teachers. We, [...]
Old school meets new skool?
Posted by: ashleytan on: September 20, 2008
It’s not every day that you see a 102-year-old man in a YouTube video.
And he has a point. English language can seem dumb at times.
The fact of the matter is that English language is evolving and we might have to accept some horrible spelling in the not-too-distant future. Consider this Wired [...]
3D World Wide Web
Posted by: ashleytan on: September 19, 2008
I take issue when some people label Second Life as a form of Web 2.0. Yes, there is user-generated content, but it is not part of the WWW as we know it.
But all that might change soon. A company in Melbourne has launched a 3D Web tool that promises to turn 2D Web sites into [...]
Game over… not!
Posted by: ashleytan on: September 19, 2008
This week marked the “end” of my Focus on Integrating Technology (FIT) on educational gaming. I am quite certain that we achieved the main goal of getting teachers to experience games from the persective of our students and thus getting a glimpse of how they think.
I hope that they also got the other messages I [...]
The future is now
Posted by: ashleytan on: September 18, 2008
One of the things that we are working on at the MxL is multitouch technologies. This means that users simply use their fingers to create and manipulate objects directly on the computer screen. There is no need for a mouse and keyboard. This is evident in the Apple iPhone and Microsoft’s [...]
