February 2005 Archives

This afternoon, the long-awaited O-level results are going to be released. Wishing my students best of luck, here's a lucky clover for all to share :)

Found this list which author, Owen Winkler, has spent much time and effort putting everything together. You will get a list of comparison for the features and functionalties of the existing server-side blogging software (these software have to be downloaded, installed and run from a server, unlike blogger.com).

Some fields may not be updated, but it is still very informative.

Interesting article, not sure what will attract you but if we 'see' the same things, perhaps we belong to the same generation? :)

This is my list:
89. RUBIK'S CUBE, 1974
88. BLACK & DECKER DUSTBUSTER, 1979
78. KORG WT-10 ELECTRONIC TUNER, 1975
75. LASER POINTER, 1980s
51. IROBOT ROOMBA, 2002
46. TEXAS INSTRUMENTS SPEAK & SPELL, 1978
31. TREK THUMBDRIVE, 1999
25. NINTENDO GAME BOY, 1989
3. SONY WALKMAN, 1979

What's yours?

[source: slashdot.org]

If you work with cascading style sheet (css) when designing web page, here is 10 ways to improve your coding experience.

1. CSS font shorthand rule
2. Two classes together
3. CSS border default value
4. CSS document for printing
5. Image replacement technique
6. CSS box model hack alternative
7. Centre aligning a block element
8. Vertically aligning with CSS
9. CSS positioning within a container
10. Background colour running to the screen bottom

Do some learning now :)

[source: webcredible.co.uk]

This morning I have another 4 of my ex-students coming to my house as a Chinese New Year visit. They arent here last saturday as 佳花 and 淑莲 had went back to 印尼 to rejoin their families for the festive occassion. 菲菲 and 爱仙 's parents had came over to Singapore.

以下照片供留念：（左起）菲菲、爱仙、佳花、淑莲

祝福他们（和其他所有学生）在来临的年中会考华文试卷中过关斩将，顺顺利利！

Download this powertoy to very quickly resize pictures taken with your digital cameras. You can select multiple files (by using combination of [shift], [ctrl] keys and left click) and do a right-click to resize your images all at one go.

Very simple, very fast, no need for photoshop or any other imaging software anymore. The pictures are automatically optimised for screen/web quality (good small files for web).

Grab it today!

Free educational games are available from Sheppard Software.

Check out the Web games if do not want any download :)

The "FREE" policy can be found here.

[source: edugadget]

Found this list that is good for consideration when we are looking at (video) games for education:

The Pros:

- highly motivating, it's fun (fun is very important - we don't underestimate it!)

- encourages risk taking and trial and error

- self-paced

- young-age friendly...young kids can begin to work with complex situations or ideas

- encourages analysis and looking for mistakes

- can incorporate or train different learning strategies- though at present visual-heavy (pictures, images, text)

- can hint without telling

- can be very patient

- solve by ideas, not strength or size (great for young gifted kids or 2E's)

- encourages perspective changing

- encourages some problem solving (though not as much as we'd like for K-12)

- allows incremental learning, close monitoring of improvement or training

- allows precisely targeted sensory / perceptual learning (auditory / visual processing)

The Cons:

- it's not real- may impact on how the information is generalized, taken seriously

- the process is immersive and usually fairly fast-paced (may not be as conducive to reflection compared to other learning formats such as reading)

- doesn't encourage as much critique about the information as maybe reading original documents, magazine, or book...after all, it's just a game

- game play doesn't directly examine reality

- players are directed to the programmer's teaching points or conclusions- whereas direct inspection of real experiments or phenomena may provide more individual learning points or conclusions.

- the games could be administered poorly...teacher leaves students to computer terminals, student doesn't learn anything, copies from neighbor, etc. (this can happen in labs too, of course)

- games are interactive, but not as interactive as conversation with a smart and perceptive teacher (remember the Turing test?)...some programs are completed by kids clicking a lot or cheating

- not hands-on learning (click or toggle rather than working with original materials)...miss making projects by hands, spatial learning and modeling

[source: Eide Neurolearning Blog]

今天是大年初七，是华人传统中的"人日"，即所有人的生日。原来，正月初一鸡日、初二犬日、初三猪日 、初四羊日 、初五牛日 、初六马日、初七人日！今天妈妈照样煮了潮州人的七样羹，即七种蔬菜合一的一道菜，所用的菜类有白萝卜、芥蓝、菜心、大芥菜、春菜、大蒜和芹菜。

欲了解更多，可浏览以下两个网址：
《初七人日捞鱼生庆生日》
《初七七样羹 越吃越青春》

生日快乐！

今天是大年初四（乙酉年），家里头来了三组学生来拜年，分别来自我教过的班级，即2003年毕业的4E2，2004年毕业的4E1，和在籍的4E2华文班。很高兴大家都兴致勃勃地到来，希望所有人都开心而归。遗憾的是人多了未能逐一地问候。听学生说毕业了彼此都没有碰面了，新年到此聚首，方有机会见到彼此，都算是有缘人吧！来点一点有谁到了（职业病） ...

2003-4E2:珮希、婉婷、倩吟、思佳、诗翎、艺祯、信薇、瑶萍、爱玲、淑惠、润轩、劲毅
2004-4E1:俐莹、维莹、冰容、小淑敏、家仪、吴诗莹、惠玉、千谦、秀慧、美仪、佩诗、羿娉、智芬、珮瑜、美滢、雪云、佳敏、雪婷、大淑敏、浩栋、蔡伟杰、伟雄、建辉、衍兴、劲文、耀豪、源胜、宏义、洛颖、铭伟、仕兴、(2002-2E2)慧柠、琪琳
2004-3E2:奕敏、詠薇、乐玲、诗敏、珮绮、怡洁、诗韵、衍瀚、伟民、婉婷、淑芬、诗瑜、秀英、温俐、斯惠、傲邦、明亮、詠权、财恭、治菘

以下是一些照片，供回忆吧！ :)

在此再次祝愿所有人"新年快乐，身体健康，万事如意"！

We have finally collated the inputs from teachers who have attended our workshop at Nan Chiau last week. Download it here.

The report is available in 2 flavours, one in standard word format while the other is in graphical mindmap format.

Please feel free to distribute and share the findings with your fellow colleagues :)

Hope to hear from you soon on your plans for implementation! Cheers!

Some of us may want to employ blogs for our students to practise their writing skills and we may want them to write on some topics of their choice or related to their interest.

It is not unusual for some students to come back to us saying that they do not know what to write about. Well, to get them going, we can ask them to visit website(s) that provides random writing prompts on a daily basis. This gives them both the 'choice' as well as something to start with. So, try it if you think it's useful :)

An example: Writing Fix

A cute CNY wishes cum advert

?????????????????????????????????? :)

Just finished reading Blogging thoughts: publication as online research tool by Torill Mortensen and Jill Walker.

Though the article is written back in 2002, many of the things still hold true for blog, a genre as defined in the article. Looks like blog has more or less adopted its present form back then. Some of the interesting 'findings':

Blogger Pro, which provides more features, is available back then.

The Theory of the Public Sphere by J�rgen Habermas is used to describe/determine the private-public nature of blog.

One feel safe in his/her blog as you have total editorial control, and the posts are often short and unpretntious.

Rigours and formal citation practice in academic writing is practised in blogs through links. These links are random and it allows one to share experience (books read, website visted etc). These links are 'vital to the genre'.

Blog This by Henry Jenkins is the first article published on weblogs by an academic.

Expressing one's thought in a blog may result in one losing his own ideas too early. This is one of the greatest fear of an academic, due to the current 'reward system' in the trade of academia.

The chornological arrangement of blog entries documents our thought processes. 'Unedited, spontaneous, scrolling away' thoughts are always on the top of the page.

Popularity of a blog is determined by how often it is linked by other blogs/sites. Blogs tend to come together in clusters as they linked to each other.

The look and feel (visual appearance) of a blog is important.

This website has links to multiple sites with skins/templates for Movabletype :)

Found this article entitled "RSS - The Next Killer Apps for Education" exploring the possible application of RSS in education. Going through the examples, these are the possiblities mentioned:

1. Creating/maintainng a blog for lesson resources, RSS used to notify fellow colleagues of updates

2. Self development, updating oneself of Science news through a RSS feed subscription

3. Monitoring updates of multiple sites at once, example of superintendent overseeing happenings in 49 schools through their updating of news in respective web sites

4. Networking with peers with the same interest, example of researcher 'finding' each other through one blogging and the other subscribing to the RSS feeds.

A teacher will be able to adapt these suggestions into use for our classroom setting. Idea 1 and 2 can be used stright away. Idea 3 can be adapted for use to monitor a class of 40 students instead. Idea 4 can be used to build Community of Practice among peers in same/different schools.

[source: Bee - coming a Webhead]

During the meeting yesterday, I shared on blogging and here is the mindmap which I used.

Another round of blogvangelism completed :P

If you are trying out WordPress Multi-User, you'll need to add the php file as directed in this post.

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This afternoon at Nan Chiau High Sch Computer Lab 4, we have a group of 21 enthusiastic teachers with us to learn more about blogs. During the 2.5 hours (1430-1700) session, we have had an overview of edublogs, bloglines, as well as a quick discussion on how they believe blogs can be integrated into their teaching and learning.

Here are some photos of the day:

The results from the activity sheet will be collated and posted shortly for all to share. In the meantime, happy planning and exploring of blogs in your classroom!

As mentioned, these documents are available for download:

1. Presentation slides (ppt)
2. Blogger.com step-by-step howto (zip)
3. Bloglines.com ste-by-step howto (zip)
4. Windows IME 3.0 CL input step-by-step guide (for CL teachers who would like to print the guide for students for their installation at home)

???????????????? :)

If you would like to submit your RSS for more traffic and exposure, check out the sites from this list.