blended learning handbook

4.5 years ago, our 3 years’ worth of design, teaching, and research was crystallised into the Blended Learning for In-service Teachers’ Professional Development: Handbook for New Instructors published by NTU-SCCL Press. while the book is still listed on SCCL’s website, the《混成式在职教师培训——新手指导员手册》 appears to be out-of-print. so sharing here a proof copy (not the final imprint) so that readers who are interested can still access the our experiences and knowledge within (:

LLMs, chatgpt & ubi 4.0

with the blazing speed that LLMs are (or commonly known as “chatgpt”) developing, some people may be worried abt job security.

it looks more like a case of “the rich gets richer, the poor gets poorer” 贫者愈贫,富者愈富, not in the monetary sense, but the knowledge creation sense. more precisely, LLMs/chatgpt are going to make the expert-layman’s speed/efficiency gap ever bigger. layman can only (blindly, unknowingly, ‘trustingly’) copy-n-paste without understanding (cos they do not have enough prior knowledge to assess the output), while the expert can build on what LLMs/chatgpt throw out and idea-improve repeatedly with the system with further prompting and/or data input.

based on the above theory, to ensure everyone’s livelihood and well-being tmr (not limited to those who are worried abt job security), the idea of universal basic income (UBI) would probably need to upgrade to at least a 4.0:

UBI – food, water housing
UBI 2.0 – food, water, housing, power/electricity
UBI 3.0 – food, water, housing, power/electricity, wifi
UBI 4.0 – food, water, housing, power/electricity, wifi, negotiate/prompt LLMs

so what would UBI 4.0 mean for a k-12 school teacher? oh btw, openai just released its Code Interpreter within chatgpt4 few days ago. another game changer?

and thanks ziwei for the early brain-waking convo (:

in the distant gotham south primary school …

there’s 3 depts – teaching, admin, and tech team.
fries is the only teacher-HOD (without another teacher!) in the teaching dept with 2 other sch counsellors.
one of the counsellors randomly appears in office, while another counsellor’s on permanent wfh arrangement.

in the staff room, fries is the only one designing lesson, preparing worksheets, and her movement creates echoes in the room cos she’s the only teacher (cf. counsellors’ job)

the admin dept is next to the staff room, so randomly fries sees them but other times don’t. and anyway, their job’s totally different from hers.
the tech team sits on another level so fries also don’t see them, not forgetting, their jobs’ different from hers too (and they probably din know fries also led a tech life, and whatever they’re doing, fries can also do)

as fries admires her own lesson design, feeling proud of the worksheets, fries also imagines herself being the HOD with at least one other teacher working with her in the vision painted for her.

the painted future is, however, akan datang and the echoes sounded more solid than this fiction occurring in gotham.

what is passion? what is comms?

saw this, love it:

source: STB via https://www.visitsingapore.com/madewithpassion/about/

and my brain started spinning and this is the (current) outcome:

What is Comms?
Comms. One word. Five letters. Limtiless meanings flourish.

(Tan, 2023)

#beta #4ideaimprovement

post COVID-19 swim

stopped routine when COVID-19 broke out. 1st swim since then. 10 laps of 50m. only managed to swim 2 laps non-stop. hope to build up stamina soon.

“For someone who lives in a condo, u r not maxing out.” #wkr