– a Singaporean teacher's storeroom 🖖
chanced upon this site “Logical Fallacies and the Art of Debate” that prof Glen Whitman had prepared for his students some 11 yrs ago relating to the use of logical fallacies during debates. many of these can be observed in arguments observed or experienced in our daily lives, not just in a debate setting.
Argumentum ad antiquitatem, Red herring, and Slippery slope are but three examples (:
saw the following quote from the book Walden Two while reading an article:
Since our children remain happy, energetic, and curious, we don’t need to teach “subjects” at all. We teach only the techniques of learning and thinking. As for geography, literature, the sciences-we give our children opportunity and guidance, and they learn for themselves. In that we dispense with half the teachers required under the old system, and the education is incomparably better. Our children are not neglected, but they’re seldom, if ever, taught anything.
Education in Walden Two is part of the life of the community. We don’t need to resort to trumped-up life experiences. Our children begin to work at a very early age. It’s no hardship; it’s accepted as readily as sport or play. A good share of our education goes on in workshops, laboratories, and fields. It’s part of the Walden Two code to encourage children in all the arts and crafts.
(Skinner, 1948, pp. 119-120, as cited in Anderson, Reder, & Simon, 1997)
am attending a workshop on InDesign CS5 these two days at NTU ACL1. here’s some tips to remember for the future:
1. Fast changing of shapes (e.g.) while retaining all specs
– Use “Pathfinder” (via “Windows” –> “Object & Layout”)
2. WYSIWYG x-pointed stars drawing tool (can see points being increased on screen on the fly)
– Polygon tool –> Draw by Click n Drag <strong>N HOLD</strong> –> hit <space> (still hold) –> Up-down arrows
3. Fast duplicating of shapes
– Polygon tool –> Draw by Click n Drag <strong>N HOLD</strong> –> Up-down arrows
4. Font selection on-the-fly, see what’s good and select
– Highlight text –> Highlight font name in toolbar –> Up-down arrows (cycle thru fonts)
– <Ctrl>+<Shift>+<‘>’> to increase, or <Ctrl>+<Shift>+<‘<‘> to decrease font size
5. Fill (large extensive) textbox with random text
– Type –> Fill with Placeholder Text
6. Trace connections of how long text flows from one textbox to another
– View –> Extras –> Show Text Threads <Alt>+<Ctrl>+<Y>
7. 3 types of Text Flow, works during Place(ing) text
– Manual — Semi-autoflow (<alt>) — Autoflow (<shift>)
8. Scroll page view horizontally
– <Ctrl> + <mouse scroll button>
9. Controlling flow of text around graphics/pictures
– Use Text Wrap (after clicking on graphics/pics)
10. ‘Eye-dropper’ to pick up text attributes
– Highlight text to be changed. Click on “Eyedropper” –> click on text with desired attributes (font/size/color etc.) to apply formatting to highlighted text
11. the 2-3-4-5 clicks
– double click selects a word, triple click – line, four clicks – para, five clicks – select all
12. Create “Text Styles”
– format a paragraph to desired attributes, then click <Create New Style> under Paragraphs menu (cf. Character style)
13. ePublication don’t recognise empty <CR>
– use Paragraph formatting, “indents and spacing”
14. Auto Spellcheck MS-Word style (no grammar)
– Edit –> Spelling –> Dynamic spelling
here’s 2 photos of the class:
instructor @shirley tan reminding participants to visit AceTraining’s fb page for weekly tips n tricks
instructor @shirley tan explaining how to add a new page w/o disrupting existing page flow
this is the second/third time that i was locked out of the new SOEasy (to be locked out), and it’s 1hr now and the password reset isnt here. so thought i could take 3 mins to drop this note into the storeroom.
“education has a long tail. you never know when it will get back to you. it may be a good stroke or it can be a hit ”
… this quotation came from a course trainer, whose course yh2 attended. great wisdom in those words, 真知灼见。 we’ll not see the immediate effects of our education have on our young ones. it could be 20-30yrs down the road that one SEES them. it’s 46 yrs since 1965. look around for it’s abt time for us to see some effects of the policies implemented over the years.
lately we’ve seen the power of web2.0 (or social media, the “IN” term) in both GE2011 and PE2011. it’ll be interesting to see which way the long tail will sway, say the year 2040-50, when C2015 has equipped our students with the 21st Century Competencies, and it’s time for some, if not all, of our students to become “Self-directed, Confident & Concerned Citizens and Active Contributors”.
就让我们相约30年后，我们拭目以待吧 (:
正是知己知彼百战百胜, we have always heard and admired how well the Finnish’s system’s doing, and this morning saw the article “Why Are Finland’s Schools Successful?” being retweeted, and took a quick look and copied down some lines and some thoughts:
“Whatever it takes” is an attitude that drives not just Kirkkojarvi’s 30 teachers, but most of Finland’s 62,000 educators in 3,500 schools
in comparison, we’ve around half that number of teachers, and 1/10 the number of schools
professionals selected from the top 10 percent of the nation’s graduates to earn a required master’s degree in education.
i wonder which percentile of graduates is our education service attracting. we’re beginning to work towards leveling up the capacity of our teachers, but an all master teaching force is still some effort to put in.
Many schools are small enough so that teachers know every student.
WOW! reminds me of juniors’ childcare centre, the intake size that is.
If one method fails, teachers consult with colleagues to try something else.
哇！真的没有面子这回事的？如何塑造这种风气呢？ 羡慕羡慕
“Children from wealthy families with lots of education can be taught by stupid teachers,”
how “stupid” can these teachers be when they are top 10% of the graduates, and when they’re so open to consult with colleagues?
said Timo Heikkinen, a Helsinki principal with 24 years of teaching experience. “If you only measure the statistics, you miss the human aspect.”
well said! we were also very much concerned about the “human aspect” and spent lots of efforts and resources on this, but somehow the feeling’s that parents/society’s only interested in the ‘statistics’ part?
There are no mandated standardized tests in Finland, apart from one exam at the end of students’ senior year in high school.
i could not have imagined how my schooling experience would be in such a system, and juniors’ schooling experience for that matter. 须要身历其境，亲身体会方可我想。
There are no rankings, no comparisons or competition between students, schools or regions. Finland’s schools are publicly funded.
most, if not all, of our mainstream schools are like that too aren’t they?
The people in the government agencies running them, from national officials to local authorities, are educators, not business people, military leaders or career politicians.
looks like they have no mid-career teachers joining the profession?
Teachers in Finland spend fewer hours at school each day and spend less time in classrooms than American teachers.
what’s the hours an American teacher’s spending? and in contrast, how much time’s our teachers spending on average?
Finnish educators have a hard time understanding the United States’ fascination with standardized tests … “Looks like we did better than average two years ago,” he said after he found the reports. “It’s nonsense. We know much more about the children than these tests can tell us.”
indeed there’s only so much those numbers derived from quantifiable stuff can tell us about our students.