33. Make sure you add a short introduce yourself video clip so at least once they get to see

“Never tried it” nor occur to me to do this was the first thought that passes my mind. Really… I must admit that I’m a low profile person, or rather, a person who likes to keep a low profile of himself.

But the idea of a short video introduction of myself certainly excites me. Recalling all the events/ activities/ course/ seminar and talks that I have attended, among the very first thing almost every of these have in similar is introduction. Not only introduction of the event/activity itself, but the people, especially the speaker. Recalling some of the very enterprising talks that I’ve attend, sharing of personal stories and experience is one of the strengths that make a presentation interesting.

From my own experience, sharing of personal (or people’s) stories and experience during lessons could definite get students’ attention. The sudden sparkle in their eyes, the sudden eye contact that they eagerly gave me, wow! It’s like waving a magic wand, you know! Guess its human touch after all.

Yeah, contemplating about the benefit of sharing more personal stories and experience with my students, will try incorporating them more often as part of my lesson plan.

32. Put instructions in more than one place (especially schedules and timelines)

A significant part of how well students learn depends on how effective is the instruction. Among the factors that affect the effectiveness of the instruction are the medium of instruction and the clarity of it.

Relating my experience as a teacher in school, very often we tend to give instruction verbally. In which speeches are quite transcends to listeners, even to those active ones!
It reminds me of the documentary “What the bleep do we know?” which points out that our brain can only consciously process less than 1% of the data sent in by our sense faculties at any given moment. It is very true and real that the average listeners could only grasp a portion of the speech content. Occasionally we write it down, say, on the white board. But that is as good as in that short period of time where students are there or until the instructions are rubbed off. Technological tools such as moodle, Wikipedia, google site, spectrum etc could provide an alternative in terms of instruction medium which does not confine to space and time. However, these mediums are again as good if the learners make an effort to check them out.

It would definitely be helpful if the instructions could be placed in more than one place. And one important aspect to consider is the strategic location. In this sense, the instructors have to think very much like an advertising agent. Which reminds me of a marketing strategy used by Tesco in Korea: let the stores come to the customer!

So to me, it is not a mere action of placing instructions in more than one place, but placing at the right location that matters most.

Yet again, at the end of the day, however close we could place it to the learners’ convenient, without learners initiatives, instructions are just there to be forgotten.

30. Students shouldn’t need a computer science degree to utilize the technology to access the course

I’m of the view that teachers should not burden students’ learning of a particular subject matter (unless the subject matter is the mastering of the technological tools) with extra load in learning how to use the technology.

I think it boils down to the instruction of the teacher. If the teacher wants to incorporate technological aided lesson, then he/she must consider students’ familiarity in using the tools without jeopardizing its suitability. In any case, besides the suitability of the tools used in the context, if the tools are instructor determined, then the teacher needs to consider the user friendliness of the tool, but do consider too the technology savviness of the students in terms of social background and prior knowledge.

For myself, I’ll prefer giving students the freedom of choice in using the technology whenever possible. Unless they are required to master the skills, otherwise using which tools is not the upmost important but the learning outcome. 

8. High touch is just as important as high tech, if not more so

Touch of the heart

Some time ago, I had a discussion with my friend on teaching and learning in class. He pointed out something which struck me precisely at my blind spot on my perception on teaching and learning. Connectedness with the content matter will be severely missing if emotional factor was taken out of the content. How true this was! Given a choice between watching a movie, playing sports, chatting with friends to attending a typical lesson in classroom, majority would have went for the former three instead of latter. This is because, at the end of the day, we human beings are species with emotions and feelings. Students may not be able to intellectually comprehend the subject matter, but emotions and feelings might be able to bridge this gap! This factor was like a missing puzzle piece to the problems and challenges that we brainstormed during the class. Now, the question lies how do we incorporate emotions such as fun, touching, inspiring, exciting etc into our learning? 

It will be human factor when the students love the class, not technology. But, technology could pretty much play an important role to foster the touch of the heart. 

Week 2: Reeve's article

Thomas C Reeves's article ‘Do generational differences matter in instructional design’ was a joy to read. Reeve compiled many interesting facts regarding Boomer, Gen X, Gen Y/Net Gen, confirmed many of the notions. Among those that caught my eyes are:

"... most have been raised to think that they will be highly successful, even stars, although the reality is that they will find it harder than ever to get into and afford the best colleges, find a high-paying, personally-rewarding job, and buy a decent home..."

"...Today's students are no longer the people our educational system was designed to teach..."

Guessed this explains the very first hand experience we had with today's students in school. 

One of the things I agree very much with the author is that gaming does have its positive effects. As someone who grew up gaming, though I must admit it is highly addictive, but it does structure the way you think. And Johnson (2005) points out exactly that:

"... games force you to decide, to choose, to prioritize ... learning how to think is ultimately about learning how to make the right decision: weighing evidence, analyzing situation, consulting your long-terms goals, and then deciding."

As some games are highly intensive, I think that the thought process in gaming is so rapid that there are very few activity (especially in education), minus sports that could match this kind of intensity. Imagine the brain work-out in 2-3 hours of gaming! Although I'm for gaming, but there's always a limit to everything we do. Although it does claim to set people through the paces of analysing situation and making decision, I think gaming still could not and should not be a major substitute as a medium of education. I'll like to think of it as more of a supplement than substitute.

John Seely Brown Lecture: Learning in the Digital Age

Everyone seemed to be advocating the need to incorporate technology into education. 

Watching this video prompted me these questions: 

1. Did we, as human beings ever stopped learning?

    Couldn't help but had the feeling that we fear that we are not learning enough, fast enough. 

2. Is our human mind any different compared to the past?

3. Why are we advocating the need to change the approach towards T&L? Did the fundamental way of how people a couple hundreds years ago learn different from the way we are learning now?

Yes, I do know theories about Behaviorism, Cognitivism and Constructivism in learning approaches. But it now strikes me that I do not know about how human beings learn. How did we learn during stone age? How did we learn during the medieval age? How did we learn about all there is to be throughout the evolution of mankind? Suddenly found myself interested to know the very history of human learning. It's amusing to find that as a teacher, I do not know how people learn. Strangely enough, these questions seems to be related to the topic on History + Evolution of instructional technology that I'm assigned to discuss. This assignment could not have come more timely. 

But I'll like to point one thing: With so much of emphasis on learning through the gaining & constructing knowledge & practical skills, it needs to be balanced off with the emphasis on cultivating the right attitudes, mindset and noble values. Just take the simple example of trust. Nowadays, there are trust issues of the people towards their leaders/government, of civilian towards the police force, of parents towards their children, of parents towards teachers, and of teachers towards students. I have to admit that from years of teaching, I've been slowly conditioned not to trust my students. Not trusting what they said are true but double checking with their parents... Not trusting that they can take good care of themselves when left unattended... Not trusting that they will do the right things... I realised that I'm not emphasising enough to my students to gain trust from others.


I'm a strong believer that every contemporary approach needs to be complemented with ancient wisdom.

We are gifted the ability to learn. But why? For what purpose(s)?

Week 1 - The Many FIRST

FIRST time blogging!

FIRST time trying out blogger!

My very FIRST blog entry!

And it's the FIRST time I'm missing the FIRST class of a new sem. Although I didn't physically attend the class, but had the very real feeling of starting of a semester through the many materials & assignments from the Spectrum. Getting the FIRST taste of digital learning!

Besides, have been reading & hearing lots of descriptions and good comments about our dynamic lecturer. Again, FIRST taste of digital communication with her via spectrum & email. Couldn't help but share similar impression towards our lecturer. ^_^ But u know what I noticed? She seemed to be online 24 hours a day! O_O Appreciates that she's super dedicated, but (honestly), gotta take care of her health too, especially heard that she's pregnant..

Well... Looking forward to be physically present for my FIRST PXGT6110 class.