A LiL cloSER to HOME...

conFESSION of A SEEDWIKI saboTAGER…
Very first thing before I continue on with this week’s entry: I think I had destroyed the help page on SeedWiki. I was trying to post the problems that the class (and I) were facing. I went on the help page, click on edit page and type in all the problems. All of the sudden the rest of the ‘Help’ messages had gone. I sat at the edge of my seat and sweat. Gosh! At the mean time the server was down and I lost connection to the SeedWiki. Wonder what I should do next. To Ken of SeedWiki, “HELLLLLP MEEEEE!!!”

Let’s Chill…
I thought I should take my mind off the SeedWiki problems for awhile. Therefore, during the last one hour class of PKEY3101, I resolved to reflecting on the Prof.’s teachings (more relaxing this way, I guess ). “From Sarawak with Love” was on the SmartBoard with the picture of cute Sarawakians children making ‘V’ signs and cheery smile. Kind of getting homesick for a minute. Although I’m not a pure Sarawakian: actually I’m a Sabahan but my parents and relatives all live in Kuching, Sarawak, I have been missing home for quite awhile. I miss home, I miss my daddy, mummy, brothery (even though he’s a pain in the neck for me, well, vice versa :p), my doggy Coco, my lovely Sarawak Laksa… To my dismay, my mom just called me few days before telling me that I don’t have to go back home as my family is planning to visit KL (for the don’t know how many times already, I have lost count) AGAIN. Why! Why! Nevermind, I plan to go back home no matter what, right after the finals, I will be back home! Yippie! But maybe I need to sponsor my own air ticket. Sponsors perhaps? Please mail me: kylin11@hotmail.com Hehehe…

To Sarawak with L.O.V.E
The land of the Hornbills. The city of cats. The land of vast greeneries and long-winding rivers. With crocodiles mostly. Sarawak.
And the Prof. was in peaceful Sarawak last week. Therefore, this week we were going to talk about SARAWAK! She shared with us the pictures that she had taken of the schools that she had gone to. Unfortunately, I had not been to any of the schools that she had mentioned. I thought that the schools were located ‘in the heart of Sarawak’. To tell the truth, I have never been to a ‘rumah panjang’ (is the museum of Sarawak counted as a rumah panjang? It looks like one…) and I have never been to the famous Sarawak river express boats (I boarded a sampan before at the WaterFront in Kuching…only 30cents!). So, if I were posted to the schools that the Prof. was talking about, I never did mind.
The Prof. was telling her experience visiting schools in Sarawak. Her stories sounded like great adventures: aboarding the weird-looking express boat, crusing on the wide and murky Rajang river (got Crocs or not…) some for about 3 hours and some even up to 7 hours ride, walking through the wobbly some-sort-like-London-bridge hanging bridge and so forth. There were places that I never knew were in Sarawak: Kuala Mani (crooked thought provoking name, now the name was changed into Pangkalan Manis), Selangau, Dalat, and Nan Kiang School. There was also a place that the Prof. adventure team dreaded and left out from their trip: Sungai Arau, as one need to travel up to 7 hours on speed boat and climb a hill in order to get there (sounds very much like Indiana Jones!).

Should Curriculum Drive the Technology or Should Technology Drive the Curriculum?
The Prof. threw a new question to us. The good thing was, I could add this enquiry in my writing. The bad thing was, my mind blurred again as I figure out what it actually meant (perhaps due to brain malfunction again~).

As I thought back, perhaps the idea of driving a car can best illustrate the question. Imagine a brand new BMW M5 sporty car fully equipped with iPod which has the technology of locating your position on a map through satellite transmition. Imagine that the car is yours. Of course as the driver, you would drive the car and travel to places you wish to go. You perhaps would not like the idea of letting the car take you to places that you do not want to go. The car does not have human intelligence. What the car needs is a person to operate and utilize it. Without the driver, the car would be nothing, not even if it is BMW with iPod. The same goes to educational technology. What are the significance of PPSMI, CDI, My-CD, E-bahan, LCD and even notebooks provided by the MOE (Ministry of Education) and schools if they are being treated as holy scripts that were supposed to be hidden and locked in the tower of a palace?

As I had noticed from the Prof., those teachers that got her praises for utilizing technology in the classroom (during her observations in schools in Sarawak) more or less had put much effort in previewing, preparing, presenting, practicing and post-testing (the 5 Ps) the integration of technology in a classroom. The ‘backstage’ preparation and planning for a teacher before ‘presenting an act’ of teaching for the pupils ‘on the stage’ of the classroom was essential.

anCORE...
As I talked about Sarawak this week, I tried eating Sarawakian food at Millenium Court in the evening. I was so joyful to see a stall selling what they claimed to be Sarawak Kolo Mee (Sarawakian Syaiful also knew what is Kolo Mee). Sadly to say, the mee was not even close to the taste of the real, authentic thing. Anyway, I'm looking forward to be back again in Kuching...in November, that is :)

HEADACHE...

Closer to life…
Got quite frustrated lately. It seems that there has been problem with the local area connections (which is TMnet) for the past 2 weeks. My frustration got very close to calling up the company and forwarding my dissatisfaction. With loads of work to do and assignments due, the disconnection does not help at all. At the moment I was working offline as well, composing my work on the very reliable Microsoft Work (I am not working under Bill Gates and am not involved in any of his promotional campaign).

Prof. was not around…LaLaLa
Relaxation was in mind as the Prof. was not in class today. She was off with official matters and I was waiting for her return next week anticipating what she would share with the class again that she got from her trip. Souvenirs maybe?

We carried on with our work on the Seedwiki while chirping away with my course mates. I heard from Ming Keat that there had been some trouble with Seedwiki for about a week already. He tried to upload his files to his group’s page. He then saved his work but the next day his files did not appear on the page.

I talked to Mrs. Lim in class about this matter. She suggested that we could post our problem to the Seedwiki administration. I tried to do it but unfortunately there was no connection at the moment.

Before I got any closer to banging my head to the window, I better take some time off my old companion, the trusty but quite heavy hp lap top.
CHILL...

sPongeBob SquarE PanTs vs. PaTrick THE StarFish

THE PRE...
VIRUS ATTACK!!!Literally, I mean, or biologically, on my low-immunity body. Have been coughing all the while as I write this week's entry. Gosh, and I have lost my appetite! Observe, in class, that all I can eat is this packet of sweet-sour orange peels which I share with my friends (and Mr. Sam!).
Throughout the past few weeks, I have been trying to discover whether there is any possible way to upload a video clip here itself, on lapalace. Answer is, not possible, unless one knows and understands CSS coding or even html or java scripting, and perhaps there will be still some degree of possibility to have video clips on the blogs. My next plan? Maybe trying to find a coding expert. I know my limitations, just got a headache after reading some java related scripting. I need the professionals!
I would like to dedicate this week's post to all the readers of lapalace, some maybe by a fluke happen to click on lapalace and also to some who have always been keeping up with my writings. Much gratitude to the Prof. who has never failed to mention lapalace and blissful life @ emily_chim.blogspot.com in the class for giving credits on these constant and with updated reflections blogs. I am just doing my work wholeheartedly and never willingly to compromise with procastination. I never wish to return to my lazy self.

THE WHILE...
It was a Wednesday. I have always loved Wednesday since the start of the semester as I feel Wednesday always ended so fast. Perhaps it is because I have PKEY 3101 class. And this week's Wednesday Mr. Sam had to hurry me out of MK2 as I was still glued to my seat in front of my flat-screen computer.
For those of you who have watched the popular (and my favourite, and also Justin Timberlake of ex-NSYNC member) Spongebob Square Pants, have you ever wonder why Patrick the starfish (who is also Spongebob's best pal) is always so silly or even brainless? Well, as one of my friend pointed out, real-life starfish are brainless. They have no brains! Perhaps there is some truth in this but I do not think sponges have brains, too. So, why does Spongebob always the more sensible and creative one? Again, I wonder...

With that, let's lead into today's class. Intelligence vs. creativity. To the extreme, Patrick the starfish would be the best example of a zero-intelligence entity. The squishy starfish (I have one of him hanging and dangling in my car) and his frequent blank stare to the sea floor and stupidity often generates laughter from the young to the old, though. On the other hand, Spongebob would demonstrate the creativity, most obviously, by creating his under the sea house out of a pineapple (I never would have thought of that!). A kid would say:"Spongebob is definitely smarter than Patrick! Patrick lives under a big semi-sphere rock!"

Indubitably, one would need a certain extent of wisdom to have creativity. What knowledge that one would be creative with if one have nil intelligence? The Prof. asked each person in the class to rate ourselves on the scale of 10 of how intelligent or creative we are. Affected by my sense of modesty, I rated myself as 5 on the intelligence and 6 on the creativity. Quite reasonably, as this put me twice as more intlligent than Patrick the starfish, if he was the example of zero intelligence. I do admit that sometimes I may not be that bright, especially on things related to numbers. You may tell me that this number plus this number and minus this number and then divide by two would be the amount that I owe you on lunch, but I would stare at you blankly and go: "Huh? What's the last amount again?" Guess that's my weak point, logical and mathematical intelligence.
Gardner (1989: found in Mok Soon Sang, 2006) explained that every human inherits eight different types of intelligence. He was the guy behind the famous multiple intelligence theory. We tend to focus on the cognitive intelligences such as linguistic intelligence and logical-mathematical intelligence, especially in education nowadays. Non-cognitive intelligences tends to loss emphasis, such as music and kinaesthetic. Thus, teachers should pay attention to the different intelligences of pupils so as to promote an overall development, as being highlighted in the Malaysian National Educational Philosophy (NPE).

David Copperfield? David Blaine? No, it's the Prof.
The Prof. unexpectedly showed us an 'abracadabra' and we were in few minutes bewitched by her few seconds of magic show. She took a book, first flip, and all we saw was blank pages. Second flip, and all we saw was pictures and on the third, we saw all words. How did she do that? The wise Guru Melwindar to the rescue. She revealed the trick that with just the correct cut at the sides of the paper, for instance, by cutting on the top edge of the papers one would be able to flip the pages that show the desired pages, such as only the picture pages. The 'abracadabra' hit me with an idea: to make lessons fun, teachers can learn some trick which in return, the teacher would gain pupils' precious attention in class, as being done by the Prof. Before this the class was in a near chaos and during the magic everyone was intensely watching her in action.
The lecture continued with the class being marketing officers. We need to promote our magical trick book by coming out with an attractive title, one-liner, and a jingle. During the process, each of us indirectly was demonstrating our own unique intelligence. Fatihah was evidently good in her musical aptitude while I could never imagine winning the laughter and applause from the class by standing at the front, miming. That's said, I never would mind any Hollywood directors and producers signing me up for their Hollywood blockbusters. Do email me at kylin11@hotmail.com or even kylinkho@gmail.com just in case my hotmail add got overcrowded (who knows one day I would be that popular!). At the mean time, I think I am going to stick to my future, more prominent prospect as a primary school teacher (and I am proud of it!).

The POST that relates back to THE PRE...
"Xue Ru Ni Shui Xing Zhou, Bu Jing Zhe Tui." (Sorry for not typing this in Chinese, I don't have the Chinese Star Software at the moment.) That's a famous sayings in Chinese that the Prof. flashed on the SmartBoard at the beginning of the lecture. Learning is like rowing a boat upstream, if you don't keep up with learning, you will fall back. Just two days ago, I and my partner Sin Yuan were trying to find related article on our EL subject on Korean culture in the library. For some reasons, we could not find useful resources from the main library and we ended up at the Peringatan Za'ba library. Being first timers to the library, we firstly got lost at the Pengajian Asia library (which we thought quite odd at first why the books are all in Chinese and Tamil not knowing we are not at the right place). Then, when we finally found our way to Za'ba, the librarians at first asked us to go up to first floor while the materials that we needed were actually at the lower ground floor. Once at the correct place, we could not find the correct shelves to where our references were. A thought of giving up flash through my mind. I was so tired and I had a terrible fever few nights before and I was still sick. I clenched my fists and said to myself never was I going to give up! One of the reason was we were very desperate for more information to write the research paper for our EL subject. That was when miracle happened. I saw there were more shelves on the right corner of the library and miraculously I walked to the exact shelf where the book that I was looking was there.

In my own dictionary, the phrase "giving up" shall no more exist.

References:
Mok, Soon Sang, (2006). Education Studies for KPLI (Theme 1): Educational Psychology. Multimedia-ES Resources Sdn Bhd:Selangor.