Marina’s Bloggariffic

After weeks and weeks of rain, it was finally a beautiful evening out and I decided to cycle to the beautiful Jurong Lake Park.

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Watching Kevin’s vidcast for his COM125 class has really left me inspired. Through his video, we can observe his unique style of teaching which makes his lessons engaging and interesting.

Netcasting is where one records their own audio or video and post it online. It is a wonderful and effective way of sharing information. I think that more educators should use usethis medium.

It is effective because people contain information best through :

1. Repetition
2. Visualisation and senses

This is what makes techniques such as Tony Buzan’s Memory Pegs effective as it makes full use of one’s senses.

But while having dinner with my good friend Juli, whom is a primary school teacher herself, I asked her opinion about it. She tells me that netcasting may not be readily received by teachers because of factors such as self consciousness and fear of technology.

Huh?

Here we have a simple technology that will help dispense information more easily. But people are so quick to reject it. Why should issues such as self consciousness be of a hindrance? In fact, one doesnt even have to video their own faces, but instead film how they solve a mathemetical equation on a piece of paper for example. Alternatively, they could film their students acting as parts of the bodys intestinal tract. This is a positive interaction as both teacher and student are both actively participating.

As a Multimedia Educator it is my role to help them along should they have problems or fear of technology. But I cant help them if they wont let me.

I remember back in primary school, I would look foward to watching the CDIS programme. These were educational videos that were pertaining to what I learnt in school as well as some syllabus that I havent learnt yet.

And while in secondary school, I did well in humanity subjects as our teacher gave us a plentiful of access to video tapes that makes our visualisation, stronger. I am always amazed that I can still remember word for word, songs I learnt in choir but forget random information minutes afterwards.

I guess this is constituted to the fact that I am a visual person - receptive of things using my senses. And I am pretty sure that there are many people who learn this way too.

There is a wealth of information out there - audio visuals in the library, mass media, information readily available from the internet itself. Which is why, all the more reason that we should have netcasts for educational purposes and cultivate a culture of sharing in a more personal way.

Moreover with about 80% of students carrying handphones and/or mp3 players, we should take advantage of this and give netcasting a try.

Next week, I’ll be sharing the teachers in Shuqun Secondary about the potential about netcasting for lessons. I hope it goes well.

Update : Hooray! Mr Gopal, the head of department of maths seems keen on netcasting. I believe in the law of reverbberation. Start out small and then grow bigger! :)

Update : My presentation during staff sharing is up for viewing here

I am really not fond of doing memes.

I got tagged by Sha, and then Eastcoastlife and most recently, Clappingtree to do a meme. But I guess I’ll do this just one more time, just cause I think they are all cool people.

Finish this sentence :

I love
my scooter

I feel
happy when I am on my scooter.

I need
my scooter

Idiosyncracies about me :

1. Before I start my journey, I pat my scooter and ask if it is ready.

1. During my journeys, I sing on my scooter

2. After every trip, I’d say goodnight to my scooter

Goals before I die:

1. Persuade cartcart to learn to ride a scooter

2. Have my future kids to learn to ride a scooter

3. Have everyone else to learn to ride a scooter

And I tag

1. No one
2. Mei yo de ren
3. Tiada sesiapa orang
4. Nessuna persona
5. Karappam Pochi

There I’ve done a meme, happy? :P

Yesterday afternoon, I noticed an older post was got back to the front page. And I wondered to myself, What could be missing?

Luckily for me, I could recreate that particular post, thanks to google cache. I couldnt save the older archives though. I am not able to save the comments either.

In a way, I did anticipate that something like this would happen and did backups. But interestingly enough, when I uploaded my wordpress backup, it messed up my blog with an additional 200+ categories and another 200+ duplicate posts. Was it because my posts were imported from blogger from December 2006 and earlier ?

Last night I spent several hours having to delete all the extra categories and posts. I was really agitaged. And then I thought to myself, why should I stress myself over this? So I’ll just let it go for now.

Bye bye missing posts! May you rest in peace in technoheaven above…

I was just reviewing some of the pictures that the kids from the media club has taken for their sports day. And they look great!

Thus I thought I’d share some simple tips on how to take better pictures.

For me, in photography, composition is very important. Each picture needs to tell a story. I enjoy looking at a photo and try to make out what the subject is thinking and imagine how it feels to be in that situation.

1. Focus on a subject

When there too many things going on, it makes the picture seem cluttered and impersonal. Zoom in to something that catches your eye and focus on it. Dont be afraid to move or getting closer to your subject.

Much better right?

2. Crop away unecessary distrations

But if it is impossible to move closer, take your pictures in the largest resolution possible. While in Picassa or in photoshop, cut away the distractions.

3. Try different angles

With different angle and position, you could create a bland picture, to something more interesting. If you crouched down, you could make the subject appear more omnious

And if you take a picture from an elevated angle, you could make the image appear as if you were a being, looking from above.

4. Capture the moment

Some of the best pictures arent even posed! Be in the moment and let the subject personality shine through

Finally

5. Take as many pictures as you want

Its okay to make mistakes! We’re using digital cameras anyway. Just delete the ones you dont like and have fun taking your pictures

I hope you find these tips useful. Happy photographing! :)

Pictures were taken by the talented students of Media Club, Shuqun Secondary School

Ping.sg is a bloggers community that I’ve been with for some months now. I dont remember exactly how I stumbled onto this website, but it is a great place for Singaporean bloggers to gain some eyeballs to their blogs as well as finding interesting posts by Singaporeans.

After much contemplating, I decided to go for the meetup last night.

The evening didnt start very promising. My lion hair decided to puff up and while riding my scooter on the road, the sky decided to rain. I went to seek shelter at a petrol station nearby and listened amusedly to two Indian men chatting amiably together.

At long last the rain abated and I went forward to the journey.

Holland Village! It has been quite a while since I last been here. It isnt really my type of place as I was more of a heartlander, a neighbourhood person. But its a lovely place to go to. I should have brought cartcart here.

There were heaps of well dressed people and expatriates there getting their groceries, having dinner in nice looking restaurants and people just walking about enjoying their saturday evening.

At length, I reached Essential Brew where the gathering was held. It looked very cosy. The decor was a mix of zen and homeliness. It looked like a good place to spend time with friends.

The first person I saw was Uzyn (Yes thats his real name!) as he waved at me from the room upstairs. As I entered the room, I saw Kevin, NTT and DK whom I met previously from the Nexus meet. As I sat down, I met this very sweet lady. She introduced herself as Tstar. She was very friendly! We hit it off instantly.

I was curious to see Ridz, who was sitting beside her. He was wearing the army uniform.

me : Did you just got off camp, Ridz?

ridz : Oh no, I am doing this because Tstar said that she’ll only come to this meeting if I wore my army uniform. She said she loves men in uniform. I’ve already completed my army training.

me : Ohmygosh. I cant believe you actually did that!

ridz : Yeah, too bad I couldnt find my camoflage cream for the face. I would have put that on too!

I realised later that the man who was sitting at the head of the table was Ebie, one of the owners for Essential Brew. He is a ping.sg member too! He sat with us for a while, but couldnt stay long as it was a very busy night for him.

From left to right : Tstar, Ridz, Kevin, NTT, Ebie, DK and Uzyn

Clappingtree arrived shortly after. She tells me that she just came from mass from her church and that she lived nearby. It was really lovely to talk to her upclose. She was very friendly and warm lady and she was very easy going. The first time I saw her was at the Nexus meet, some weeks back. But I only managed to see her from a distance away and we didnt get to talk.

Any meetup with the Ping.sg gang will bound to have a plentiful of cheerful laughter. I am always amazed at how friendly these group are. I chuckled at the jokes and conversation. The topics ranged from the Pingnation netcast that Kevin planned to host, to the spontaneous netcast that Clappingtree suggested, to my cloudy drink ( Uzyn : Its cloudy because its going to rain ) and practically everything else under the sky.

I looked at everyones dinner. Ridz had this yummy looking fish and chips. Uzyn had a plate of cream pasta. I think Tstar had a plate of beef and she looked like she enjoyed it. I decided to have the Vegetarian Verdure Pomodoro pasta. It was pretty good. So good that Tstar and I forgot to take a picture of our dinner :P

Kevin and NTT had to leave after dinner, due to prior engagements but shortly after, Eastcoastlife and her husband arrived. She jokingly introduced him as her boyfriend. True to as what DK mentioned, she was a charismatic and attractive lady. When she talks, her eyes sparkled and it seemed that everyone warmed up to her.

Actually, I suspected that there could be something going on with Eastcoastlife and DK. Whenever they were in the chatroom, their chatting would dominate the entire chatroom that I got disgusted by it, quite frankly.

But DK explained that he has never met her before and regarded her as his “aunt”. They were both so funny and friendly that it was hard to stay mad at them.

Ebie was so kind as to give us complimentary desserts after our dinner. Thank you Ebie! You rock! Each of us had a Panna Cotta with strawberries on top. It looked too pretty to eat. But when I started, it was so delightful to eat that I sighed when it was all gone.

We also had a plate of Ice Cream Bombe. I had to take a picture of this really quickly as everyone were eyeing on it. They couldnt wait to devour it.

And it really was very very good. It had an entire medley of yummy treats like ice cream and lovely crunchy hazelnut bits in it. In no time at all, it was gone!

See!

It was a very lovely evening, well spent with the group. The night seemed to end too quickly and we had to say goodnight to each other. I waved goodbye to clappingtree, saw Eastcoastlife walk the opposite direction, hand in hand with her hubby, saw chilvarous Ridz accompany Tstar to the bus stop. Uzyn and DK still wanted to to have coffee though.

I had to decline as it was nearly 11pm. My parking was only valid till 10.30pm. Clappingtree said that this was a hot spot for parking wardens. Ack! I really didnt want to get fined!

I had a really lovely time. It was definitely a great meetup!

Anyways, here is a short clip from during dessert. Enjoy :)

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Trackback:

• DK’s recap
• Eastcostlife’s recap
• NTT’s quote
• Tstar’s recap
• Clappingtree’s recap
• Uzyn’s recap
• Ridz’s recap

Can you imagine finding these three books at almost unused condition that costs in total for about $20?

Wow right? Yeah, thats what I thought so too.

Its been a while since I’ve been to Bras Basah Complex. I used to go there some years ago while undertaking digital design course in a distant lifetime. I love this place as it has a plentiful of things for people who are interested in books, design, or just looking at stuff. I used to patronise there to print for posters and namecards designs.

I think its really worth it. For $2.50 you could print an A3 sized poster and for $10 you could create a stack of 100 cards which are as beautiful as moo cards.

I stopped by this place on the third floor, called ‘Book Point’ where there were loads of treasures that you could find. You do need is a little bit of patience as the place was rather large, and will take a while if you have a specific book to find. I was hooked for a couple of hours in the literature segment looking for some books that I wanted to read. There were some books with some scribbles in them, after all, this *was* a second hand bookshop. But most of them were almost pristine.

I still couldnt find The Metamophorsis by Franz Kafka nor Godel Escher Bach; An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter which Cartcart has recommended me to read. In the meanwhile, I’ll keep trying to find them :)

Exploring the rest of the floor, I find myself at ‘Art Friend‘. My gosh, this is a great place for crafts. There were so many tools for art here, I could go crazy. Everything that you could want for art is here, from painting, to pottery, to sewing, to welding … to things that I dont even know of!

I was almost inspired enough to create my own Nimmo and friends plushie. But the only thing is, that they dont really have exactly what I want to create a decent sized plushie. I think a better place for it would be at the area near the Sultan Mosque where mum, a seamstress, gets her materials for sewing clothes.

And at length, I stopped by the fourth floor to take a peek at the famed graphic-book bookstore, Basheer. I poured for a long time over their beautiful, colourful and artistically designed books. Its a great place to get ideas by looking at the creativity of other designers.

That was when I find myself stuck reading this book. Design Basics Index by Jim Krause. It has loads of info about composition, concept and component. Although I wasnt a designer per-se, I thought that this book was a very facinating read. On a whim, I decided to buy it.

But zomg. This book costs $47! Its almost as expensive as the $60 computer book that I bought some years ago.

How come graphic and computer books are so expensive?

Anyway, do drop by Bras Basah Complex if you’re anywhere in town. Its a great place for the creative soul :)