The first time I heard about this term was when I was at Bhutan! hahaha... from a place where technology has yet had a significant place in its people's daily life and heart...
- The Mindset
I was teaching ICT in NIE Paro... ok, the mental model of the locals was, I was suppose to be very IT-savvy person - imported from Singapore! [hahaha... but that's why I'm really proud of Singapore... it tells us that we have been successful in certain areas] Right, that's also one of the challenges I faced... to clarify their assumption - that I'm not expert in every field of technology - to open up their doors to more technology arenas... well, it's just like, a Maths expert in Statistics may not be well verse in Calculus!)... ok, isn't that one of the reasons I'm there, apart from those spelt out in the TOR? - Back to Blogging
Thanks to Dr Soo, who's the volunteer specialist in the ICT project... he came in Dec 2004 to conduct the workshop on Database... there, the technology savvy him first introduced the word 'blog' to the local lecturers there... ok, I was among the 7 participants of the workshop.
Hey, what was that??? I wonder??? Being away from Singapore for half a year, a new jargon came!!! Oh no!!! That's the difference of living in the mountains and in an urban city? I've lost touch to what's happening in Singapore! Oh no! I become a 'sua-ku' after 'elevating' myself to somewhere more than 2000m above sea level??? Shh...
He showed us what his community of bird-lovers er... nature-lovers(?) do... they go bird-watching and put up the activities and pictures of birds, etc... There! My first encounter of the blog...
OK, I think it's just like any website... but possibly one that makes posting to the internet much easier... like a breeze...
I hear the word again!!!
Back to Singapore, since June 2005... started hearing more about it when at one time it made a hoo-ha in the news! The not so good ones... when a medium of good intent (I presume most, if not all, technologies started off with some good intention behind it, to make one's life or the world a better living place... a more cohesive community, etc...) was abused! OK, see it from another perspective... being borrowed as an alternative platform to put across one's voice in a less friendly manner... and yes, the 'subjectivity' comes in...This reminds me of an old saying, that Fire can be a good servant, but a bad master... drawing the parallel... Blogging can be a good platform for expression and networking, but when misused, is a weapon that destroys and misleads
Am I going into it? When will I do it?
Yes, I'm going to involved in the delivery of the new module that uses the inquiry-based approach to the use of technology in maths learning. Exciting, I flipped through the course outline, the slides, etc... that Sok Hon has prepared... oh no! "BLOGGING"!!! It's a technology that the course will introduce the participants to, one of the tools that facilitate IBL... Why "Oh no!", 'cos till now I've not personnally go blogging yet... Am I the few left behind who has not catch up with time? How to do it? Is it difficult?... some of the questions that float to my head immediately... ok, I tell myself, don't worry, there'll be a way I will master this new trade... still...
Oh NO! NO CHOICE!!!
There comes the day! 20 Feb... hahaha... the day I faced something that's totally alien to me! The announcement from Joy... all in the Section must start blogging... there's homework... to be 'submitted' through the blog!!!!
No, no, no... (Oops! remember DD reminded us not to use 'no, no, no...') we are not left there to figure out how to float ourselves... Joy gave us a very good start... guided steps... that's very very helpful to me, making my first step to create the blog... got it out on the very day, and emailed back the URL of my blog to Joy... Thanks, Joy... or... thanks to the new structure introduced in the PD Section, helping me to open the doors to blogging...
Figuring it out...
The next anxiety was how to go about posting and publishing in the blog... ok, self-learning is not that easy... it takes time explore and yes, must persevere! How to post the picture up? How to create hyperlinks to other websites, etc... still figuring out...
Hey, that's why the fun is, that's where the satisfaction is, when I LEARN it myself... now the next thing to look out for is how to make it more organised (the way I want...) and start adding other stuff here...
One Step Forward... (4 March 2006)
It has been the past one week when I tried to organise the blog... having too many things cramped under one page is too messy! Can't take it visually, personally...
What an achievement this morning, managed to create 2 more blogs and link them up nicely... standardising the look, insert a picture... etc... Hm... a pad on my shoulder :D
What a Day! (5 March 2006)
Went into the web to look at what I did yesterday... Wah!!! What a drastic change, compared to what I saw yesterday morning... Well Done... OK, I guess the next challenge is to sustain the kind of enthusiasm, to continue to come in to contribute and grow what I've started off with... Indeed, I thought, hey, it's quite a good idea to put down the Bhutan Adventure here... see, I've been toying with the idea of putting them in print... ok, hope one day will come when I can devote my time to do that... meanwhile, I think it's not a bad idea to have my ideas, my thoughts to be captured in the blog before they slowly fade..... away..... Cheers!
Counting my stock (14 Aril 2006)
It's been more than a month after 'engaging' myself with the blog... Yes, it's enomorous fun! Start seeing the power of blog!
- An Expression Platform - realised that, unconsciously, have penned down a fair bit of thoughts in the blogs... it's where thinking flows... once start laying the hands on the keyboard... the fingers simply run...
- A Journal - have started jotting down the little little sweet memories I had while abroad.
- A Sharing platform - more for work... started using blogs to facilitate some of the workshops... thought it provides a transparent and unthreatening environment that encourages one to talk; of course, also using it as a platform to put up resources, unfortunately blogger does not have the feature allowing us to upload files.
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