voyeurism

visiting the Bay Area

i'll be at this year's annual conference of the American Educational Research Association :-)

the theme is 'education and poverty: theory, research, policy and praxis', and will be held in San Francisco.

if you are in the Bay Area over the next few days, do look me up :-)

studying maker movements in Singapore

today i received the great news that my application for a small grant to conduct a comparative study of maker movements in Singapore has been approved :-)

all praise be to God alone, for His provision.

:-)

Gerry Anderson 1929 - 2012

there are many gifts one can give a fellow human being.

of these, one of the most precious is the gift of imagination.

thank you, Gerry.

the Christmas Light

this Christmas, the verse i would like to share with you in my annual Christmas podcast is taken from the first chapter of the Gospel of John.

John 1: 5 reads "… and the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not."

in a world in which people just like you and i are searching for answers to some very difficult questions, it can often seem as if the darkness has triumphed.

John 1: 5 tells us otherwise.

the verse speaks of a light that the darkness cannot begin to deal with, and it is this same Light that Jesus brings into the life of all who confess their sins and believe in Him.

may the Light that only the Christchild brings, shine in your life now, and evermore.

around the world in fifteen days

to have had the opportunity to travel around the world once in a lifetime was fantastic;

through God's continued gracious provision, i will soon be able to circumnavigate the planet once more, this time in the opposite direction, this time visiting the Hawai'ian islands!

another lifelong dream fulfilled.

6 Jan SQ308 SIN -> LHR

7 Jan UA19 LHR -> EWR

7 Jan Amtrak Acela 2172 New York Penn -> Boston Back Bay

9 Jan US Airways US2029 BOS -> DCA

10 Jan UA1572 IAD -> SFO

12 Jan UA201 SFO -> HNL

14 Jan Hawai'ian HA176 HNL -> Kahului, Maui (OGG)

16 Jan HA285 OGG -> HNL

16 Jan UA879 HNL -> NRT

17 Jan UA79 NRT -> HKG

20 Jan SQ861 HKG -> SIN

catch me if you can :-)

visit Singapore in Second Life through treet.tv

with gratitude to Saffia Widdershins, Zander Greene, Elrik Merlin, Aisling Sinclair, Wildstar Beaumont, Petlove Petshop, and the crew from treet.tv, experience Singapore in Second Life through their eyes, as they visit Temasek :-)

Disciplinary Intuitions and the Six Learnings now on iTunesU

i am very pleased to share that a short self-paced course on the theory of learning known as Disciplinary Intuitions - and its accompany curricular framework known as the Six Learnings - is now available on iTunesU :-)

many thanks to the Centre for e-Learning at the National Institute of Education, Singapore, for kindly facilitating this :-)

Journal of Virtual Worlds Research - special issue on 'Asian Perspectives'

i am very pleased to share that Vol 5 No 2 of the Journal of Virtual Worlds Research - which is a special issue on the theme of 'Asian Perspectives' - has just been published.

this issue has been co-edited with my friends and fellow educators - Cho Young Hoan and Michael Vallance.

for your convenience, the issue is available as a 10 MB PDF, and as a Calameo document below.

i've also made available an ePub version; this has none of the tables nor figures, in the interest of file-size (it's a tidy 619k download).

it's a great way to have handy access on your iPad to the diverse range of solid educational research in the field - and if you need the original papers you can always download them from the links below:

happy reading :-)

- Managing Editor's corner
- Issue Editors' corner
- Herold, Escaping the World: a Chinese perspective on virtual worlds
- Li, the Demographic Distribution and Social Experience of Chinese MMO players
- Nishimura, Lim, Koyamada, The Abyss Observatory - Designing for Remote Collaboration, Self-directed Discovery and Intuition Development in Multi-user Interactive 3D Virtual Environments
- Vallance, Martin, Assessment and Learning in the Virtual World: Tasks, Taxonomies and Teaching for Real
- Li, Choo, Khoo, Liau, Effects of Digital Game Play Among Young Singaporean Gamers: A Two-Wave Longitudinal Study
- Wigert, de Vreede, Boughzala, Bououd, Collaboration in Virtual Worlds: The Role of the Facilitator

le roi est mort, vive le roi

'Revolution' is an interesting word.

at once associated with folk heroes from Trotsky to Che, while simultaneously over-used by ad agencies desperate to add fizz to public image, revolutions have variously been understood as irrestible forces for cultural change, and the polar opposite of cautious, deliberate, evolution.

such a diversity of applications of the word seems to befit the concept itself, for - you see - 'revolution' can be argued to also be a distinctly French invention.

deep within the French cultural psyche is the need to invoke progress through (often) violent perturbations of the status quo. pre-dating its Russian counterpart by at least a hundred years, the French Revolution birthed radical social and political upheaval across Europe (and beyond). from Robespierre to Napoleon, from the rise of feminism to the influence on Mao, no one knows better how to structure for radical change better than the French, once they put their mind to it.

… and so we come to the Citroën DS5, a car the tagline of which in Europe is changez d'époque.

it's difficult to imagine another automobile so saddled with the burden of socio-cultural expectation as the DS5.

here is a car which bears a name that has had such a bearing on modern French culture that movies have been made of it, philosophers have pundited over it, and presidents have refused to be ferried in anything but it.

and yet the DS5 bears little or no relation - at least at first, and second, and possibly third examination - to its revered original (while coming closest in the modern Ligne DS to its proportions).

could a greater sacrilege be conceived?

these thoughts were on my mind as i drove a DS5 today, for the second time in as many weeks. my first experience behind the wheel was - alas - somewhat marred by the foggy mask of the surreal, much like meeting one's hero (in my case, it would be Thierry Neuville) for the first time.

so today i determined to approach the experience more deliberately, and to treat the car as a car (albeit an automobile which i am certainly going to own one day).

how does the steering weight up? how does it track on expressways? how does the balance influence handling on the twisty bits? how is the gearbox matched with the engine?

imperceptibly. steadfastly. and with a very high degree of linearity and composure.

you see, when one is in a DS5, one rightly expects to take these as given. what i was continually aware of - instead - was the strange paradox of riding high, riding wide, and - for want of a better phrase - riding 'shallow'.

one does notice the mildly elevated ride height; this being a Citroën, it's not as straightforward as that because one is simultaneously aware of the car's width. the brain thus communicates to self: SUV, but that notion is quickly put paid to by the way the interior architecture just seems to drape and slink away, in its inimitably organic fashion. the closest analogy i can think of is riding cocooned in one of those crazy open-air sand buggies of the 1970s, with their cross-braced frames and wide stance.

it's impossible to talk about the DS5 and not mention the glasshouse. not since the XM has a Citroën been endowed with such crazy glazing. but the truth of the matter is it does work, and work well.

it works well because one's mind soon doesn't 'see' the double-A-pillars in the forward field-of-vision, and those extra front quarter-lights which look so featurelessly flat from the outside really do afford curvature for sufficient visibility when taking a sharp corner. the complexity of the glasshouse overhead mirrors the organic musculature and ribbing of the interior, and only serves to reinforce the impression that one is riding in something rather special, as in - to lapse into cliché - a concept car (in this case, the C-SportLounge) has escaped the show floor and somehow made it to production. and that titchy rear screen which looks so ridiculous from the outside? well, because it's almost totally upright, despite its size it offers an unimpeded view out, much like a more conventionally styled car would.

when i returned the car to the garage dealership, there was a C6 parked outside.

it looked - as C6s always do - resolutely serene.

as i drove past, DS5 and C6 were side-by-side, inches from each other.

did i - for a moment - feel a tinge of regret, of what might have been?

truthfully, i cannot say. the interior architecture, the glasshouse, the sense of sheer occasion when behind the wheel of a DS5 - i was more mindful of those.

the king is dead.

long live the king.

four wheels on my inkblot - the Citroën DS5 as a rolling Rorschach test

it has been more than a week since i drove a Citroën DS5 for the first time.

uncharacteristically for me, i have not felt compelled to write about the experience; and i have been spending the past eight days wondering why.

one reason might be that even before the car made its debut in Shanghai last year, i had made my mind up that i would one day own one as my personal means of transport. while that day has not yet come, the knowledge of this has tempered my impetus to write about the car. exactly why this should be the case, i cannot claim to have definitively deconstructed.

never has any car i have owned been such a flawed prospect. cars are inherently compromises, but when putting pen to paper in a contractual agreement, one generally chooses the model with the fewest flaws.

alas, 'generalizations' is not a concept which is easily translated to the vocabulary of the DS5.

with the benefit of a week of introspection, i am leaning towards the suspicion that my writer's block is because i have been entertaining the sacrilegious possibility that the DS5 is not a true Citroën.

what is the essence of the marque?

i have many early memories from my childhood of encounters with (other people's) Citroëns, such as watching a DS plough serenely through a flood, and hitching a lift home one day after school in my classmate's dad's GS.

just as vivid, is the memory of the first time i crawled inside a CX. from the ashtray to the radio, from the instrumentation to the door handles, and of course the strange levers and knobs sprouting from the most obscure angles, the CX was a car like no other.

to my young mind at least, that first encounter with a CX - even though its engine and hydraulic systems were not even activated - seared an indelible impression of what Citroëns were about, an impression possibly matched only by the original DS.

so what of the DS5?

when i call the DS5 to mind, i confront myself with fears and questions. i find myself challenging my own assumptions about the state of how things are, and how they should be.

when i think of the DS5, i do not think of an automobile; instead i see a mirror into myself, into the values i cherish, into the experiences which moulded me as a child, into my own hopes and dreams for the future.

do you really want to know how it drives?

of course you say you do, but tell me again your answer, after a week has passed.

because while the DS5 may not be the answer to life, the universe, and everything, it runs the number 42 pretty darn close.

generalizations be damned.

Thinking critically about Curriculum Design for games, game-based worlds and immersive environments

as a follow-up to my earlier post, the course website is up, and registration is open!

Citroën DS5 through the streets of Singapore

Join me on a short trip through the streets of Singapore in a Citroën DS5 :-)

Disciplinary Intuitions and the Design of Learning Environments

today i received the humbling news from Springer that a proposal for a book i had sent them, has received an initial favorable review :-)

as a next step, i've enlisted the help of Cho Young Hoan and Tay Wan Ying as my co-authors on this exciting project - we will also be seeking critical inputs from Michelle Tan.

the tentative working title for the book is Disciplinary Intuitions and the Design of Learning Environments.

all Glory be to God alone, for this valuable opportunity :-)

shadows on different planar surfaces in Second Life

nice shot of shadows rendered on different planar surfaces, at Bowness :-)

Six Learnings in-service course offered to teachers in Singapore

i am very pleased to share that the Office of Graduate Studies and Professional Learning (GPL) and the Office of Education Research (OER) at the National Institute of Education have given the green light for me to offer in-service courses to teachers in Singapore on the Six Learnings framework for curriculum design in virtual worlds and immersive environments.

the course can be tailored to be three-hours, six-hours, or twelve-hours in duration (hyperlinks point to the respective course syllabuses)

the course itself is titled 'Thinking Critically about Curriculum Design for Games, Game-based Worlds and Immersive Environments'; its description is as follows:

This course will introduce teachers to fundamental principles of the design of learning environments and curricular units around Game-based Worlds and Immersive Environments. The course is crafted in recognition of the increasing interest among teachers in leveraging the affordances for learning of such worlds and environments in both formal and non-formal contexts within schools. Participants will be introduced to a robust and proven curriculum design framework, as applied to a diversity of authentic examples from school-based usage cases in Singapore; no prior experience or knowledge of games or immersive environments will be assumed.

All teachers with a healthy interest in exploring how such worlds and environments might be applied to their respective subject-discplines are welcome to attend. No prior experience is required.

Before attending the course, participants are kindly requested to raise a Service Request through MOE Information Technology Branch / NCS for Second Life to be installed on their respective notebook computers.

[27 August update: the course website is up, and registration is open!]

Apple AirPort Express Base Station (old and new) 2012

here is a pic comparing the old and 2012 new versions of the Apple AirPort Express Base Stations :-)

around the world in twelve days

Phileas Fogg and Passepartout made the journey in eighty days.

by God's grace alone, over the next twelve days, i'm about to fulfill the same lifelong dream :-)

17 May SQ16 SIN -> SFO

20 May UA500 SFO -> Phoenix, Arizona (PHX)

22 May UA1635 PHX -> EWR

23 May UA117 EWR -> HKG (arrive HKG 24 May)

25 May Dragonair KA854 HKG -> Wuhan, China (WUH)

(26 May; panelist at a seminar on 'Virtuality as a Frontier for Management Information Systems research')

27 May China Southern CZ3543 WUH -> Shanghai Pudong (PVG)

28 May SQ825 PVG -> SIN

catch me if you can :-)

the Six Learnings at SPRING Singapore's Education Innovation conference 2012 - the videos

as a follow-up to last month's post on SPRING Singapore's Education Innovation conference, here are the videos from the session that i conducted jointly with teachers and students from Ang Mo Kio Secondary School, on the Six Learnings curricular design framework and its associated orientation of Disciplinary Intuitions.

men's mesh suits designed by my friend, Tyler Park

this is just a heads-up that if you're in looking for men's mesh suits in Second Life, you could do worse than to drop by Tyler Park's mainstore at Pluto.

i've known Tyler for four years, and he's channelled his creativity into a diversity of builds and products.

if you need a custom work, do look him up :-)

the Six Learnings at SPRING Singapore's Education Innovation conference 2012

the Standards, Productivity and Innovation Board (SPRING Singapore) will be organizing an Education Innovation conference on May 11th.

the Guest-of-Honour will be Lawrence Wong, Minister of State, Ministry of Defence & Ministry of Education.

the conference will be keynoted by Greg Marchi, Global Vice President and Managing Director, Duke Corporate Education and by Rob Morton, Asia Pacific Site Leader, Disney Institute (Singapore).

the programme for the afternoon comprises three tracks, namely 'Organisational Excellence', 'Scalable Knowledge Assets' and 'Experiential Learning'. i am very pleased to share that - thanks be to God alone - the Six Learnings curricular framework and its associated philosophical orientation of Disciplinary Intuitions will be featured in the Experiential Learning track!

truth be told, the Secondary Three students from Ang Mo Kio Secondary School will be the true heroes of the afternoon. this is because i'm pitching our session thusly:

Title: Innovation Through Intuition – The Six Learning Framework as an Example of Designing for Enduring Understanding

The Singapore workforce has sometimes been described as somewhat wanting in terms of independent thinking, articulateness, self-confidence and public-speaking ability. Human Resource workshops and Professional Development sessions go some way towards addressing the training needs of new employees. During this session, the argument will be made that in order for such workshops and training to achieve long-lasting and enduring cultural changes in mindsets and skillsets, the activities and learning environments that participants engage in must be meaningful and authentic to the staff and employees.

Using examples from an extensive school-based project co-designed by teachers and researchers from the NIE which is now in its third year of implementation, the presenters will demonstrate how the principles behind such thoughtfully designed learning environments and training activities have led to the nurturing of cohorts of independent-minded, articulate, motivated and self-directed adolescents who will be active contributors as the next generation of the Singapore workforce. Of particular note is that the project-examples shared are taken from a typical neighbourhood school and are thus broadly applicable.

The session will be structured around the Six Learnings framework for Curricular Design. This framework has been used both internationally and locally in the design of learning environments around a broad range of technological platforms, from games to immersive 3D worlds.

Three hands-on sessions of how the Six Learnings framework develops their Disciplinary Intuitions and First-Principle Understanding; these three sessions are Learning by Being, Learning by Building and Learning by Collaborating.

The idea behind this session is not so much to showcase the research being done in schools by the NIE, but instead to provide evidence to heads-of-industry that a capacity-building Human Resource training programme that pays attention to authenticity and context can indeed result in enduring understanding (say, of corporate values) and a self-motivated workforce.