voyeurism

drama queen

last night i was in Chinatown. there was a traditional Chinese open-air street theatre performance (or 'wayang') in the vicinity, so i took the opportunity to capture some footage using my Nokia.

it's all in the thirty-second episode of ventriloquy, at 21.3 MB :-)

EcoRangers® - results of the Search Report

six months after filing the Request for Search Report for EcoRangers®, the Singapore Patents Registry has given us the wonderful news that the Cited Documents are of the 'A' category; that is to say, it is a good indication that EcoRangers® is indeed patentable.

all thanks be to God :-)

Technorati Tags: EcoRangers

coming along nicely

had a meeting with Allan today - hadn't seen him in a month.

i showed him the cut of the first three chapters (rewritten from a Vygotskyian perspective) and he was pleased. Thank God :-)

he said i'm ready to start putting the entire thesis together :-)

of course, the chapters from the previous iteration of the thesis are already written, so there's a bit of rejigging i have to do:

- write in the present tense, then transit appropriately to the past tense
- remove bulleted lists (especially of long paragraphs)
- come up with a Gantt chart and simple list of data outputs for the Methods chapter (as for my Lit Review chapter, he said i write well enough for the Lit Review to be embedded throughout the thesis, so there's no explicit chapter just for that :-P )
- instead of the current form in which i present the results in one chapter, followed by the analysis thereof, i'm supposed to organise the remaining chapters around parts of the intervention, and analyse the data portion by portion across multiple chapters. this is because there's simply too much data to be presented all at one shot in one chapter.

i'll get to work :-)

a walk in the park

in this video podcast episode, i invite you to join me on my daily walk around my neighbourhood, along what is known as a Park Connector.

essentially, such connectors are jogging and cycling tracks linking various parks in Singapore. we'll look at how land use is juxtaposed along such tracks, and make projections as to the long-term environmental sustainability of the habitats represented.

this episode was filmed entirely on a Nokia 6670 phone, using a one-megapixel camera. it's my way of capturing, for posterity, what's possible with present technology - from mobile (the Nokia) to mobile (the iPod), so to speak :-)

have fun with this thirty-first episode of ventriloquy! it's a 21.7 MB download.

doreen's first-year confirmation

sitting here in my colleague's - doreen's - first year confirmation seminar.

she's doing her research in the teaching of history and social studies in secondary schools in Singapore.

her data is mainly qualitative, and the methodology is divided into three phases, as are most research studies, including mine.

like suthakar's seminar, she has a separate slide on types of data collected. worth thinking about.

generally, she's very interested in teacher belief-systems and the extent to which teachers see themselves as curricular gatekeepers.

one of her concerns is how teachers conceive of what constitutes thinking historically.

by the way, the Layers of Inference framework which is often used in social studies education here in Singapore is from Claire Riley (1999).

hmm.... during the 'Q&A', once again, just as in during suthakar's, the contribution of the thesis was suggested to be made more explicit. another issue was to come up with descriptors for measuring the attainment of historical understanding. hmm... the distinction was drawn between "what is history?" and "what is historical understanding?", and how the extent to which one's historical understanding influences how history is taught. the difference between 'knowing' and 'knowing how'.

what lies beneath (part II)

as promised, here's the follow-up video podcast episode to yesterday's look at the geology of Singapore.

this thirtieth episode of ventriloquy focuses on sedimentary rock - in particular, the Jurong Formation.

i hope you enjoy watching this 16.4 MB file, and learn as much as i have, in bringing it to you :-)

what lies beneath (part I)

here's my second video-podcast episode!

this is the first of a planned two-parter, on the geology of Singapore.

in this twenty-ninth episode of ventriloquy, i focus on igneous rocks - specifically the Bukit Timah granite and the Gombak norite.

go get this 16.6 MB download :-)

microteaching discussion #9 - rocks, Sec 1 (Express)

this twenty-eighth episode of ventriloquy is the ninth in a series which records the conversations that my students and i have in class, around the microteaching sessions that i've designed to be part of their postgraduate teacher-training course.

this episode is 55 minutes in duration and 13 MB in size.

it centres around issues raised by the teacher-trainees after having participated yesterday as students between the ages of twelve and thirteen on the lesson on types of rocks.

Show notes:
- Backup, backup, backup
- Autistic learners
- Learners' preparedness
- Worksheet design, usage and peer checking
- Animation and slide builds
- Indicating scale and using VR object movies in geography
- PowerPoint slide design
- Unplanned exits from the classroom
- Novel, recognizable and appropriate metaphors
- Situational awareness and alertness
- Assumptions of prior knowledge
- Unplanned introductions of new terms
- Prior knowledge, revisited
- Homonyms and synonyms
- Balancing feedback with one's own values and beliefs
- More tips on Powerpoint usage

EcoRangers® at RINC 2005

the twenty-seventh episode of ventriloquy is a recording of my presentation today at the Regional Industrial Networking conference, held at the Singapore Polytechnic. i gave a short talk about EcoRangers®, which was developed jointly by Jason Wang and myself.

my presentation was in the Mobile Learning in Education track. i am introduced by the session chair - Paul Gagnon. he's the Senior Deputy Director at the Centre for Educational Development, at the Nanyang Technological University. i'd also like to thank my colleague - Edmund Lim - for facilitating the invitation to share, in the first place.

the episode is 24 minutes in duration, and is 12.4 MB in size.

wild things

my experimental journey with podcasting continues in this twenty-sixth episode of ventriloquy.

it's only six minutes in duration, but weighs in at 22.7 MB...

how so? well, today's date is a huge clue :-)

for it was earlier today that Apple launched the video-savvy iTunes 6.0 and the video-enabled iPods :-)

yup, today's episode is my first foray into video podcasting (please note that this episode will not be sync-ed to iPods which cannot play video).

if it's successful, i'll try to produce more such episodes, as an occasional series focussing mainly on the geography of Singapore.

in today's episode, i'm looking at some aspects of the fauna of Singapore, to remind us that despite our apparent hegemony over other species, space is contested after all.