voyeurism

recognition of the effort of my student intern at the Global Undergraduate Awards 2021

I am thankful to God to share that this year, my student intern responsible for the initial transposition of the code-base of the Socially Responsible Behaviour through Embodied Thinking (SORBET) Project from desktops to tablets / smartphones - Tan Boon Hing - has won the highest award he was eligible for - 'Highly Commended' in the Education category - in the Global Undergraduate Awards 2021.

Boon Hing has worked tirelessly over the past year on this, under the auspices of the Nanyang Technological University's Undergraduate Research Experience on Campus (URECA) programme.

The Global Undergraduate Awards are a non-profit organisation founded in Ireland in 2008. It is the world’s leading undergraduate awards programme which recognises top undergraduate work, shares this work with a global audience and connects students across cultures and disciplines.

Each year, work submitted by undergraduates is anonymously assessed by a panel of international academics and industry leaders.

The best 10% of work is shortlisted as Highly Commended.

I am so very pleased that Boon Hing's efforts have been recognised in this way.

:-)

the SORBET Project: published in Computers and Education Open

a year ago, the learning intervention my team designed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic was enacted for the first time in schools.

we remain very grateful to teachers and school leaders whom we have worked alongside this past year.

today, i am very pleased to share that a paper describing everyone's efforts towards the Socially Responsible Behaviour through Embodied Thinking (SORBET) Project has been published in the Gold Open Access Elsevier journal Computers and Education Open.

all thanks be to God for His provision along this journey.

Disciplinary Intuitions / Six Learnings / Maker Motes / AI & data science offered as part of NTU's Undergraduate Research Experience on Campus (URECA) programme 2021/22

are you an NTU undergraduate eligible for the Undergraduate Research Experience on Campus (URECA) programme 2021/22?

if so, please do consider applying for

NIE21020 Exploring the potential roles that game-based worlds and immersive environments play in learning

NIE21021 Exploring the development of maker dispositions in learning through open-source hardware and software

NIE21152 Designing predictive models for analysing environmental sensor data from a network of IoT sensor devices

NIE21153 Exploring the role of coding, data science and machine learning in the Humanities classroom :-)

it would be my privilege to work alongside you :-)

awarded grant to develop VR simulation for Surgical Airway Training

five months' ago, our team was introduced to a Consultant in Upper GI, Bariatric Surgery and Trauma who trains junior and senior residents of the Emergency, General Surgery, and Otorhinolaryngology Department, and to a Consultant in Otolaryngology, both from the Tan Tock Seng Hospital, Singapore. 

together, we identified a need for the development of a Virtual Reality (VR) simulation for Surgical Airway Training - specifically the procedure of cricothyrotomy - which was particularly pressing due to the protocols of safe interaction obliged by the COVID-19 pandemic.

today, we received the humbling news that we have been awarded US$30000 to proceed with the project Virtual Reality Surgical Airway Training (VSaT) in COVID-19 Pandemic over the next two years. the grant has been awarded by the Games for Health Innovation Centre, which is a collaboration between the National Healthcare Group, Singapore and the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine at the Nanyang Technological University.

this is an exciting and very meaningful area of learning for our team. my father charted his career path as a medical practitioner, and i had the privilege of undergoing medical orderly training during my National Service. the grant represents our third VR-related grant since 2018 (and my first in the capacity of Principal Investigator).

we give thanks and praise to God alone.

the National Institute of Education acknowledges the hard work of my team

my team and i are very encouraged by, and grateful to, the National Institute of Education for so graciously setting aside valuable column space in the most recent issue of the Institute's quarterly newsletter to feature our work.

the write-up means a lot to us, and can be found in the June - August 2021 issue (number 116) of NIEWS.

glory be to God alone.

this year's iLRN conference was special

this year, after a period of relatively low numbers of COVID-19 diffusion within the country, Singapore entered a partial lockdown from the 16th of May till the 13th of June.

this span of dates coincided almost exactly with the 7th international conference of the Immersive Learning Research Network (iLRN 2021), which ran from the 17th of May till the 10th of June.

being able to attend iLRN 2021 helped me to get through the partial lockdown. i looked forward each day to attending sessions both in the mornings and evenings, while attending to my regular work duties during the day.

the timing of the sessions for iLRN 2021 enabled me to attend more sessions than i was able to last year. i attended sessions on research models, ethics, cybersecurity and so much more. i was also given the opportunity to share my team's work on the hybrid Augmented Reality board game we call Yunnan Rangers.

each day, without fail, i would be warmly greeted by the effervescent Heather Dodds. Heather is the Chief Operating Officer at iLRN, and she was the standout among many standouts of the conference. may God continue to bless you, Heather.

visit our team's mini-campus in Frame VR

my team and i are very happy to invite you to visit a mini-campus - in Frame - which we have designed to showcase some of our work.

Frame is a website that lets people communicate and collaborate in a 3D space as avatars from a browser on desktop, mobile, or VR. It is currently still in beta.

for our mini-campus, we used one of the standard environments provided by Frame, and populated the space with examples of our work.

we are excited about Frame because the multiplicity of ways in which content may be accessed - from smartphone to full-blown desktop VR - coupled with the low barriers to access - visitors only need a standard web browser - points a way forward for immersive and VR learning spaces to come.

for example, Frame runs from a web browser on desktop (including Chromebook), mobile, or VR.

on desktops and notebooks, Frame is accessible through Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Chromium-based Edge browsers.
in stand-alone VR, Frame is accessible through the Oculus Browser.
on mobiles and tablets, Frame is accessible through Chrome on Android, and Safari on iOS.

do have a go :-)

The SORBET Project: sharing at this year's annual conference of the Royal Geographical Society

i am very happy to share that my student and i have been given the opportunity to read a paper at this year's annual conference of the Royal Geographical Society.

Samuel Li is presently training to be a Geography educator and this past year i have had the privilege to mentor him as part of our university's Undergraduate Research Experience on Campus (URECA) programme. Samuel and i will be reading Personal spaces and communal consequences: navigating geographical tensions with the Socially Responsible Behaviour through Embodied Thinking (SORBET) Project.

this year's annual conference will be held from the 31st of August till the 3rd of September, and is themed on Borders, borderlands and bordering. Our paper will be read on the 31st of August during a session on The geographies of digital health, sponsored by the Geographies of Health and Well-being Research Group of the society.

The SORBET Project: interview with the editor of Ed. the semestral magazine of the Harvard Graduate School of Education

i am very privileged to share that a conversation i had with Ms Lory Hough on the Socially Responsible Behavior through Embodied Thinking (SORBET) Project has been published in the Spring 2021 issue of Ed.

Ed. is published on a trimestral basis as the magazine of the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

my team and i remain very grateful to God, and to Ms Hough for the opportunity extended to us. thank you, Lory!

:-)

The SORBET Project: sharing at a symposium on simulations in education and the COVID-19 crisis

i am happy and excited to share that the MOFET Institute - which is a center for research, curriculum and program development in teacher education based in Tel Aviv - has afforded my team the opportunity to share about the Socially Responsible Behavior through Embodied Thinking (SORBET) Project, during an online symposium themed on 'Innovation and growth during uncertain times: simulations in education and the COVID-19 crisis' :-)

the symposium will take place on the 6th of July, and includes the following strands:
- recent publications and findings on the role of simulations in education;
- the shift to distance-simulation workshops (debating the contents, methodologies and technological concerns) following the COVID-19 pandemic;
- the use of simulations for implementing social-emotional learning (SEL) strategies and skills;
- simulation models in education in Israel and around the world (clinical simulations, computer-based simulations, immersive simulations); and
- key issues in implementing and operating the simulative tool in teacher education programs and professional development around the globe.

i am excited to be a part of this event and it will be great to interact with my friends at the MOFET Institute again :-)