Maiden blogging

I just added a new link to the blog. I discovered Cityscape by chance, and thought that this could be a teaching tool for the topics of Industrialisation or even perhaps Development, as well as Urbanisation.

It is pretty amazing to think back and look at how far/fast the education landscape has evolved. During my time as a student, all we need as a motivation to learn in the classroom is for the teacher to be genuinely passionate in her subject area and to really show care and concern for us. Being in a neighbourhood school, I guess we were hindered by the lack of technological resources as well. I used to wonder if I would be in this career if I did not fool around during PSLE and went to a 'better' school with much more resources. I guess this turned out to be a blessing in disguise as my experiences as a student led me to totally appreciate my teachers and inspired me to take up teaching as a career. Not to mention that this is God's calling as well.

Anyway, moving on to the present, I realised that being passionate about teaching is necessary, but not sufficient. On top of that, teachers have to think of creative ways to engage students, be it in technological or non-technological aspects. Times have changed. The teenagers of the present are constantly assaulted with technological and media advances, which makes them have a completely different notion of what would truly engage and motivate them to learn. Games, and more games. Movies. Filming. Audio recording. Blogging. Defininitely makes our task much harder with more resources available, actually. More challenging, but I am game to take up the challenge.

I think the use of blogs is an interesting aspect to promote learning by having students to process their thoughts and type it out. However, it is one thing to encourage students to voice out and produce blog entries in an informal and fun way, and another to grade a blog. Well, personally as a student now, I realise that taking the fun and 'subversiveness' of blogs out definitely do not increase the motivation of a student to really contribute to the discussion of a particular topic in an online journal. Difficult it is now to type something in this space now, well, at least I am more mature in understanding the need for online journals to be assessed. But I am not quite sure if teenagers will have the same level of maturity and understanding as us, student teachers. A topic to be further explored definitely...

Yet, it totally astounds me that globalisation and development (perhaps) can indeed aid in a student's learning process. Virtual networking of blogs and websites in the virtual space has somewhat trivialised the notions of borders and segregation, and time too. Collaborative learning with people whom students may not meet in real life is constantly taking place, whether consciously or sub-consciously in their own minds.

(However, I would prefer not to point this out to students. Students being students, once something is institutionalised or highlighted by figures of authority, will give that 'eeeee. yucks!' reaction. I am assuming that teenagers are a rebellious lot over here, of course.)

Interesting write-up on globalisation and development and teaching pedagogies

I really like Geography. Alot. *g* The relevance of this subject never cease to amaze me.