Alternative mediums

I saw a great video "lecturer" if you can call him that. Daniel Floyd, *Character Animator (in training)* . He did a few great pieces regarding video games which make quite a few good arguments to push video games as an art form. While most (3 out of 4) of his videos typically have more relevance for media students or game developers, his one piece make a lot of sense to me, us or basically all students.



he talks about tangential learning, first introduced to me by Randy Pausch, lecturer of The Last Lecture, as he calls "head fakes".

tangential learning or Self-motivated learning is a much greater way of learning because, for the teachers and parents, it results in greater absorption of the knowledge, meaning when you understood differentiation, you can remember it longer than a week if you did it through tangential learning.

but what is it exactly, lets' use an example to illustrate. say you watched a movie about da vinci, called the Da Vinci Code (subtle right), and you got really interested and you googled da vinci, just for the heck of it. you could have just learnt about the vitruvian man and his other great works, and probably a bit about the renaissance in Italy or the history of the bible and all that. now you must be wondering, hey man not everyone does that, but just think about it, if only 10% of the audience googled, 57,600 people would have benefitted, and thats only counting the people who bought the book itself.

a lot of times, alternative mediums of learning are being overlooked simply because it wasn't direct. Turns out, according to scientific research, indirect learning is better. sometimes, i feel quite disappointed that such alternative means are not being used in the classroom more often. the suits always say that we are trying to expand your horizons by teaching outside the classroom" you mean it never occurred to anyone that the location doesn't make as big an impact as the cost suggests. i enjoyed the video lectures that are used in our GP lectures, not because the teacher is boring, but because they help people remember facts better.

if you watched the video, which some of you may while some of you won't, i'm not surprised, i myself am tired of looking at videos of korean boy bands and girl bands dancing and lip synching in my friends blogs also. anyway, i do reccomend watching them, great wealth of information in delightful animated format.

i am a fan of animation, and comedy. thats why i found this video to be so appealing. because i enjoyed being fed new information in a refreshing context. if you have any idea what kind of person i am, you would realize that i don't study for the sake of a piece of paper. i study because i want to know more about the rest of the world. that's why i don't mug, per se.

i'm not asking the gp teachers to go nuts and attend animation courses,(though i wouldn't mind spending MOE's money on something useful) but you may be wondering what other ways of transfering information is there besides the awesome animated shorts.

well, there's debate. i find it quite sad that this isn't used much this year, i really enjoyed them last year in miss ni's classes, even though they are more like presentations. i think underestimating debates is quite a big mistake. first of all researching for the materials and argueing, you already have one layer of information in the students' heads already, and for those who are arguing for the opposition, because you have to argue, you actually have to listen and you can't switch off and hibernate. and then there's the rebuttals and coounter and counter counters and ........ but you say, its too much stuff for one person, and if i set them up in groups, people slack off. well, its not really too much for one person, if you help the group split it up or "facilitate" the delegation of work, without giving away any answers. so everyone actually needs to work, and if need be the teacher can decide who to be the next to argue so people again cannot slack off.


and then there's the problem of people not doing work at home. well, torture is always an option. hahas. i really really understand this problem because i am guilty. heck i am so guilty that . well, its not a pretty solution, but there's the stress on CA marks or that seeing parents after prelims or something like that, should CA marks not work. i think a very good solution would be to use an interesting topic to start with. and strangely, you don't need an inherently interesting topic to start with. it doesn't need to be something likely debating the use of abortion or even something more local like whether Direct School Admission is good for Singapore. Heck it could be as boring as the canteen aunties. it simply needs to be "packaged" as something interesting like debating the need for staff and workers vs the alternatives (eg robots or vending machines). we are the Internet generation, the Japan-ised generation, we want instant gratification and nice packaging at that. we don't want big words and retarded statistics. ever.


and then there's the problem that it doesn't help you directly. well, content is most obvious. but the researching itself allows students to exercise the skills in considering all levels or PERMS or SPERM or whatever MREPS. As for presenting and arguing itself, students can be "reminded" to organize their arguments and present using AREEC or they are disqualified and punished to write an essay or something like that. if getting good grades for MYE meant less work, i would have gotten an A, trust me.


i know that teaching is a tough job. and i know that you guys out there are or know a lot of great teachers. its a stressful job as well. i'm just offering a simple manner to help you help us. hell, criticise this as much as you want for all i care, but let me know. i'd rather get insulted but improved, than insult you back and not benefit from anything. i hereby extend an invitation to anyone to criticise my plans in my tagbox.

i should be studying for economics, but this is actual economics at work, affecting workers all around me.
i finally know what subprime mortgages mean

http://www.crisisofcredit.com/




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