Shout it out LOUD!!!

If we deal with email or SMS, there is the NETIQUETTE (here I am not shouting, just to give honour to the special noun).

I recently received a SMS with a good combination of lowercase and uppercase letters in the text. What struck me is that the person is trying to convey his or her meaning/intention/depression/oppression/or none listed. The case is this, there is etiquette in everything that we do.


Ethically, if you were to uppercase your text, this is considered as blatantly shouting to the receiver. It mimics the physical action. Imagine if you were to write the whole text (25 paragraphs) in uppercase, I do believe the opera singer would love to learn your technique of shouting (in real life).

The fact is this, uppercase means shouting, and you are shouting throughout your email/SMS in case of full uppercase message. And shouting is not NICE...

We are ethical creature...we have process and procedure from the biggest of challenges to the smallest of tasks...and this align us to the methods that are governed ethics in fulfilling the task.

NETIQUETTE is method of communicating via virtual elements...and it compels us to be ethical in our SMS or email.

With that, i rest my CASE...it was a joke, ok :)

The End of Days....

My Ipad died...ok, not really died, but it has lost its connection to me...physically, emotionally and mentally...

First time in the history of our sweet relationship, it was disabled. Hmm...'disabled'...a word consists of 8 alphabets that truly affect our life, technologically. I was dumbfounded when saw this word popped up, reality diminished and darkness engulfed...I was unable to function 'professionally' in my work and to 'socialise' virtually on social network sites for that period.

I eat, drink, teach, read, mark, play football, sleep with my Ipad...it is my companion, well definitely second to my missus. The word 'disabled' has caused a temporary separation of my reality and my virtual reality.

Often we take things for granted...we believe that things will always be there for us...when it is omitted from our lives, that is when we truly value the importance...Ok, I don't want to sound like another Oprah Winfrey Show, but the fact is that we need to be constantly reminded of how precious things are to us, technologically, I meant.

I do know of a friend who drove back home (30 km, mind you) for his handphone that he left at home in his hurry to work in the morning. His explanation was simple, handphone is an extension of his limbs...

And for my Ipad, it sprung to life when i rebooted...the reason for the temporary separation? I keyed in the wrong passcode that I thought was right at that moment. One may surmise that I depended too much on Ipad...the fact is that it has been by my side for all these years...it is my companion through the good and bad times...it is an extension of my reality and the reality that lies beneath its screen.

Pardon me, I am cooking roasted chicken under the tutalage of Sir Jamie Oliver over the internet...and that is my reality....

Interesting Way of Looking at Powerpoint - Don McMillan

To Online or To 'No-line' a Test

The topic may draft in sense of 'awe' by some, total rejection by many. Online test or quiz, if it is to be announced in class, will be followed by a symphony of 'Noo' by the students.

In short, rejection is far better than acceptance in this case, in many cases, based on my experience. However, students should be allowed to experience the subtleness of online quizzes or testing, as one may termed it.

Online testing has been around for quite a while. TOEFL iBT is a prominent Online English language test, and as to cite a study, Bugbee and Bern (1990), as cited in Khare and Lam (2008) concluded that the students of an American college fared better online when compared to traditional testing. 

When inspected psychologically, the fear of online testing is valid, in my view. Some students stated that the fear comes from the format itself, a rectangular LCD instead of the a table with paper on top. Reading online and reading on paper creates its own challenge. Our eyes do wonder around after reading a few lines, and the sense of focus may be distracted. 

The presence of timer, a constant reminder of the available time is another factor. One could not stop looking at the time while trying to accomplish the task. Its like baking a cake while looking at glass door of the oven and the timer simultaneously. 

The stability of the internet connection is the greatest feat of all. Imagine that you are about to submit your answers after spending an hour on the test and the connection went down. Some of us may resort to McEnroe's method of relieving frustration, but please ensure you do have 3 extra laptops for that purpose!

I do love a comment made by a student of mine when I conducted a mini study on this. He or She (to remain anonymous) stated that your chances of writing more after the time is up is much better in an exam hall compared to a laboratory. He or She illustrated that if you are sitting in the middle, there is a 50/50 chance for you to write more since the invigilators would come either from front or back of the row. You could never get that from online test, He or She added. Interesting...I should pursue an in-depth Student' Perception of Row Seating in an Examination...niceee..

Anyway, I believe when we are accustomed to certain new experience, we would be evolving together with the experience and surroundings. The same goes with online testing or assessment, may it be online video or audio recording, online essay or other forms of assessment. It is the familiarity, that I believe holds the key to a successful online testing administration. To quote the greatest samurai legend, Miyamoto Musashi, 'Things are always difficult in the beginning, always'...

And I strongly believe online test or assessment is safe too...many of us experience 'paper cuts' during test, well, when was the last time you heard some had 'tablet cut' on their fingers? Hmm...

Macultist-ish?

One would ponder of the topic...Mac a what? Mac-a-rel? The case is that Mac is Mac, the half eaten apple logo would strike a smile to some hard core fans.

A friend of mine termed Mac as 'the stingy system' (trans literally translated from Malay). Every single item is from Mac, the machine, the connectors, the software for Mac...and so on. And at a cost too....

I am a user of all system...from Mac to Windows, (learning Ubuntu at the moment), from Android to BB...reason? I am curious about the world...and that's about it. I know of a friend who is a true Macultist...he is a walking Apple Store. I believe that by preference, not infinite styling that he choose Mac as his life partner.

Technology revolved quite dramatically past years, and for us to be updated on each and every one of it is next to impossible. The fact is that we choose what is comfortable to us, and by preference it evolved into lifestyle. We do have people equipped with Samsung from head to toe, and the same goes with other brands available.

To surmise, I believe that brand loyalty = preference = utilisation. The most important factor is utilisation, it is where the device is fulfilling our needs, our lifestyles...

But, please do measure the utilisation...kinda funny to see one answering phone call with huge tablet next to the ear... :)

Digital Money Anyone?

This entry is a bit wee off the teaching part...anyway, we are here to share our experience dealing with technology in the end. And, like it or not, experience is our best teacher!!

Well, I was out shopping groceries with my wife at a reputable hypermarket in KL, after a long queue, we arrived at the cashier. After the hypnotising beeping sounds of the barcode reader, the cashier announced the amount. Since debit card is a preference of mine, I whipped out my card for the payment. Two tries, and the transaction failed. The cashier asked If I had another credit card, I responded that mine is a debit card, not credit. She said, "Its the same...". In the end I paid in cash.

What I would like to highlight is that in terms of method of payment, her view is correct. A card is used to pay for purchase via machine. But there is a difference between credit and debit, in general...I let the economic students to give an in-depth 12 weeks course on that.

The point is this, technology promotes cashless transaction, via electronic card or device. It is supposed to enhance our life and assures security. NFC, or Near Field Communication that is embedded in new handphones or gadgets allows data to be transferred between gadget, and one can purchase a can of cola from the vending machine using handphone!

But the fact is that technology does fail to deliver once a while. This in the end relates to the ability of the machines to communicate, if one fails, the communication fails, and you will die of thirst....imagine the machine in the middle of the desert...

I recalled of a restaurant in Melaka where the workers using iPod, or a device similar to that, to take orders and transmitted to the kitchen. I was amazed with the technological advancement of a local eatery, and please do mind, this is not a fancy 12 stars or Michelin Star rated restaurant. The end result? 1 hour of wait for drinks, food plus another 30 minutes, and bill that did not reflect our consumption. A sign of progress via technology...sigh...Thus, I remembered the words of Dr. Mohd. Attaran, is technology  novelty then? Hmm....

So, technology is there to ease our life...it has a tendency to miscommunicate, and if it does communicate,we still need human presence to monitor the communication, as in the need of a cashier and a waiter in his or her 'organic' form in both scenarios depicted.

As in my case, I do carry digital money...as long as I have my organic form of it too...

The Brush with Future

The Brush with Future

I am always mesmerized with technology.  I will be at home at any shopping center with computer shops. The interest towards technology ticked all the way back when I was a young boy.

My father, who was then working with TELEKOM Malaysia, taught me the basis of technology.  I remembered the day that my father took me to his office. My eyes were wild looking at the machines and tools, trying to figure out which tool to fix which machine. Then I saw the tele-tax machine. It was a huge machine that produced a strip of paper with holes punched along the strip. My father told me that the strip of paper actually consist of information that could be deciphered to text. Like a young kid given a candy, I was given the chance to try out the machine. The deciphering slot was at the left of the machine, and after feeding the strip of punched holes into the hole, the herculean printer deciphered the nonsense looking paper into text. I was amazed. The concept of computer or technology was way out of my understanding at that point of time, however, it fueled my curiosity.

My first “digital” game in 1983 was the ping-pong game console, played via television. It is still considered as the classic gaming console, and was an affordable technology during that era. Represented with two white line left and right and a square dot moving from left to right, it was the in thing during that time.

In 1984, I was introduced to the first computer, a British made Sinclair Spectrum ZX Plus. It was the beginning of technology at that point of time, consist of a keyboard with on board CPU, and data was read through its Audio Cable connection to radio cassette player. It changed my life as it enabled colour based games and simple programmes to be displayed via television.  The programmes came in form of cassette, and data is read and transferred to the system. I could still remember the ping of the cassette, indicating that the computer was reading the programme. As any cassette at that time, moments of entangled ribbons in the radio cassette meant a very long down time.

As time passed, 486DX computer with VGA monitor was the mark of technology during the late 80’s to early 90’s. And the standard printer was the dot matrix printer, loud enough to wake the whole house up if you were printing assignments at 3am. That was the beginning of explosion in technology, television with more colours, Beta VHS player evolved to standard VHS player, Laser Disc, VCD, DVD and now the Blue Ray technology. Television from standard cathode ray tube evolved to Plasma, LCD, LED and the 3D technology. Internet that was earlier accessible from 56.6kb per second modem is now accessible through faster data transfer of 1MB via fiber optics or 4G wireless fidelity, and the list goes on.

Technology has transformed us into a more mobile data user, and the world exploded, literally. Just like the first time I saw the tele-text machine with great awe, I still at awe of what our future like. And that what makes me ticking...…