The General Paper

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Facts from the UN’s HDR 2007/2008

Posted by: gimster on: February 25, 2008

The following are ‘Global Political, Economic, and Social Facts’ extracted from the UN’s Human Development Report 2007/2008 by the Infoplease website.

In the last two decades, political and civil rights have improved substantially throughout the [...]

How hard is GP?

Posted by: gimster on: January 18, 2008

I mentioned stumbling upon this blog post to one of my classes the other day, but couldn’t give a very clear account of it. So here’s a big block quote from it:

General Paper in JC: A very advanced form of English subject
For the purpose of discretion, the friend in discussion is not to be [...]

One Laptop Per Child

Posted by: gimster on: January 6, 2008

One Laptop Per Child
“It’s an education project, not a laptop project.”
— Nicholas Negroponte, architect and computer scientist, best known as the founder and Chairman Emeritus of Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab; the founder of The One Laptop per Child association

Quote of the day

Posted by: gimster on: December 30, 2007

Education makes a people easy to lead, but difficult to drive; easy to govern but impossible to enslave.
Baron Henry Peter Brougham, British politician, reformer, and lord chancellor, (1778-1868)

Innovation, Technology and Philanthropy

Posted by: gimster on: October 11, 2007

Heard of the One Laptop Per Child project? And its cool Give a Laptop and Get One idea?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20955583/
Or World Challenge, an annual global competition that seeks out projects and businesses that not only make a profit, but also put something back into the community.
http://www.theworldchallenge.co.uk/
And the INDEX prize:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20447426/
And:

Got any more to add?

Evaluation

Posted by: gimster on: July 20, 2007

For the Application Question, based on Bloom’s Taxonomy of cognitive skills
Has been defined as:

the ability to make a judgement about the value of something by using a standard;
ability to judge value for purpose; base on criteria; support judgment with reason. (No guessing)
the ability to evaluate a total [...]

An Inconvenient Truth

Posted by: gimster on: July 3, 2007

Have you seen the Oscar-winning documentary?
Read the range of reviews and user’s comments at metacritic.com
Check out the film’s website
While watching the movie (three times and counting), I drew this mind map:
which I exported in PDF format
and Jpeg,
using Freemind
Let me know if you want the mind map in the freemind format so [...]

ICT in Education

Posted by: gimster on: May 3, 2007

I presented this blog at a sharing session for the heads of departments for General Paper from the various junior colleges. (I’m not a HOD, by the way.) I said that I’d put up the powerpoint file with the bibliography so here it is.
the-latest-general-paper-blog.ppt
As part of the opening for the session the guys from Curriculum [...]

Standing on the shoulders of giants

Posted by: gimster on: April 27, 2007

I first got to know of this phrase as part of a quotation from Isaac Newton and I’ve actually posted it as one of my quotes of the day. You’ll find on Wikipedia many contemporary references to the phrase; the dialogue session I attended today reminded me of it.
It was a dialogue session between some [...]

International Friendship Day

Posted by: gimster on: April 9, 2007

In Singapore, according to this Ministry of Education Web page, we celebrate International Friendship on the third working Friday of term 2, which is this Friday for 2007. It might be interesting to note how the content on the page seems to have been written for local teachers, and that the observation of the occasion [...]

Oh, and by the way…

Posted by: gimster on: April 5, 2007

I was very pleasantly surprised to find that Bjornlee has linked this blog on this post, which also talks about Cosiety and SecondLife@VJC, and given Victoria Junior College the award of ‘The Most Blog-Friendly Junior College of Singapore‘.

Getting Started in Second Life

Posted by: gimster on: March 30, 2007

Followed the the link on the Second Life Education page <http://secondlife.com/businesseducation/education.php> and downloaded Proceedings of the Second Life Education Workshop at the Second Life Community Convention San Francisco
August 20th, 2006. This document contains several papers, including ‘Pathfinder Linden’s Guide to Getting Started in Second Life’, which seems to be just what I need for [...]

Dropping subjects

Posted by: gimster on: March 13, 2007

Isn’t it my job to observe and analyse controversy, but not court it?
Santokh Singh, formerly a teacher, says ‘Stop making our students drop subjects‘ in his New Paper column and traces the history of this phenomenon in Singapore, which has been discussed in Parliament recently.
The Off-Duty Ed., Xmac, ponders these issues in relation to [...]

Russians

Posted by: gimster on: September 25, 2006

In Europe and America,
There’s a growing feeling of hysteria
Conditioned to respond to all the threats
In the rhetorical speeches of the Soviets
Mr. Krushchev said we will bury you
I don’t subscribe to this point of view
It would be such an ignorant thing to do
If the Russians love their children too
How can I save [...]

Quote of the day

Posted by: gimster on: July 31, 2006

If I have seen further [than certain other men] it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.
Isaac Newton (1642–1727).
Letter to Robert Hooke,
February 5, 1675.
With reference to his dependency on
Galileo’s and Kepler’s work
in physics and astronomy.

Quote of the day

Posted by: gimster on: July 10, 2006

Tell me, I forget; show me, I remember; involve me, I understand.
Carl Orff (1895–1982), German composer and educator

Quote of the day

Posted by: gimster on: June 28, 2006

‘The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function’.
F. Scott Fitzgerald

Cartoons as snapshots of today’s issues

Posted by: gimster on: May 7, 2006

Using editorial cartoons to teach and learn GP or current affairs is not new, but I just stumbled upon a new, and probably quality and enduring, source. Here's a sample of two cartoons for the source:

Exploration

Posted by: gimster on: April 21, 2006

While I was in Hong Kong during the March vacation, I was finishing up my reading of Lou Marinoff's Plato, Not Prozac!
A friend had suggested earlier that I write something about the joy of travelling. It so happens that the book has this quotation:
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our [...]

A spot of fame, and a look back

Posted by: gimster on: April 20, 2006

According to the blog stats chart, this blog had 309 hits for the 24-hour period starting from 8AM (Singapore time) yesterday. The threefold increase from the previous record of 106 is in no small part due to Mr Miyagi's very kind feature of The General Paper in his column in TODAY (linked here for the [...]


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