Self Initiated Post: The Media

Today, i want to talk about the media and its effects on the society.

Actually, the media plays a very big role in our lives, providing us with lots of information surrounds us sometimes without us even realising it. It has seemingly been weaved into our lives, and to most people has become something so normal and harmless. However, the media does have a dark side to it. It makes you think the way they want you to think. In fact, the media can very easily be manipulated by certain people to make people believe something, or think in a way that is beneficial for those certain people.

One example would be in China, where the spread of information is tightly monitored and controlled by the government. Any news that will give people a bad impression of the government will certainly not be published by the papers no matter how serious. Also, in China, google search results has been filtered so as to prevent people to search on the more sensitive topics in China. Yet, the people of China are not very bothered by this and just continues to accept the flow of information, which is in a way spreading propaganda.

This also happens in other countries as well, although maybe less severe.

Thus, i hope that after reading this article, you would not blindly believe everything you you read, but instead be able to think with an open mind and always question yourself, eg. who wrote this article, what is it trying to tell me, etc.

Class blogging topic 21/2

Can the machine ever replace the teacher?

In a nutshell, i guess the answer is a yes.

The technological industry is expanding at an astounding rate, there are many breakthroughs each year in chip, battery, and other kinds of technologies. I feel that in the future, chips would be able to process so quickly and efficiently that when programmed correctly, it would be able to be better than a human at anything, for example marking scripts, answering questions, or simply teaching. Eg.(Teachers do not know everything and will not be able to answer all of your questions, but the robot can always check online and give the most suitable answer.)

Some people may have the impression that robots are monotonous sounding and will be unable to discipline the class. Most of this can be overcome by simply programming the robot to execute certain commands, for example to use a more suitable voice or having built in controls and expressions for example to express anger to better discipline the students.

Also, humanoid robots could be used to replace the teachers as they look very much like humans, and this would make it easier for most people to accept robot teachers.

On the other hand, robots may not be able to fully replace teachers as they are just some things that they are unable to teach, for example certain values such as integrity or perseverance as they are not just to be taught, it must be demonstrated and used for it to be truly instilled into the mind of a student. In this case, human teachers would have to be put in place for such lessons. In the future, there would probably be a mix of robot and human teachers to teach students.

Class Blogging Topic: Where is the love

The song "Where is the love" by Black Eyed Peas discusses many of the world's current issues, which include terrorism, misleading media, the US government hypocrisy, racism, war, intolerance and greed.

I find the song very meaningful due to the large amount of issues discussed and it also strikes me as a shock as i initially did not realise the large amount of serious issues that are currently present in our world.

In the USA the big CIA the Bloodz and the Crips and the KKK
But if you only have love for your own race
Then you only leave space to discriminate
And to discriminate only generates hate
And if you hatin you're bound to get irate
Yeah madness is what you demonstrate
And that's exactly how anger works and operates

The lyrics from the songs depict a vicious cycle that goes on, caused by our acts of hatred, prejudice, and discrimination. When one person, for example a chinese only love other chinese, the person will inevitably look down on or discriminate against other races, which would cause the other races to have hate towards, which would then cause to to hate them even more, spawning a vicious cycle.

There are other social injustices, such as in Singapore, many people here look down on other immigrants that come here to work, as people feel that the immigrants are taking away their job. There is also prejudice against them as people have the impression that they are loud, aggressive and self centered people.

Self Initiated Post:Egyptian uprising

Self Initiated Post:Egyptian uprising

Recently, you may have heard the news about the Egypt Uprising which has sparked a huge amount of interest from other countries. It is also known as the Egyptian Revolution of 2011, whereby over millions of protesters from different backgrounds gathered and demanded the overthrow of the corrupt Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak as well as the democratic reform of the political system. The people were extremely unhappy with the inequality, where the income gap between the rich and the poor was extremely huge, as well as the lack of free elections and freedom of speech .However, majority of the people did not dare to protest due to the police repression and brutality.

What makes this event so widely reported is probably due to the scale of the event as well as how the people were courageous enough to protest against such a corrupted and powerful government. Also, what makes this protest so unique is that social networking sites such as twitter and facebook were used to mobilize the protesters and was what sparked the revolution.

The protest is still ongoing but the president Hosni Mubarak and the military controlling the Egyptian Government has finally stepped down, which has given a glimmer of hope to people living in countries where the government is corrupted and oprresive, and has influenced demonstrations in other Arab countries such as Yemen, Bahrain and Jordan. This could ultimately cause a revolution in which many countries would have a democratic reform and corruption would decrease by a huge amount.

Self Initiated Post:Hwa Chong Future School Program

Self Initiated Post:Hwa Chong Future School Program

What i feel about the Hwa Chong Future School Program:

Firstly, the future school program is basically a new approach to learning whereby students and teachers alike have to use a PC to access the web, where they can do and submit the assignments digitally. There are many benefits to this system:

(Note: this is just my opinion)

- In this modern society, more and more things are digital, and now much of our lives are spent in front of the computer ( facebook, games, research), in a way the future school program keeps up with the modern times and allows students to feel more at home

- Research can be carried out very easily online, and students will be able to access information very easily and is more efficient compared to asking peers or teachers to clarify doubts

- There are many great tools which are available online, for example google docs which allows an entire class to view a document at the same time and each student is able to individually edit the documents (eg. highlight good points) on the fly as well, allowing the class to learn together

Also , bubbl.us is a great free site where one can create colourful mind maps, great for organising your thoughts and creating notes

- Almost everything is streamlined, it is easier to multi task, share documents (eg. hotmail) and other things which would normally take much normal to do without computers, and the aforementioned reasons

However, it is not without its shortfalls. In school, the only way to access the internet is through the School's wifi, which sometimes can be incredibly slow.( Especially when an entire class tries to access the same website, the page can be really slow to load) Also, with access to the computer, students are able to access any games or websites such as facebook. Prime examples would be games such as Dota, battleon, mousehunt, farmville and minecraft. These would distract the students and decrease their productivity at times, an issue that has to be tackled for future school to be truly efficient and effective.

Non Grad Parents and Grad Parents

The newspaper article that I've read gave me the impression that Grad Parents( Parents who have graduated from universities) generally produce smarter kids who go into top schools while non grad parents rarely have kids that go into top schools..

I feel that there are quite a few reasons as to why some kids are able to do better in their studies. In my opinion, nature and nurture are both very important for a child to do well in their studies. Grad parents who are usually more intelligent will most likely have a intelligent child as well(Nature: Due to the genes being passed on), and he will be more likely to do well in his studies as compared to a child with non grad parents. However, there is another more crucial factor: nurture. If the child has been brought up with all right values and understands the need to work hard, he will almost undoubtedly do better than a gifted child who does not work hard. Ultimately, i feel that nurture is more important than nature, so do not give up hope just because you feel that you are less intelligent than your peers, hard work will overcome all difficulties.