Kable.MY - Malaysia's Premiere Instructional Technology Website

Kable.MY

"This website provides the latest news, articles and tutorials on emerging technologies for educational purposes, and serves as a hub for educators to congregate and share ideas that can be put into practice. It is hoped that this website will be on the forefront of Malaysia's instructional technology and inspire educators to use technologies to enhance their instructions."

NEW!
19 hours ago, I got a pleasant e-mail from Hafiz Hanif, who invited me to visit his new Kable.MY website. I was also invited to be a freelance writer for the website, but I told him instead of being a freelance writer, why not use whatever you like from ZaidLearn, and then link back to the original post (article). The reason is that whatever I write to share (to anyone), I will post it on ZaidLearn (First!). Anyway, this post is not about ZaidLearn, but about this awesome Kable.MY website that I just discovered, thanks to Hafiz Hanif.

Although, Kable.MY is still brand new, and probably needs some time to build up a substantial collection of awesome articles (unless they reuse with attribution and permission from great Edubloggers out there), I am really impressed with the website design, and the first few articles too are very useful and relevant.



INSPIRING!
Also, I like their team's learning philosophy and spirit:

"We are a bunch of normal educators like you, with the enthusiasm to provide the latest and fun ways to teach students, to inspire them with the use of technologies that are often regarded as a separate entity from our instructional strategies. Here, we share our thoughts on how to integrate technologies into your everyday teaching and learning activities, and how to understand the design of certain applications, how to re-purpose the applications to suit our educational needs, and how to get control over our own methodological strategies (Source)."

Yes, certainly a good start! The challenge is to keep that volcanic creative eruption continuously flowing, and if the passion and focus is there... WOW, this could evolve into something really special!

Thinking of it, after being inspired by Kable.MY's awesome website design, I believe it is time to relook and rethink the website design of ZaidLearn, which has not really changed much since its inception. But then again, neither has Google's homepage either. But, then again I have yet to find that swoosh factor that fits ZaidLearn's flavor and content. One thing for sure, I would want the revamped website to infuse a lot of (white) dreaming space free from anything.

I believe it is time to erupt some changes soon...Need another 102 days to think about it!

Kable.MY, thanks for this inspiring website, and hopefully it will inspire more educators in Malaysia to share their learning stories and tips. Yes, why not :)

The One Stop Learning Blog

ONE STOP LEARNING

"As I have progressed along my journey as an educator, I have come to better appreciate that teaching is about sharing—sharing what I have learned with others, including the public at large. This blog is my expression, my way of sharing my passion on the issue of teaching and learning, lifelong learning and education in general. It is also intended as a repository of resources related to teaching and learning. This is my humble attempt to put together useful links, articles, websites, presentations, videos, etc. in one place -- for my own reference and for those who are interested to learn more about teaching and learning...more"

- Professor Karim (Universiti Sains Malaysia)

I am always thrilled to discover new edublogs from educators in Higher Education in Malaysia passionate about sharing their learning discoveries and journeys. This blog by Prof. Karim has already been around since November 2010, so it is not totally new, but without doubt worth sharing here. Interestingly, we met during a workshop (National E-Learning Road Map) late last year (2010), and have since communicated through Twitter (@biopolimer) and e-mail, but ironically I didn't really discover his juicy blog until today.

As the One Stop Learning blog is also Prof. Karim's own reference for learning discoveries on teaching and learning, means that his motivation to keep it going goes beyond hits and fame, which is important to keep it rolling until the world discovers this gem of a blog. Besides being self-motivated to share, it is always great to know that you have readers and people willing to challenge your ideas and thoughts. If he can keep it up (like now!), I am pretty sure that this blog will achieve just that as it explores and grows.

In short, why not visit...I shall say no more... just CLICK HERE :)

Ruzaimi's Free Drawing Lessons Inspires Me to Sketch!

• Free Drawing Lesson (blog)
• The Star - Prolific Artist (Article)

WHO?

Ruzaimi Mat Rani is currently lecturing at the Faculty of Architecture and Environmental Design, International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM). He has been interested in art and design ever since he was in primary school, and has over the years evolved into a master in pen and pencil sketching (especially landscapes) and has got his share of rewards and recognitions for it. Click here and here to know more about that.

WHAT?

Now, he has gone one step further and has created a blog to share his sketching knowledge and skills to people around the world. He has entitled the blog, "FREE DRAWING LESSON(S)". Here you will find pictures of many of his sketches (samples mashed-up above), and videos illustrating the drawing process, or how he goes about sketching these drawings. These short (1-2 minute) videos are juicy learning nuggets to get a quick idea on how you can sketch stuff such as gardens, buildings, rooms, furniture, and so on. But...

HOW?

How does he create such videos?
He is uses the stop motion technique where he combines the scan processed pictures into a motion picture. He basically scans every step of the sketching process and then saves the scanned pictures into JPEG format (100+ pictures). Then, he uses Windows Movie Maker to combine the pictures together into a stop motion picture.


REFLECTION

Oh man, that is a lot of tedious work for a short learning nugget (you need real patience and passion to do such things). Let me just say this,

"I respect Ruzaimi for his excellent art work, but I admire him for sharing it to the world for free."

I hope more educators in Malaysia and Asia come out of the copyright closet and join the Copyleft and Creative Commons revolution, and engross the OER (Open Educational Resources) movement. Let's face it, most educators are not going to make much money doing the copyrighted stuff. And we will not become irrelevant if we do share our knowledge or content on the Internet (Hoarding knowledge is the old school! Sharing knowledge is power and the way to go!).

Actually, it makes more sense to share our ideas and knowledge to the world using the Internet and all the excellent free learning tools available to us today. It requires our additional time, but the potential fruits are amazing if we really think about it.

For example, by sharing our ideas and knowledge online, we could trigger unexpected connections and feedback from professionals (and learners), which will trigger us to reflect back what we have shared, and refine and improve further. That point alone is exciting enough for me!

If you are really good, you might even be invited to speak, or conduct workshops in places you perhaps have never heard of. Yes, you might even make more money than going down the copyright road.

There are many more benefits for sharing our knowledge and contents online, but if you ask me:

Educators should share their knowledge and content to the world for free (unless their livelihood depends on it), because it is the right thing to do.

With the Internet and easy-to-learn/use authoring tools we can potentially educate people all over the world (through the internet, mirror sites, or downloaded content), and help those that are not so fortunate out there.

Yes, you don't need to spend millions on a commercial LMS, or additional millions on developing courseware that includes flying ducks and dogs with bells and whistles. Why not simply start with a blog, just like Ruzaimi did.

Finally, let's spread stories like Ruzaimi's one to the world using our twitters, blogs, wikis, etc. It would be nice to see educators attract hits and viewing numbers like the Britney Spears and Jungle Jims'.

Besides creating content, let's promote the excellent work of our fellow educators :)

Edunovice Offers Affordable Tutorial Services

• edunovice
• Home Tutor Malaysia (blog)

ONLINE LEARNING CENTER
Edunovice is a new online learning center for anyone who is fond to learn Math. Currently they are only distributing online Math exercises and reading materials for students who are in Form 1 to Form 3. Edunovice also plays its part to help local publishers, tutors and advertisers to benefits from our Math community.

VISION

• Edunovice hopes to provide the best reading materials/notes to students and adults around the world.
• Edunovice strive to provide the cheapest and Free Online resources to our community within years to come.
• Building up a math community worldwide to have passion for math.

MISSION

• Make it Cheap / Free For Everyone.
• Build a community where everyone can contribute
• Provides Online material for everyone from all ages.
  

OPPORTUNITIES

Edunovice also provides opportunity for home tutors, local/international books publisher to take advantage to promote products, conduct seminars and advertising in our websites. They are committed to bring the best to everyone.

INTERESTING!
If you register, they provide you for starters with some free maths and physics notes. Their learning concept is rather straight forward: Learn through examples and exercises.

Isn't that what we want! If you are interested in online tutoring services, why not check it out. Just click here :)

eLearning .....? I've had E-Nough!! (Rozhan Idrus)

• Link to 'eLearning .....? I've had E-Nough!!' Blog
• Related Post - Technogogy

NEW BLOG?
"I can't stand it anymore .. I have to do this. Call me what you like .. but looks like I have to jump on the bandwagon as well ... so here goes another blog about e-learning ..my version, of course... Sometimes I find it absolutely comical when I hear people complaining about the 'quality' of education on the Internet, when no one ever bothered to scrutinise the 'quality' of face to face teaching .. We are so bothered whether students actually log online to view our notes when we don't even recognise the 200-odd students in our lecture (face to face) ... such dichotomy .. The funniest thing is that .. it is as though there is someone else to be blamed for what is not working with elearning or whatever learning you care to mention!! Who is to be blamed ?? If a lecture is boring - who made it boring?? If a lecture or teaching experience is captivation, who made it so?? YOU!!"

THE ART OF LEARNING!
Anyone who has witnessed one of Prof. Rozhan M. Idrus talks, had discussions with him, or read his articles and papers, would have surely enjoyed his unique style of making sense using humour, illustrations, cartoons (like the one above!), striking examples, and mind stimulating reflections and thoughts. Yes, he has this great ability to stimulate both the cognitive and affective mind when making a point.

I suppose his 22 years experience in distance learning, and his background in instructional design has powered him with a few tricks and stories to strike a point, and facilitate effective learning.

Yeah, he is also the mastermind behind Technogogy, which is currently defined as "the convergence of technology, pedagogy and content in the transformative use of technology to foster learning."

It will be interesting to see how Rozhan's new e-Learning blog evolves. The only thing to worry about is his amazing 'right brain' habit of easily getting bored and too-many-tasking (Been there, done that!), and then suddenly moving on to a new learning adventure (and galaxy!). However, I believe he has hit a juicy learning nail with this blog (including the title!), and it will hopefully inspire him to continue to share his vast experience in distance learning, e-learning and education.

Yeah, wherever this BROTHER is reflecting and sharing his learning ideas and experiences, I will also be eagerly following, reading, reflecting and learning. Hopefully, in the future we can meet more often and have virtual and face-to-face tea-break discussions. Oh, I forgot I don't drink tea! I suppose I will drink pure water to clear my mind, so that I can absorb and reflect his ramblings of learning wisdom :)

Christopher's Corner - A New Learning Blog in Town!

• Link to 'Christopher's Corner'

"I am putting down in my blog what I learnt in my 10 years as a trainer. I have delivered courses in classroom, created web based courses, coached via face to face, email and other means. Now I believe I have acquired new ideas and skills that will enhance the way I deliver training programs. But what I put down here is not something that is perfect and I know if I put it down here and there are people who can comment, I will learn more." - Christopher Chew

Christopher Chew (from Maxis) has recently set up his own learning blog, where he will be sharing his learning discoveries, knowledge, and experiences in facilitating training and e-learning in Malaysia. Here is his first experience sharing advice: How to Develop, Design and Deliver a Learning Course (Part 1)

I have been fortunate to meet and interact with Christopher a couple of times recently during e-learning workshops (Stephen Downes & Brian Chapman). And based on our interactions and discussions, I believe he will be one of the prominent e-Learning experts (in Malaysia) in the coming years, especially in the corporate learning sector. If you haven't heard of him yet, I suppose you will!

Hopefully, he keeps himself motivated to continue posting regularly in his learning blog (as people begin to discover his learning adventure!). It is always hard in the beginning, but when it becomes a habit, you can't stop! If you are good, sooner or later people will notice your contributions and spread the word (Already doing it!). Christopher, good luck on your learning adventure! :)