My #CCK11 Talk - Sharing to Connect, Interact and Learn! View more presentations from Zaid Alsagoff This presentation explores openness in education, and my own journey embracing openness in what I discover and learn.It was presented (Elluminate session) during week 9 (Openness & Transparency) of the ’Connectivism & Connective Knowledge 2011' (CCK11) course facilitated by Stephen Downes and George Siemens.RECORDINGSFor those that want to recap or missed the session, here are the Elluminate and MP3 recordings:Elluminate RecordingMP3 AudioClick here to view all CCK11 Recordings.FEEDBACKBased on the feedback from Stephen, George, and the participants it seems like my online talk during CCK11 went reasonably well.I have infused some of the (positive) comments received into the cool mash-up graphic to the right.Overall, participants seemed to enjoy my cool graphics, informative slides, and found my voice (or me) to be passionate and full of enthusiasm.Looking back at 2010, one of my goals was to work on my voice to reflect my passion and enthusiasm for learning (enthusiasm is contagious!!!!), and based on this session... Mission Accomplished!But, what about the talk's substance? Mission 2011!Although, I am receptive to positive feedback (appreciate that!), I do have my own self-evaluation sensor, which at times can be pretty brutal and unrealistic. Though, this beast is also my secret and most powerful weapon to awesome learning, so I am not going to let it go. Instead, I will celebrate it with a receptive and reflective laugh!REFLECTIONI really enjoyed the online talk at CCK11, but I have to admit I was really exhausted after a 60-hour marathon, which included 1 lecture (Social Media & Web 2.0 for Learning), 2 workshops (IMU and UTHM in Batu Pahat), 2x4 hour (to and back driving) trips to Batu Pahat, and doing all this with a flu trying to cause havoc (Panadol and Vitamic C to the rescue)!But thank GOD I managed to somehow get through without too many bloopers and mistakes! Though, after listening back to my talk (MP3), I realize I said 'Amazing', an amazing amount of times (too vain to count).Also, my voice was stumbling more than usual ('Hm-ha'), which could be due to the fact that it was my first Elluminate session with my new MacBook Air (CTRL Vs Command! Touchpad!), or perhaps my limited brain power was just running out of fuel. Or could it be that especially the first part of my talk (Openness in Education), I explored areas that was not exactly my specialty, except for finding great learning resources. But then again, I always like to challenge myself, and felt that I wanted to cover it, as it was inline with the theme of the week (Openness & Transparency).Moreover, I had problems following smoothly the lively chat-board discussion while giving the talk (produced 3000+ words during the 1-hour session). But that is something I can easily improve with a bit of practice.In addition, I did mess up names as usual. For example, I said Stephen Downes when referring to George Siemens (on slide 31), in reference to the 'Open Education Open Debate' resource'. I suppose that is why I would be a really bad MC!Finally, I believe the 3 reflection scribbles on the Elluminate whiteboard (Openness in Education? Why share? Moodle wish?) was something the participants collaboratively enjoyed. Some participants even found time to scribble on the slides, especially Stephen and Wiley's faces when they occurred. I believe Stephen was the ultimate scribbler (No evidence to prove it, unless he admits), and no doubt he has artistic ability that needs to be nourished.Overall, I have no complaints, and the participants were absolutely fantastic. Also, George and Stephen didn't give me a hard time at all, which could be due to the fact that our views on openness in education are not so different. Yeah, I did praise and promote them a bit, and that surely didn't hurt their connective egos either.It was a great learning experience and adventure that is now completed (history!), and I am truly grateful to George and Stephen for giving me this opportunity.Thanks :)

Goldmine: 60 Informative Social Media InfographicsREALITY CHECK!When you first discover a social media infographics goldmine, you are like...WOW! Now, I can really spice up my presentations with some sizzling social media infographics to stimulate the audience. But, then you start to look at the statistics found in these infographics, and then you realize (I hope!) that much of the data shared are outdated and kind of useless (at the moment of discovery).Yes, the infographics look cool, but should coolness override showing relevant and updated data?The problem with many social media infographics is that the social media numbers are still radically changing, and will so for some time to come. For example, Facebook has around 650 million users now, but is expected to grow to 1 billion by 2012. Or worse yet, your super infographic shows 400 million Facebook users!So, can we find social media infographics that are built to last (at least for a year or two!)?FUTURE INFOGRAPHICS?For finding updated Facebook infographics/charts (not totally cool, but at least reasonably updated), Socialbakers is a great place to find tons of stats, including informative details on your country. But, you will still have to manually update your slides with the latest Facebook stats once a while to ensure that they are updated and still relevant.Wouldn't it be cool if you could use a dynamic plug-in or widget plucked into your presentation (PowerPoint/Keynote), which via the Internet could continuously keep your social media stats updated and relevant? Better yet, it allowed presenters to manipulate or play with the data, and then we could visually experience the process from inception to present, besides the final snapshot. Gapminder is a perfect example of how I would love my dynamic (social media) infographics to work.Another good example would be Gary's Social Media Count:Besides these three (3) examples above, I am pretty sure that there are many more dynamic social media infographics to discover and use, and that I hope YOU can share with US (Thank you!). I will add them below as we discover together.In a nut shell, dynamic infographics should:Provide easy access to continuously updated and relevant data/information.Have an embed feature (script/widget/plug-in) making it easy to add to our presentation (or website).Be self-updating every time you access the Internet.Show the changes over time (start to present) of what it is illustrating (if applicable).Enable us to manipulate the data/information (if applicable).Have you found any dynamic infographics that meet some, or all the criteria specified above? Now, that would be cool... PLEASE SHARE :)

I suppose a 36 second video clip would make more sense now:FLASHCARDSIn the video clip above, my wife is teaching baby Salma new words using voice narrated Flashcards. The cool thing about apps like My First Words, is that you can also record your own voice, and even create your own Flashcards. Cool!If you notice, baby Salma is not satisfied by simply watching passively my wife clicking the 'NEXT' button. Instead, she wants to grab the iPhone (Ownership), so that she can hold it and play with it herself. We all know what happens, when babies don't get what they want. However, what about students?In other words, when we teach or facilitate learning, we should perhaps provide more opportunities for students to explore learning, and take ownership of their own learning process, which is often more inspiring than being told what to do for 15 weeks per semester.99.999% of us love to learn, but how many of us like to be taught? Or have you ever been inspired to learn by following instructions?Think about it!LADYBUGBaby Salma simply loves Frank Leto's 'Ladybug Ladybug' Song, which she sings (and claps her hands) along in her own baby 'GAGA' language.Yes, what if we could learn boring stuff through songs and poetry? Wouldn't that be cool? Here is a reasonably convincing example:But then again, is it worthwhile spending so much time and effort to create 'a learning' song covering perhaps just one concept? I suppose we could instead empower students to create their own learning songs. Or perhaps they could mind map their learning into a rap song. I wouldn't mind a rap song teaching me history!TED TALKAlright, my baby Salma 36-second video clip and short reflection is not going to award me with giving a TED Talk. However, if I catch every moment of my daughter's life for the next 3 years using multiple cameras wired up in my house, requiring 20 terabytes of storage, so that I can understand how she learns a language... WOW! Too late! MIT researcher Deb Roy did just that, and then he (or his research team) parsed 90,000 hours of home video to watch his son "gaaaa" slowly turn into "water."In other words, it will be thrilling to listen to Salma's "Ta-Ta" turn into "Apple" over the coming days, weeks, or perhaps months. Perhaps the iPhone, or coming iPad 2 (to me!) might speed up the learning process.I skipped iPad 1, as I usually keep away from first versions of anything, but I will probably invest in iPad 2 when it comes to Malaysia (officially!). Based on my kids' (3) obsession to play games with iPhone, I suppose I will only be able to use the iPad for self-learning when they all are asleep!Although, I am no fan of having babies or young kids stuck in front of an iPhone or iPad (or mobile devices) all day (Hint: Radiation and Glasses!), I suppose a few minutes a day learning something useful won't harm too much. Would it?What do you think? :)

NamechkNamechk empowers you quickly to see if your desired username or vanity URL is still available at dozens of popular social media tools. You simply need to enter the desired username into the 'chk' box and then click. Voila, let the magic begin! WOW!In short, you can promote your brand consistently by registering a username that is still available on the majority of the most popular sites without wasting too much time. NICE!Although, I don't care too much about branding (my blog design might be a good hint!), this tool is really useful to speed up the process for checking available usernames on dozens of social media tools. I suppose the next time any marketing consultant charges you a bomb to check such stuff... tell them to fly a kite! :)

"MEdO will make Malaysia a leading brand in Asia for online higher education services and a one stop centre for learning, education and the administration of international students."- Datuk Seri Mohd Khaled Nordin (Minister for Higher Education)Last Saturday (16th April, 2011), I attended the "Majlis Pelancaran Dasar e-Pembelajaran Negara (DePAN), Buku-Buku e-Pembelajaran dan Malaysia Education Online (MEdO)" event launched by Datuk Seri Mohd Khaled Nordin (Minister for Higher Education).It turned out to be a very exciting and enriching learning experience for me, and here are my discoveries and reflections...MALAYSIA EDUCATION ONLINE (MEdO)Malaysia Education Online (MEdO) is part of the Malaysia Government Transformation Plan (GTP) to expand international distance learning. MEdO is an online learning platform delivering education programmes from Malaysian universities, colleges, polytechnics and training institutes. It is the gateway for them to extend their global outreach whilst each participating institution is able to maintain its identity and uniqueness (more).MEdO is initiated and led by Asia e University (AeU), which is the selected gateway university (by PEMANDU) for international education for distance and online learning. Six other Malaysian universities and institutes have already signed up to offer programmes on MEdO.The MEdO platform itself is based on a fusion of Joomla and Moodle with some customization to suit its needs and requirements. As many universities are already using Moodle, it could speed up the learning curve (familiar environment) and adoption by educators that will be required to use it.It will be interesting to see how this project unfolds. Let's be positive about it :)E-BOOKS Besides MEdO, the National E-Learning Policy (Dasar e-Pembelajaran Negara) for Higher Education Institutions, and two books (and one translation) about e-Learning in Malaysian Higher Education were launched.Here we go:National E-Learning Policy for Higher Education Institutions (will add the link when made available) e-Pembelajaran di IPTA Malaysia (Issuu version)This e-book provides great insights into how especially public Universities in Malaysia are using e-learning to facilitate learning and teaching. It includes 20 University papers sharing their e-learning stories.Amalan, Keberkesanan & Cabaran Pelaksanaan e-Pembelajaran di IPT Malaysia (Issuu version)The English version is below...e-Learning in Malaysian Higher Education Institutions: Status, Trends & Challenges (Issuu version)Will be discussed next...Unfortunately the National E-Learning Policy (No link yet) and e-Pembelajaran di IPTA Malaysia are not yet translated (or published) into English. Anyway, you could always use Google Translator Toolkit, and then decipher the parts that are poorly translated into English.E-LEARNING IN MALAYSIAN HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONSI have to admit I was thrilled to discover the e-Learning in Malaysian Higher Education Institutions: Status, Trends & Challenges publication during the event. Actually, I couldn't wait and was reading it furiously during Datuk Seri Mohd Khaled Nordin's speech (please don't tell!), and what struck me most was all the juicy statistics (Yes, I just love that!) about what was going on in Higher Education in Malaysia, and the simple language used to describe the survey results and findings.Also, the three (3) questionnaires (E-Learning Admin, Lecturer and student) used for this research were comprehensive and easy to understand (Check Appendices/page 123). The findings in the book is based on 7,962 survey respondents (26 e-Learning administrators, 1,635 lecturers and 6,301 students) from a sample of 30 Malaysian Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), comprising of 20 public HEIs, 7 private HEIs, and 3 polytechnics. As four (out of 7) e-Learning Admins from the private Universities did not participate, I suppose we could generalize that the findings mostly represent what is going on in the public HEIs in Malaysia.Before I dwell more, I would like to introduce you to Prof Dr Mohamed Amin Embi, who was the chief editor for all the three books mentioned above. He was also the first recipient of the prestigious National Academic Award 2006, and the recipient of the distinguished ISESCO Science Laureate 2010. In other words, he is a pretty interesting guy to know. So, next time you want to know more about e-Learning in Malaysian HEIs, who are you going to call? Simple answer: Prof Dr Mohamed Amin EmbiWe have met a couple of times, but I suppose I need to bug him more from now on. Actually, I bugged him through e-mail a few days back to publish these 3 books on Issuu or Scribd, and within a couple of days they were published on both. Great guy!Yes, he has also summarized nicely the key findings of each chapter in the book, and then published them on SlideShare. So, instead of summarizing the book, I can focus next on providing some of my own insights and reflections to what has been published.Let's rumble...Chapter 2: e-Learning Policy e-Learning policy View more presentations from Mohamed Amin Embi Here are few questions we should perhaps ask before even thinking about formulating or requiring HEIs to have e-learning policies:Do we need to have e-learning policies to make e-learning work for us?Who should be involved in formulating e-learning policies (all stakeholders, including students)?How detailed should e-learning policies be (any template)?Can e-learning policies have a negative impact on implementing e-learning?Should the Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE) have a mechanism to enforce all HEIs to have e-learning policies?Dealing with e-learning policies is a very tricky issue, and cannot be taken lightly. Actually, sometimes e-learning policies can be self-destructive and curb innovations in teaching and learning. Imagine if we have an e-learning policy stating that, "All e-learning content must be SCORM-Compliant". A few years back, this might sound totally reasonable, but any enlightened learning professional today would know that a lot of amazing learning resources (and top Universities) don't care much about SCORM, and are shared in the spirit of Open Courseware (OCW) or Open Educational Resources (OER).So, e-learning policies is something that all HEIs should explore, but we have to be careful, and strive to find the right balance so that they empower people to learn and innovate, instead of becoming an obstacle to moving forward.Chapter 3: e-Learning Governance e-learning governance View more presentations from Mohamed Amin Embi According to the survey results, the two main challenges related to the e-Learning governance are shortage of staff (84.5%) and lack of incentives provided by the HEIs to those responsible for implementing e-Learning (69.2%).So, no doubt HEIs need to invest more in quality staff, and be creative about providing incentives (e.g. less administration and more time to think!) that inspire educators to take the effort to transform their own learning and teaching. It is strange that institutions can spend millions and millions on hardware, networks and software, but when it comes to investing in quality people and paying competitive salaries with the industry; It is so difficult!In short, HEIs need to rethink their hiring and salary policies to capture the great talent that is out there, but are very reluctant to work in HEIs. Also, HEIs need to learn from creative companies like Google, Apple and Zappos on how to build working environments that empowers and inspires people to express their potential. Challenging, but certainly possible :)Chapter 4: Learning Managements Systems Learning Management Systems View more presentations from Mohamed Amin Embi Interestingly, All (100%) HEIs that participated had their own Learning Management System (LMS), and more than half (57.7%) of the HEIs used Open Source Platforms, while 34.6% used purchased commercial LMS, and the remaining 15.4% were developed on their own. In this survey, Moodle beat Blackboard (12 - 2) impressively, but if we were to include more private HEIs the results would be a bit darker :)Though, from a learning point-of-view, we need to increasingly look beyond the LMS (they just cannot keep up with disruptive innovations taking place), as increasingly learning will take place outside in the web 2.0 (3.0/x.0) and social media worlds in the form of personal learning environments tailored to what learners and educators really want. Here is a crash course: Social Media & Web 2.0 for Learning (2nd Edition) View more presentations from Zaid Alsagoff Chapter 5: e-Learning Training e-learning training View more presentations from Mohamed Amin Embi Sadly, only one-third (34.6%) of the HEIs provide exposure to Web 2.0 applications. Though, I foresee a huge growth in the coming years of educators using Social media and web 2.0 (3.0 and x.0) beyond the LMS to facilitate more engaging and relevant learning with their students.It will also be interesting to see how institutions deal with copyright and privacy issues, when educators and students increasingly use tools such as Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, YouTube, Wikis, etc.Are you prepared for that? Don't wait! It is happening already!Chapter 6: e-Content Development e-content development View more presentations from Mohamed Amin Embi The main applications used for e-Content development are Flash (92.3%), followed by Articulate (46.3%), Adobe Captivate (38.3%), Camtasia Studio (30.8%), Lecture Maker (15.42%), and Interactive Raptivity Builder ( 15.4%).One word: Ouch! Hopefully, Apple will come to its senses and allow Flash to run smoothly on an iPad, iPod or iPhone. Unless Steve Jobs retires soon that might take some time. Though, let's hope that browsers will have auto-converters, or that Flash is updated to meet all Steve Jobs requirements, otherwise e-content developed in Flash would be useless on Apple-based mobile devices. Luckily, Flash-based content works on Androids :)The five major challenges faced by most HEIs are lack of motivation among the academic staff (65.4%), lack of specialists (53.80%), lack of a dedicated team to develop e-Content (53.8%), lack of commitment among academic staff (46.2%), and lack of funding/budget (46.2%).Why are not academic staff motivated or committed to develop e-content? If you are already overloaded with administration, research, publication and teaching obligations, you are not going to be inspired to develop e-content for your students without some seriously good reasons.Incentives could help (e.g. one e-content module = 1 publication in a high impact journal), but you still need to find the time. In Chapter 10 (page 119), it is proposed that common university courses could be developed jointly by a centre under the Ministry of Higher Education, as this is a more efficient use of resources, time, money, and manpower, while maintaining an acceptable level of quality.In a nutshell, we could establish Malaysia's first official ‘Open Courseware’ initiative, which would enable all HEIs to have access and reuse (hopefully remix) freely common University courses. By doing so, then HEIs can streamline their resources to build unique e-content for their unique courses.Based on the survey, the copyright issue is also a big problem faced by the majority (80.8%) of Malaysian HEIs in the development of e-Content. What to do? Forget Copyright, Practice Copyleft Instead!Actually, we need to rethink our obsession with e-content development, and be more obsessed with designing relevant and engaging learning environments/spaces, where authentic learning activities play a larger role than (spoon-feeding) e-content and courseware.Instead, HEIs students should be empowered and nurtured with the necessary learning skills to find their own content based on the learning outcomes set, or we could expose them to a variety learning resources (for each topic) and then require them to analyze, evaluate, synthesize, and then create their own contextualized meaning.We want to develop independent lifelong learners. The e-content or courseware (spoon-feeding) model is an easy shortcut to enable them to pass the exam, but perhaps not the best way to nurture the necessary skills required for them to thrive in the 21st century.Finally, educators need to learn the art of aggregating, filtering and remixing content from a variety of resources using a variety of learning tools out there. In a nutshell, think beyond e-content development, and focus more on nurturing educators to build sizzling learning activities and spaces for students.In short, only develop e-content when it does not exist, or it can be synthesized or presented in a more engaging and meaningful way :)Chapter 7: Integration of e-Learning in Teaching & Learning integration of e-learning in teaching & learning View more presentations from Mohamed Amin Embi According to the survey findings, lecturers' two major challenges to integrate e-Learning in their teaching and learning, is trying to balance between teaching and research (59.8%) and time constraints (54.9%). Interestingly, technophobia (13%) was the least responsible challenge among the challenges faced by lecturers in order to integrate e-Learning.For students, the two major challenges is lack of access (53.4%), and feedback from lecturers takes too long (42.8%). By focusing less on developing e-content, lecturers will have more time to interact with their students, and construct more interactive and engaging learning environments. If we can be replaced by a courseware, then we should be replaced.To no surprise, most lecturers (50.1%) prefer to upload materials on a weekly basis before the classes begin. Noteworthy, most students (84.7%) prefer to read the materials offline rather than online. The challenge comes when students have printed out the uploaded slides before their class (often weeks in advance), and then find out during the lecture that the slides have been updated. What do you do? Establish an e-learning policy forcing them to upload their slides at least one week before...Not a good idea! Call me to elaborate :)On a positive note, this is a problem of today, and probably won't even exist in 3-5 years' time. Why? By then most students will be reflecting their slides on their mobile devices in the form of iPads, Kindles, Galaxy, etc.Chapter 8: Quality Assurance Quality Assurance in e-Learning View more presentations from Mohamed Amin Embi How do we ensure that our e-learning implementations are of quality? How do we ensure that our conventional learning approaches are of quality? Do we look at the drop-out rates? Or perhaps the students satisfaction levels? What about using the students' assessment results as a measure of success?On page 119, the guidelines on e-Content standards that were developed collaboratively by CEMCA (Commonwealth of Educational Media Centre for Asia) and MOHE is recommended to be distributed and followed by all Malaysian HEIs in order to control the quality of e-Learning materials available at the tertiary level.I disagree in using these guidelines as the standards, but it could be used as a good reference guide, like so many other guidelines out there. Personally, I don't even like the expression 'Best Practices', but instead prefer 'Good Practices'. The reason is that there is simply too much innovation and exploration still needed to be done, before we can settle down with any form of standards in E-Learning. Let's celebrate 'Good Practices' out there, and learn from them to create our own contextualized 'Good Practices'.We want standards, but standards are often the biggest enemy to creativity and innovation. Let's not forget that!THE FUTURE?Not surprisingly implementing mobile learning is a priority (92.3%), according to the survey findings. Interestingly, lecturers (67%) and students (76.8%) believe that HEIs should give priority to Intelligent Tutoring Systems as compared to other applications.Strangely enough, lecturers (23.4%) and students (19.4%) place podcasting applications as the lowest in terms of priority. Maybe it is just me, but I would prefer listening and reflecting to a great lecture over a courseware anytime of the day, no matter how interactive it may be. I suppose I am a bit weird!If you don't have time to read the whole book, just read chapter 9 (summary) and 10 (recommendations), which will provide sufficient insights to see the big picture. Though, I would strongly recommend to enjoy all the diagrams, charts and stats spread over 120 pages.So, what can we expect next?Based on the suggestions given in the book (page 120), MOHE will probably soon establish 'The National Institute of e-Learning', a centre of excellence for e-Learning, that can conduct and coordinate research on e-Learning, particularly in terms of the impact of e-Learning on student achievement.Let's hope the National Institute of e-Learning becomes an inspiring light that empowers and sparks sizzling e-learning at all HEIs.Will I be involved?Only God knows at this moment :)

Watching or playing with anything in Flash Format on an iPad (iPhone or iPod) was impossible (as far as I know) in the past. Well, now you can at least view Flash stuff on an iPad using the app called iSWIFTER (Source).HOW?Here we go:Click here to keep yourself updated with latest discussions about Articulate on iPads.STILL TROUBLESOME!Alright, it is still troublesome, but I suppose within the next few months Steve Jobs will figure out that supporting Flash is not so bad after all (Otherwise most e-learning content in Malaysia will be useless on an iPad). Or perhaps Adobe (behind Flash) figures out a way to please all Steve Jobs requirements to make Flash safe and smooth in an Apple world.As for now, you will have to use apps like iSWIFTER to explore your Articulate presentations on an iPad. Let's hope that Apple embraces Flash fully in the near future. If not, then we have to find creative solutions, because certainly it will be tough to learn without an iPad or iPhone in the future.But, how do we view Articulate presentations on an iPhone? Can anyone enlighten us with possibilities? :)

"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world."- Nelson MandelaProfessor Thomas Baker wrote an insightful blog post recently about why the Finnish education system rocks, and included 5 YouTube videos sharing more insights and secrets behind their success.I did share some secrets about the Finnish education system way back in 2009, and although I have discovered more interesting things about this awesome learning ecosystem, I am going to refrain from spilling it out here, and have decided to dedicate this post to harvest a juicy collection of videos providing more authentic insights.This collection will hopefully be useful for you (and me), as the craze around the world to discover the Finnish education system is increasingly becoming a (wrestle) mania.Finally, I will be adding new insightful videos about the Finnish education system as I discover them, and please share insightful videos that I might have missed out. In other words, don't hesitate to revisit this post :)THE FINNISH EDUCATION SYSTEM (VIDEO COLLECTION)Here we go: Watch the full episode. See more Need To Know.More insightful videos?Ingredients of the World's Best Education System, Pasi Sahlberg (22 min)The Politics of Finnish Education (Jukka Sarjala, chairman Finnish National Board of Education)Finland's Ambassador Lintu - Why Finland Schools Succeed (35 sec)Teachers Key to Finland Education Success (32 sec)Who's No.1 in Education? (11 min)Schools in Finland (8 min)If you have any other videos about why the Finnish education system rocks, please don't hesitate to share them (in the comments section)...will add them above. Thanks!All (Finnish education insights)-in-one post :)

WOW! Mum (Nadia Alsagoff), I have to admit I am totally struck by your 'Shimmering Realities' collection! As a result, I want to dedicate this post to my Mum who has inspired me to appreciate art through her passionate lifelong journey as an artist.Although, I am not the kind of person that would spend hours in an art gallery, I do appreciate and understand the kind of work and challenges so many artists have to go through in life. Being an artist sounds great and fun, but making a living as an artist is certainly not an easy task.SHIMMERING REALITIESMy Mum retired late last year from her day-to-day work, and has now more time to dedicate to her lifelong passion. Over the last decade or so, most of my Mum's work has been expressed in the form of abstract art, but recently she has rediscovered her passion to paint animals and nature.Actually, this has surprised me, because her eyesight is not exactly great (and has certainly not improved over the years). Also, I am not sure how effective her current glasses are either. I can still remember an incident a few years back, when she walked head on into a street light. Another time, when I was a kid, she walked straight past me on the street without recognizing me.Though, she could have been day dreaming on both occasions. I remember once, I cut my lip walking past a statue. It was night time, and I didn't notice that the statue or man was pointing his arm and finger towards my direction. I suppose we both are a bit clumsy (understatement)! Or perhaps it is an inherited ability to 'day dream' in potentially dangerous situations.So, what I am really trying to say is that I am amazed and in awe that she can still paint such amazing paintings of realism. Alright, I will stop writing now, and share with you five gems from this 'Shimmering Realities' collection:I especially love the Cheetah one. The Cheetah's eyes (of curiosity) and facial expression leaves us to our imagination to figure out its' real intention (Yummy!).Interestingly, Mum has used Facebook to share her latest art, though it is only viewable to her friends (if I am not mistaken). Click here to check (if you are interested to discover more of her work)!Hopefully, you enjoyed Mum's paintings, I certainly did. Thank you!Mum, you are AMAZING in so many ways :)

Click here to download the BrochureFacebook Event PageThe International Medical University (IMU) is organizing an e-learning seminar on July 5 (2011), entitled "Transformative e-Learning in Higher Education". It will be held in the Senate Room, 2nd Floor, IMU Campus, Bukit Jalil. OVERVIEWThis seminar brings together five experts in education and e-learning to share their ideas, experiences and best practices on how we can use e-learning to transform the way we learn and teach in higher education. They will explore a variety of areas essential to construct transformative learning experiences covering instructional design, online facilitation and assessment, personal learning environments, and e-learning quality and governance. Date: 5 July, 2011 (Tuesday)Time: 8.30 am - 5.15 pmVenue: IMU Bukit Jalil, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia SPEAKERS Prof Dato’ Dr Ansary AhmedPresident / CEO, Asia e UniversityAssoc Prof David M. KennedyDirector, Teaching and Learning Centre, Lingnan UniversityProf Rozhan M. IdrusProfessor of Open & Distance Learning & Technogogy, USMProf Dato’ Dr Jai MohanDirector, Learning Resources, International Medical UniversityZaid Ali AlsagoffE-Learning Manager, International Medical University KEY TOPICS Instructional DesignPersonal Learning EnvironmentsCurriculum Design & ManagementE-Learning Quality & Governance LEARNING OBJECTIVES At the end of this seminar, you will be able to: Apply effective instructional design principles to your learning environments.Adopt effective online facilitation and assessment strategies to engage and assess your learners.Build your personal learning environments using social media and web 2.0 tools.Identify and discuss essential e-learning quality and governance issues. TARGET AUDIENCE AcademicsE-Learning ProfessionalsIT ProfessionalsInstructional Designers Registration Fee: RM650Early Bird Registration: RM500(Before 8 June) If you are interested to attend, please download this form. It includes all the registration and contact details required to attend. Transformative e-Learning in Higher Education Looking forward to your participation!

Web 2.0 Tools in Education: A Quick Guide by Mohamed Amin Embi The best quick guide (230 pages) for 'Web 2.0 Tools in Education' that I have come across (Ever!). 230 pages sounds a lot, but when you are covering 20 learning tools with screenshots, it is pretty quick and lovingly light!Useful? I certainly think so!