Friday, May 30, 2008

The critical thinking panel discussion I attended today raised an interesting issue: how do we teach critical thinking at secondary school level, and why should we even bother since the 'O' level exam doesn't actually test such an ability?

And suddenly I'm asking myself, "doesn't it?" And then I recalled that in the ten years plus I spent in primary and secondary education, I was simply fed material to memorize and got graded according to how closely I reproduced said material at the exams. Not very well, I'm afraid.

That's a fine and efficient way to ensure the kids do well when their annual results come out. After all, how else could my teachers deal with 40 screaming kids in a classroom apart from making us all sit down and shut up while she delivered the next set of predigested facts from the syllabus to a literally captive audience?

It's the same with the most revered TYS with kids faithfully practicing answering past questions as if the same questions will repeat themselves year after year. Success for them means recalling the answer closest to the answers at the back of the book, and they're satisfied that they've done the work expected of them.

Which is true: that is a lot of work, although not necessarily a lot of thinking, so the learning turns out to be somewhat limited. Then the more successful kids step up to college level and wonder why their scores for GP are scraping borderline when in sec school they were the pride and joy, the creme de la creme of their beloved alma mater. The next level for them is quite a large gap to bridge, and it's hard to convince them that their previous secrets to success were actually bad habits, and they need to trade in the old comfortable ways for new ones that are more difficult to master, but work better in the long term.

There was this couple of independently raised examples from two of our panellists: Prof Mo said that he had once observed a 7 year-old repeatedly jumping as high as he could go because he was testing a theory that his teacher had proposed to him: The Earth rotates around the sun. So, the boy reasoned that if he were to jump high enough, the earth would rotate under him and he would land in a different spot from where he had taken off. While there were certain flaws in his assumptions leading him to conclude that because he landed in the same spot every time, his teacher must be wrong, it shows that even little kids have some critical thinking ability and they already can exercise it in their observations of life around them.

Contrast this example with the one Ken raised: his 16-17 year-old students consider critical thinking and philo classes a waste of time 'cos there's no 'O' level paper on the subject. They don't like to think, they say, 'cos it's too hard. Save them time, just give them the answers and they will gladly memorize the material with the time saved.

So, what happened to turn the curious 7 year-old into the jaded, pragmatic 17 year-old? 10 years of education for the masses, perhaps? Fortunately, the fact that we are having discussions such as this one shows that the industry is making inroads into overhauling the old ways. Soon, I hope.

Oh, btw, the venue for the panel discussion brought back some good memories for me. I wandered those old corridors back then as a student. Even though that old institution has since been replaced by this current one, the campus is still mostly the same. But I wasn't there long as a student -- well, long enough to develop my first serious crushes on my girl classmates but not long enough to do anything about them. As Ben said, c'est la vie.

Thursday, May 29, 2008

Finally got my paws on "Mass Effect" for PC. Vista gave problems when I first attempted to start up the game. It simply refused to start. But after a call to EA's helpdesk which advised me to switch off Vista's User Account Control (UAC), I actually got my first taste of this epic space melodrama.

The game space is amazingly huge. I've seen two locations so far, Eden Prime which was a tutorial run for basic game controls, and am currently exploring Citadel, a sprawling complex of districts full of mini quests to accept and fulfill. I still need time to get used to the many keys needed to conduct squad combat properly. Until I figure them out, I'm gonna get killed a lot but that's the learning curve.

Apart from the above two locations, there's a massive galaxy to explore system by system, planet by planet. While I've been only doing grunt fighting so far, there's promise of vehicular combat and space combat as well to look forward to. Death-dealing comes in so many forms!

Despite my excitement, there's still one serious annoyance with the game: It has shut down on me twice already in mid-game, causing the loss of any unsaved content, and forcing replays of certain encounters which I'd already seen, before being unceremoniously dumped back out into the Windows environment so unexpectedly.

Wonder if there'll be a patch soon that will address this problem. Meantime, I'll look around the 'net for a viable solution. Grr...

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

It's an argument that we in the industry will never win. We're taking flak again, this time for making kids continue classes even though they're supposed to be enjoying their summer break right now. Where is this criticism coming from?

Even in the US, summer school is a legit practice. Kids actually get threatened to be sent to summer school if they are not performing during regular term time. Summer school is also great to attend to gain extra academic credits and makes the study load lighter by a course or two when term resumes. All the more so here then, with parents so anxious about their kids not scoring 'A's, I would think they'd somehow make summer school mandatory without our initiative.

If we didn't hold the kids back, we'd still receive flak anyway for being slack, uncaring, selfish and any other unflattering description because we are not helping the kids to do better at their upcoming exams. After all, we are well-paid civil servants , so we'd better do more to justify our upkeep, some people would say.

Since there's no pleasing anyone on this issue, I'm just going to continue working at whatever needs to be done, whether its admin, lesson planning, materials gathering, assignment marking, course taking, and I'll do it wherever I want, at my own time, without distractions from management or client-base, and I'm going to be happy. I'm on vacation!
Stabbing people in the back is a useful skill to master in "Assassin's Creed". As crack assassin, Altair, who seeks redemption for an earlier botched hit, I have a list of nine very bad men to put paid to. Or rather, my ancestor has to and I'm sharing his memories of his greatest hits via a device that allows me to do so.

Assassins carry out a routine before striking. They infiltrate the target's city of residence; seek out as much information as possible about his whereabouts, activities, strengths and weaknesses; sneak past his guards and finally give him a taste of cold steel in his gut.

That's the theory, anyway. A more skilled player than me might just have the patience and timing to make his kills as smooth as butter and keep the body count to a minimum if he wished to sincerely follow the Creed. But where's the fun in that? Clumsy ol' me just blunders into a hornet's nest bristling with angry men holding pointy objects and having to slay them all. If I manage to poke the right target it's because he was stupid enough to stay and fight with his men. Of course, some targets choose the better part of valour, so those guys need to be timed properly or chased down, apologies to whomever stands in the way.

Fighting is easy to pick up. It's just a matter of timing Altair's attack against his opponents'. Time it right and be rewarded with a cinematic of a deft parry or a brutal finisher. There are lots of variations, and I believe that as Altair unlocks more as he progresses through the levels. Altair often gets surrounded with a mass of enemies, but by methodically picking off each enemy the body count racks up until no one is left to challenge the might of the Assassin. Yes.

But sometimes the fighting can get tiresome, so if there's no one important to kill in the mob another option is to break off and run through the crowd of civillians and climb over the rooftops to find a hiding spot -- a pile of hay or a curtained pavillion. Once the pursuers have lost line of sight, they quit their search (slackers!) and return to their posts.

On the way to the big party, though, there are certain buildings to climb to get a better picture of what's happening in the neighbourhood; hidden flags to collect; civillians to rescue from thugs and bullies; people to pickpocket from; others to intimidate for the information they hold, or just eavesdrop on surreptitious conversations between loose lips. Occasionally, a fellow assassin will point out certain secondary targets to eliminate on the quiet, or initiate a race across the rooftops just for fun.

So there's lots to do in between the big kills, although up to a point, even the variety of activities becomes repetitive after a while. Still, these asides are mostly optional. Completing any two or three per city is enough to unlock access to the big cheese himself, and his cryptic final words that make Altair wonder if he is on the right side of the war after all.

Many people have a problem with the ending sequence to the game. Just when you think there's more to come, the game stops on a cliffhanger. The problem is, you don't know the game's ended. You just keep walking around in a closed room where you can access clues about what's to come, then there's nothing else to do except wander around aimlessly wondering what the heck to do next. There's only one thing left to do: see that little box marked with an 'X' on the top right hand of your game window? Click that then get on with your life.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Currently exploring the Holy Land in the 12th century, during the Crusades. My persona's hands soak in the blood of all who stand in the way of my efforts to restore peace to the region (heh, a side note about the necessity of violence for the sake of peace). I fight for neither Sal-a-hadin nor Richard. My struggle is against those who work in the shadows, who profit by fuelling the fires of the conflict, prolonging the war for the sake of their own private agenda.

Or so I've been told. Lately, I'm not so sure any more...