This post is in response to Ms Lim's email on feedback for the module.
I have decided to post this entry on my blog for all to see and comment if there are any strong agreements and disagreements to the comments made.
I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the moderator of the course in introducing blogging as part of the module. As a person who has a weak command of language, it actually takes a lot of courage for me to actually blog and discuss serious issues online. What’s the point of starting a blog when you only post a few entries and the blog becomes dysfunctional after that? Hence, I am really glad that this blog component is part of this module.
However, there are a few concerns that I have over the active participation in the ‘commenting exercise’, in particular, the frequency of making comments. At times, I do have some problems making remarks and comments on the post. While there are definitely many things to comment on, there are times when I felt that certain stuff are too trivial to comment about because I am not really expressing my thoughts on the issue but rather, pointing out small mistakes. Hence, whenever I read through the post, I often ask myself this question- Do I really have a strong comment to make over the issue/content, or am I stating something trivial for the sake of making a comment?
The peer teaching component of this module is another aspect of this course which I think it is fantastic. It allows us to have a platform to practise what we have learnt, such as the use of 7 Cs and the proper body language and posture necessary in presentation. Being science students, often we do not have as much opportunities as business students to practise their presentation skills. Furthermore, even when we make mistakes in presentations, most of the time we are unaware of the mistakes. However, in this course, we are exposed to critics from our peers and this has certainly helped us to learn and improve.
The structure and format of writing a proposal is important. However, as I have spoken to Ms Lim over the phone, using NUS Wiki to update and record the information is certainly a bad idea in my opinion. While it may seem ‘chicken feet’ to most of the people in using this to update the minutes, brief proposals and agenda, it is difficult to others, especially our group.
Personally, I felt that while using html coding is tedious and time consuming, it does not allow us to freely express our thoughts unlike that of Microsoft word. It is inevitable that concept maps are used in presenting ideas during discussion. Using NUS Wiki has certainly created some problems in us using this as a mode of presenting our ideas. Furthermore, users often have to depend on commands such as ‘&npsd’ to correct the alignment, as compared to simply making use of the ‘tab’ function on the key board. Furthermore, I felt that the use of the ‘parent-children tree structure’ function creates a lot of untidiness and confusion as compared to storing the documents in folders. Of course, the advantage of doing so is that it prevents duplicated copies of the document from creating confusion to the user.
In general, I felt that the course has achieved its objective thus far. The sharing session from Ms Lim’s teaching material as well as her enthusiastic and constructive comments and criticism have certain ensured that we are constant on our toes. “Tough man deserves tough training. Quality work results from demanding mentors.” While the workload of this module is very heavy, it is certainly very enjoyable, especially during sharing sessions in class when all of us interact and share our general knowledge, stories and observations. However, with the extremely tight deadline from every aspect of the module, we have to often put in a lot of effort if we want quality work and that is indeed a very high opportunity cost. Don’t you think so?Have a pleasant weekend folks!
