Success of College Readiness Intervention Hard to gauge

An article on Success of College-Readiness Intervention Hard to Gauge by Catherine Gewertz on Education Week was very inspiring and also an eye opener for me.


(http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/01/20/18eap_ep.h30.html?tkn=LNLFPhdYSdqWQbuQprV2ADQ3gu7OH%2F%2FW9TP8&cmp=clp-edweek)


There seems to be of major concerns among higher education institutions in the US and California particularly that high school graduates are NOT ready for college. I find this interesting as it has a lot in common with the situation in Malaysia. We have programs like Matriculations, Pre-U, Preparatory classes, Bechalaurette,Finshing schools and Inductions to help college going students better prepared for their tertiary education.
Some universities even go down a level to offer these 'bridging' programs to ensure flow of students into their institutions while trying hard to maintain their minimum entry requirements.


Parents like me send their children to preparatory classes like English, second language classes, soft skills development, music, sports clinics and ICT certifications just to ensure that they can have the extra advantage and college ready.This indicates that there is a big gap between high school education output and the college readiness requirement.


I can still remember my 1970s experience of adjusting to college education upon completion of my high school. There is no matriculation or pre-u program to help readiness. All I had was the University orientation week which tend to be more incline to 'freshie bullying field day'.


How i struggled through my 3 year Diploma program, with the worst score in the first semester itself and did not enjoy any moment of it except when I was doing sports and represented the University. I also noted that my first degree was easier and later my post degree the easiest!


I also remembered how some colleagues that failed in the same program later excelled in a different program at a different university.


I came to the conclusion college readiness has a lot to do with it. So having a mechanism to indicate that a student is college ready would be great. A supporting program to better prepare a students would be welcomed and appreciated, other than there is money to be made.

Your T(w)een's School Social Life - When to Step in and When to Step Back

Your T(w)een's School Social Life - When to Step in and When to Step Back

Meeting the Man

Yeah i know it has been quite a while since my last entry. Just would like to continue where i have left off. Not long after our presentation at the Parliament House to a group of very high profile people and managed to sell the idea and concept, we got to see 'the Man". I came early just to ensure i get to the building that i thought was part of the Islamic Museum. It is just that i was a bit not dressed up to the occasion, but that secondary.

The Man is none other than The Father of Modern Malaysia - Tun Mahathir. Never in my wildest dream to sit and discuss with the man eye to eye. But the topic of discussion which is hot at the moment overwhelms the awe of sitting with him. Indeed it is about IC Citizen. We presented the idea, objective and concept of which he agrees. But one thing that caught my attention was when Tun asked about how do one teach 'ethics'? The same concern that i have discussed on my last blog entry. When i mentioned Case Study as the way...he agrees. I said to myself...wow exactly how i think it should be thus again reconfirmed my earlier hunch. Again i thought...this is my research framework!

Sharing our thoughts with Tun, definitely makes my day!

Major ethical dilemma of the Web and the Internet

A euphoria of discussionss was in the local news when everyone start talking about the need to filter of phonographic sites. Dr M in his blog discussion pushed the idea of filtering, saying now is the 'appropriate time' since the inception MSC and decree declaration of filter-free Internet for Malaysia. A front page news on some newspapers and main stories in major digital media. Comments from all quarters especially the Ministers and Deputy Ministers in agreement.

All this became a sitting target for PSSB new found arsenal to fire home its IC Citizen training and certification bullets. What a great timing. The endorsement form our Parliament House presentation earlier will put the 1Citizen program into the limelight.

But today Charles I. Cragg in "Because Wisdom Can't be Told" (Harvard Alumni Bullettin, October 19, 1940) gave me a lease of life in confirming the correct approach and direction of using case study in designing and developing the training module of IC Citizen. Now i have the Theoretical Ethical Framework and the right methodology.

As Cragg puts it;

"The case system, properly used, initiates students into the ways of independent thought and responsible judgment. It faces them with situations which are not hypothetical but real. It places them in the active role, open to criticism from all sides. It puts the burden of understanding and judgment upon them. It provides them the occasion to deal constructively with their contemporaries and their elders"

I am happy!

"Paparazzi" - Micheal Greyson

Cisco Cybercrime showcase

Cisco Cybercrime showcase

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iCITIZEN in Macau

Hi again! I didn't realize that i have not been updating my blog since when. My last post was about my Bali Trip with the boys. So many things have happened and i jot it down most in my Twitter and Facebook.

iCitizen project has been wonderful, but very taxing on me and my team. Finally we got something going on a global basis, our very own Certification and content for the world.

I was at Certiports APAC Meeting in Macau last March, and had wonderful time meeting the people and had the opportunity to present the concept and idea to the world. The feedback has been outstanding!
Here we come WORLD

AIM 2010

I am not so much into music, but yesterday's AIM 2010 caught my eyes and attention...of course due to Yuna, Aizat and Faizal Tahir...plus the great Afdlin & Co and the band. The rest are just side shows. Here's a tribute to the best song of the year!

AIM 17 - SONG OF THE YEAR



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEwZb_lxo6A

Great Time in Tembok, Bali

Hi again, its writing time again. Been planning this trip months ago. I wanted to celebrate our 24th Anniversary in Bali...just the two of us. But as planning continues, more feedback need to be considered. True enough, we owed Muiz a holiday trip for his good result in last years PMR. So Muiz is on, during this school break holiday. Now there is three of us, booked on a bargain air fare to Denpasar.

As the saying goes, we can only plan, when at the very last minute my other better half couldn't make it, due to her work commitment even when its already a school break and found a willing replacement. Since nothing doing, she had to cancel her trip and there goes our "Anniversary in Bali". So as not to disappoint Muiz, Naim is the ever willing replacement. Now the trip became an all 'boys' trip to an exotic Spa Village Tembok Bali.

I can understand the 'caught by surprise' face of Ms Rina the caretaker in Tembok Bali when we appeared at her resort.... minus the leading lady. We did have a good time together, at that beautiful paradise. I was impressed by the hospitality shown by the staffs, even when we did not take full its offer of full adventure. I did enjoyed the 3 hours trip to and fro the resort to Denpasar, the view of Mt Agung from the sea during Sunset Boat ride, I enjoyed 'our' pool, the broleh activities, the food, the comfy room, the fisherman's attire, the dinner dance, and the early picturesque dawn of black sand beach.

I can imagine the fun if Norli was around, perhaps next time. I definitely am coming back to SVTB.

40th Anniversary of the First ARPANET Transmission

Hi, again..it's been sometime since my last input. I came across this wonderful this article by SRI on the ARPANET, the predecessor to today's Internet (http://www.sri.com/). I did have an entry on this in either my Facebook or Twitter (http://twitter.com/arhamid) early last month. Its interesting to know University of Utah was part of that early initiative.

Forty is the old age of youth; fifty the youth of old age. Victor Hugo (1802-1885)

Enjoy!

MOUNTAIN VIEW and MENLO PARK, Calif., CAMBRIDGE, Mass. —October 27, 2009—Forty years ago this week, two programmers sat in front of computer terminals four hundred miles apart. Unknowingly, they were about to make history. At the University of California, Los Angeles, Charley Kline typed the word "LOGIN" at around nine p.m. on October 29, 1969. The command went through interface computers built by Cambridge's BBN Technologies (formerly Bolt, Beranek, and Newman) on its way to Kline's counterpart Bill Duvall, at SRI International (then known as Stanford Research Institute) in Menlo Park, California. The first letters, "LO", came through to the SRI machine before the system crashed. The minor setback would be fixed quickly, and the connection was fully in place by 10:30 p.m. The very first data had been sent between two nodes of the ARPANET, a key precursor to the Internet.

New interviews with pioneers Duvall and Kline will be made available on October 29 on www.computerhistory.org, along with links to other resources. This will kick off a series of Computer History Museum activities on the history of the Internet and the Web.

"The 1969 connection was not just a symbolic milestone in the project that led to the Internet, but in the whole idea of connecting computers—and eventually billions of people—to each other," said Marc Weber, founding curator of the Museum's Internet History Program. "In the 1960s, as many as a few hundred users could have accounts on a single large computer using terminals, and exchange messages and files between them. But each of those little communities was an island, isolated from others. By reliably connecting different kinds of computers to each other, the ARPANET took a crucial step toward the online world that links nearly a third of the world's population today."

"The development of the ARPANET, which had no commercial application at the time, underscores the power of coordinated basic research and the importance of that research to our society," said Bill Duvall. "In the 1960s, computers were not interconnected and most were not even interactive. A few research groups were looking at the potential of networked computing and how distributed systems might be used as information repositories and collaboration tools, but they were hampered by a huge obstacle: they lacked a network to weave their projects together. Bob Taylor and Larry Roberts at ARPA understood not only the potential of computer networking, but also the challenge of networking during an era when computers were generally not standardized, and did not use a common language or alphabet."

"The ARPANET was built to permit ARPA-supported computer researchers to share common interests without geographical limits," said Bob Taylor, who helped conceive and fund the ARPANET in the mid 1960s as head of computing research at ARPA (U.S. Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency). Taylor and his Program Manager Larry Roberts chose the people and places to build the network, assigning unique roles to three institutions: Cambridge-based BBN built the special Interface Message Processors (IMPs) that connected the main computers to the net and served as the system's administrator; SRI was the Network Information Center, which besides acting as a central library kept track of all the computers on the net and ran the Domain Name System until 1991; and UCLA was the Network Measurement Center, researching and improving how data moved across the network. An original BBN Interface Message Processor (IMP) computer is in the Computer History Museum's collection.

By early 1970, those three Centers were all connected, along with the University of California at Santa Barbara and the University of Utah. By 1972, the network had 37 nodes. A few years later, the ARPANET would begin the process of connecting itself to other networks that had sprung up—a process known as internetworking—leading to the Internet on which the World Wide Web and email run today. Both SRI and BBN played key roles in internetworking, and SRI's mobile radio van was used in several watershed experiments. The van is now a part of the Computer History Museum's collection.