Info Snacks

Time? Who’s got it? Answers on the back of a postcard.
Learn Something Everyday

When Will The Cost Of Education Go Digital?

I think I’ve mentioned it before here, but I’ve been thinking for a long time of doing some further studies. The two things that have been holding me back, to varying degrees, are time and money. To some extent I’ve managed to solve the time issues, but because I’m outside of my own country the [...]

It’s The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)

With every change there’s a backlash, and I’ve noticed there’s a new form of Ludditism creeping into a lot of the stuff I read. The posture is that the internet is making us stupid and a new generation of lazy thinkers is coming through.
Over lunch today I read a piece by University of South Florida [...]

Watch My Copy

It probably serves me right for reading the newspapers over breakfast, but sometimes I find myself continuing to stare at a page until my mind goes blank.
Usually it’s not the articles. Standards of journalism here are high. It tends to be the advertising, especially the locally created stuff, because standards of copywriting here are appallingly [...]

Life Dreaming: Happiness Is Being In Your Element

When it comes to Sir Ken Robinson I’m a sycophant fan boy. I think he’s an amazing thinker (and speaker), and previously I would have said that if you’re involved in education in any way, or you’ve got kids going through school, you need to look him up (here, here or here).
But he recently released [...]

Those Who Can’t Do Teach

Just an idle question, because I edited a case study on a university marketing campaign last night and then news that Singapore Polytechnic is calling a pitch for its branding just popped up in my email box…
Why don’t institutions like Singapore Poly, which teach design, marketing and communication, do their own? Are they afraid they’re [...]

Socially Engineered Amnesia

I don’t know if this happens to everyone, but it happens to me all the time. Perhaps it’s just the colour of my skin. I get into a cab, and once we’re in motion the driver starts working on getting me complicit with whatever his pet peeve is. I feel like I’ve pulled up a [...]

Learning The Future

Today is the first day I’ve read a Singapore newspaper in a couple of weeks, and the hot topic is whether or not to do away with the exam assessment system, in favour of continuous assessment, for kids in the first and second years of primary school.
You’d think the results would be a shoe-in, but [...]

Finding Your Element

It’s a common sense universal truth that people do their best when they’re in their element. It’s about having a natural capacity for something, but it’s also about loving it… having a passion for it.
But many people go through their entire schooling and never find something they’re good at. The emphasised choices are maths and [...]

Through The Mist

I don’t write about Spark Media Lab projects much here. I’m trying to maintain that carefree illusion that I’m independently wealthy and just flit around town taking photos and finding things to complain about.
But Spark’s extremely talented senior designer Liow Hon Sang played a backstage role in some success recently and I thought it was [...]