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Tuesday, July 27, 2010

On making the right decision

In addition to self-awareness, imagination and conscience, it is the fourth human endowment-independent will-that really makes effective self-management possible.
It is the ability to make decisions and choices and to act in accordance with them. It is the ability to act rather than to be acted upon, to proactively carry out the program we have developed through the other three endowments.

Empowerment comes from learning how to use this great endowment in the decisions we make every day.

-- Stephen Covey


Of all the abilities that one has, decision making is most crucial in one's life journey!
 
In my personal journey, I would like to exercise self-awareness, imagination and guard against my own conscience, with that, I have made a decision lately:
 
I would rather "Live in a world with "Vision", and not "Blinding" myself with work!"

With the loads of work I have for over 30 years in the library and teaching world (labour of love, most of the time), I have the awareness lately that my I had overloaded my eyes too much which cause retinal tear of my left eye. 

Born with the mind set of wanting to explore creative way of doing things, I may had exhausted my eyes with all the visual treats I received or created in my personal and work life.  Now, I have come to a decision that even the work is valuable and meaningful, it will not be "visible" to me if I am unable to view it in the future. Hence, what I am doing is doing more harm than good for my "Vision".  To do or not to do, a painful decision is now made with ease!

If you do not have any problem with your eyes and vision, it is hard for anyone to make a decision not to overwork as all the work now required overtime and over strain of eyes.

If you are in the situation that your eye is so painful, dye, and need lubrication every 1-2 hours, even the decision is made, it is already too late for the good for the rest of your life!

Nevertheless, it is better late than never! 


Dexterine Ho
 

Sunday, July 25, 2010

任何事情都会过去的

Here is what I just received from a friend:

=====
没有任何事情是不会过去的

****

不顺心是必然的,顺境不是境界如自己的愿,
而是顺应境界而进退取捨。

当任性时立即有不顺心的烦恼。

人事如海滩不可胜数的沙子,一个人寡不敌众,一个境界
怎能满足千变的心呢?

其实没有任何事情是不会过去的,没有人是
不会改变的。

不顺心也是一时的心情。

****

施比受更有福。
人生无常,把握《当下》!

=====

Saturday, July 17, 2010

Dexterine's life journey with LAS (Library Association of Singapore): Part 1 of 5

Here is something I wrote and forwarded to Nurul at NLB (Nurulhuda_SUBAHAN@nlb.gov.sg) as a Volunteer Memory Agent after attending a Saturday morning "Singapore Memory workshop" in June at NLB!

If you like to join the Group, email to Nurul (Nurulhuda_SUBAHAN@nlb.gov.sg) and she will send you an invitation to join the Yahoo Group.

Cheers!

Dexterine Ho

===

Dear Nurul,

I wanted to write more, yet time is not with me now!

Here is something simple and easy for me to start with:


TITLE
====================================

Dexterine's life journey with LAS (Library Association of Singapore)

====================================

If you are a librarian, you would know what LAS stands for: Library Association of Singapore.

If you are not working in the library and information field, LAS may not be anything significant in your life journey. You may just skip this article.

For those who are still reading, please note that unless you would like to know more about library professionals and their links with their professional organisation, you may find the article irrelavant to your experience of memory in Singapore.

*****************
History of LAS
*****************

"The LAS traced its history to the days when Malaysia and Singapore were not independent yet. In the 1950s, Singapore was a British colony, and Malaysia, then known as the Federation of Malaya, was a British protectorate. At that time, libraries and librarians in the two territories were far and few. Only a handful of government research libraries and a few subscription libraries existed, the latter, as Jean Waller had described, "masquerading'' as public libraries."

(Source of information: Library Association of Singapore: About us http://www.las.org.sg/about_us.htm)

If you are keen to learn more about the history of LAS, just read the webpage cited above.

************************************
Dexterine's life journey with the library world in general and LAS (Library Association of Singapore) in particular
************************************

As this article is about 150 words, if you would though like to take a glimpse into some of my personal experiences of the library world in general and LAS in particular, just read on and visit "Travel down memory lane with Dexterine" at http://dexterine.blogspot.com/ to get more.

You will find out some facts and views about librarians from the my personal perspective, the state of development of librarianship and the professional association through my personal life encounters.

Notes: Since I know very little about the library world and LAS before 1981, I look forward to reading other senior librarians’ write-ups to fill my knowledge gap about the first 25 years of Library world in Singapore and LAS history.

To start, I have the following Q and A for easy narration:

Q: Why did Dexterine become a librarian?

Answer:
Teaching was her first career prospect and librarianship, her second. Since she could not become a teacher in the 1980s, she chose to become a librarian. To her, librarians and teachers are all helping others to share the fruits of knowledge.

End of Part One, to be continued...

If you would though like to have a glimpse into some of her personal experiences of LAS, read "Travel down memory lane with Dexterine" at http://dexterine.blogspot.com/ to get more or wait for Part Two of this post.

Cheers!

Dexterine
=======================
Dexterine Ho Soo Miang
http://dexterine.tripod.com/
http://dexterine.blogspot.com view my other blogs through my profile

email: smho@pmail.ntu.edu.sg
dexterine@yahoo.com
*************************************************************
INNOvative HANDS-ON, INNOvative minds-on
*************************************************************

Friday, July 09, 2010

Myths, Stories, and Possibilities

The Programmes and Social Committee organised a talk by Dr Paul B. Gandel today:


Topic : Myths, Stories, and Possibilities

Date : 9 July 2010, Friday

Time : 3.00pm-5.00pm

Venue : Possibility Room, Level 5, National Library Building

LAS Professional Development Scheme (PDS) Points: 46
(Applicable only to librarians who are participants of PDS)

About the talk

As technology has developed over the past years moving from the Web to Web 2.0 to the Cloud, barriers have dropped and possibilities seem limitless. Our world is becoming ever more interlinked.

This presents both an opportunity and a dilemma for those of us in information services that need to plan for an increasingly technology-enabled future of interconnectedness.

How do you plan for the abundance of possibilities?
How do you plan in the absence of good predictive models?
What is really true about all the technological hype?
What really will change?
What core values and services will remain the same?

Planning for the future may be as much of process of discovery as a planning process. Success will be finding the right ingredients and partners. It also requires a bit of luck!

From the perspective of a former library dean, CIO, and now university professor, Paul Gandel leads a conversation about the challenges and opportunities he sees for this complex and cloudy future.

He illustrates these trends with stories from his own personal experiences: Creating new governance and consortium models in the face of changing technologies; green computing—an example of turning slogans into reality; and building new models of education and services for the information professional of the future.

About the speaker

Paul B. Gandel
Acting CIO, Singapore Management University
Professor of Information Studies, Syracuse University

Paul Gandel is Professor of Information Studies at Syracuse University. His teaching and research areas include the management of information technology systems, information management, leadership, information policy, and the visualization of information. Currently while on leave from Syracuse he is serving as acting CIO and senior consultant for Singapore Management University (SMU). He also is a visiting professor in the School of Information Systems at SMU.

Previously he served as the Vice President for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer (CIO) at Syracuse University.

As Chief Information Officer, Gandel was responsible for all aspects of information technology and information services—computer services, voice and data networking, instructional technology services, business process improvement, and distance learning technology.

During his tenure as CIO he was instrumental in modernizing the University’s technology infrastructure and IT support services to ensure that SU remains competitive with the growing demands of providing high-quality information resources for research, teaching and student learning environments.

Before coming to Syracuse University, Gandel was Vice Provost and Dean of Libraries at University of Rhode Island.

Before Rhode Island, Gandel was Associate Provost and Chief Information Officer at the Ohio University, Senior Director of Academic Computing and Associate Professor of Library Science at the University of North Texas, Supervisor of the Computing Technology Group at Bell Laboratories, Head of Media Services at the State University of New York at Plattsburgh, and Director of the Research Library at the Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, New York.

Dr. Gandel earned his Ph.D. in Information Studies from Syracuse University, an M.A. in Library Science from the University of Wisconsin, and an M.F.A. in Photography and B.A. in History from the State University of New York at Buffalo.

What impressed me is that being a history major, he has advanced to IT field and travelled a very different path from general history graduate of his time! 

I will always remembered him as he is also a graduate of University of Wisconsin.

Source of information: email from The Programmes and Social Committee, LAS dated Jun 14, 2010 

Thursday, July 08, 2010

Your vision

If your vision is for a year, plant wheat.

If your vision is for ten years, plant trees.

If your vision is for a lifetime, plant people!


-- Chinese Proverb

Wednesday, July 07, 2010

Top 10 Sites for Creating Slide Shows by David Kapuler

Top 10 Sites for Creating Slide Shows by David Kapuler

I just received this email alert on the Top 10 Sites for Creating Slide Shows by David Kapuler

from:

Linkedin Groups: Technology Integration in Education

"Now that there are several free sites that let users create amazing slide shows, it's no longer necessary to have a program such as iPhoto or Power Point for the job.…"

"Slideshows are one of the most popular ways to integrate technology into education. Now that there are several free sites that let users create amazing slide shows, it’s no longer necessary to have a program such as iPhoto or Power Point for the job."


"Top 10 Sites for Creating Slide Shows:

1. Kizoa
- Creates beautiful slide shows, with a variety of music, effects, transitions to choose from.

2. Shwup
- Great site for creating private collaborative slide shows with features such as the ability to allow comments.

3. Photo Peach
- Unique site that allows users to create quizzes in their slide show through multiple choice questions.

4. Animoto
- One of the most popular sites around with an educational instance.

5. Slideroll
- A very nice site site that allows the user to make private or allow comments.

6. Flixtime
- Easy to use site where a user uploads photos and selects audio and transitions and then gets a code to embed into their site.

7. One True Media
- Great site to create animated slide shows with video.

8. PhotoSnack
- Very user friendly site with a drag & drop interface.

9. Pho.to
- Create flash based slide shows and get an embed code to put it on a site.

10. Vuvox
- An excellent site for creating beautiful multimedia slide shows.

David Kapuler was the media and technology specialist at Greendale (Wis.) School District. Read his blog at cyber-kap.blogspot.com."

Source of information:

http://www.linkedin.com/news?viewArticle=&articleID=145374083&gid=108447&type=news&item=145374083&articleURL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Etechlearning%2Ecom%2Farticle%2F31270&urlhash=UfyD&goback=%2Egde_108447_news_145374083

If you have time to try any of the above, would appreciate it if you could post your comments and let me and others who use ppt for training know the + and - of the new applications!

Cheers!


Dexterine Ho

Saturday, July 03, 2010

My Singapore Memory

What's Your Singapore Memory?

Free workshop @ National Library, 26 June & 3 July, 8.30am - 12pm

As part of the my Singapore Memory Project, I responed to NLB's invitation and joined as storywriters of Singapore's "rich" heritage.

As the announcement stated that participant needs not be a writer to start with, I just take the challenge and join the workshop to learn proper writing techniques.

"Neuro-Linguistic Programming" techniques was introduced and I find it easy to follow. It is a simple ways to source for our own stories.