How Does One Train A Lecturer?

Since I was a Medical Student, I have always been attracted to being a teacher. Teaching Medical Students I mean. Now that I am a Medical Lecturer, I realise that teaching is a art to itself. No matter how good a doctor you are, being a successful lecturer takes a different kind of approach. Although it may be grouped together that University Lecturers are a bunch of glorified schoolteachers, there are big differences. For a start, the expectations of the students, hence the job description is not the same.

 I always treat my students, maybe wrongly at times, as adults. I am just here to lend them guidance. Left alone, they will still struggle through, they are Medical Students after all. I see my job as more as a guide and a role model. I know I may not have the art of a school teacher. They have specified training to go through in college before being let loose to the schools. We lecturer hardly had any formal training apart from our professional academic knowhow. To argue whether this is right or wrong deserve a forum on itself but I am sure most of my fellow lecturers agree with this notion.

I just do not have the capacity or the skill to teach them all aspect of medicine, but I can permeate some wisdom on how to be a doctor. In the same time, they may also need brotherly advise at the right time. They are essentially young man and woman, who should they have taken up a different course might already be in the employment sector, married with kids. Making the distinction between a good lecturer and bad ones are even more difficult, and often unfair.

The reason for my writing is this piece I picked up in today's The Star;

A UNIVERSITI Sains Islam Malaysia lecturer who passed only four out of 157 of her law students claims she was forced to resign so that the university could protect its reputation, Kosmo! reported.

Nor (not her real name) said the reason she left was because she could not stand the pressure from the university management on her to give “sympathy marks.”

“How am I to give extra marks if the marks they got is what they should be getting?” she said, adding that her downfall started when she received a show-cause letter on why so many students had failed.

She was then criticised by her superiors, who also wanted her to add marks based on attendance so as to reduce the number of failures.

“I stood my ground. How could I give them marks for that when it is their responsibility to show up for classes?” she added.

The university declined to comment.

Well, one cannot be judgemental without knowing the specifics. However reading between the lines, is this the fault of Nur (the lecturer involved) or is it the problem of the organisation as a whole (not specifically USIM, but local varsities)? Personally I wish that I have more training to be not just teachers to the medical students, but as supervisors for the postgraduates who walks through my door for advise. The role of a Medical Lecturer is more than just teaching. 

Wireless Broadband for the Common People Like Me

The best is still surfing at wi-fi hotpost, Starbucks etc. Even kedai mamak and McDonald's one. No problem there even though there might not be much privacy. Nowadays, even hotel lounges charge for broadband use. So what's next?

Personally I use my E71, boot up a program called WalkingHotspot. It will turn my phone into a Wi-Fi hotspot and I can hook up to 5 devices onto it wirelessly. So if I go out on a holidays with my family, I can use my MacBook while my wife and Idlan can use the other laptop. I also use it at home because the stability of the connection and the fact that Streamyx can be really slow at times where I live. The main drawback is you need to have the phone charger with you since it drains the juice. There is also the problem with latency! So if you are into online gaming, it can cause slower reaction time.

When I used my Dopod, I turned the unit into a Bluetooth Local Network. It can only hook up to one device. The connection is a bit slower as it depends very much on how fast your Bluetooth ship is. On both cases, the connection speed depends on the GSM signal speed to your phone. Using my E71, using 3G netwook, the connection goes up to 45kB/s, which is pretty decent. No problem watching Youtube on that speed. EDGE goes at around 15kB/s. If you have a stable HSPDA signal, it can go up to 120kB/s. When I was on holidays in Kota Bharu, I was getting downloads at 350kB/s. That's screaming! I you want to test your connection speed, click here.

What seems like the in thing at the moment is WiMax. Certainly in Silicon Valley, the technology using microwave essentially - no you can't fry your egg with it - there are concerns about slow adaption of this technology. Other newer technology are catching up fast. The main drawback is the cost on it's basic infrastructure. Once the antennas are up, you're blazing. The technology is basically based on a base station spouting out microwave signals. Then you have a capture device, similar to an ADSL modem inside your home. This device will translate the signal and hook up into either a router or straight into your computer's dataport. Since the technology is directional, the receiver needs to be pointed towards the emitter  antenna.

There is also a mobile device that goes straight into your Laptop USB port that will capture the signal and feed it directly into your computer. This is the main selling point to this technology. The advantage, connection speed is faster than 3G mobile modem. Drawback, you have to be in an area where the service is available, re, mainly in Lembah Kelang.

In Malaysia, there are 4 companies that are licensed to provide this technology. The familiar one is Pocket One Networks or P1 W1MAX by Green Packet Berhad. Other players are YTL with Y-max. The other two are Asiaspace (AMAX) and REDtone-CNX, most likely going to be made available in Sabah and Sarawak. At the moment, I am very happy with my E71 connection and will probably stick to it.

Oh Dear! I Have Been Warned!

KUALA LUMPUR: The Information, Communications, Culture and Arts Ministry will use a “diplomatic approach” in dealing with private media corporations and bloggers.

Minister Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim said the ministry preferred to take follow-up efforts than legal action against those who have violated the laws.

Dr Rais, who is the former foreign minister, said he would study the current circumstances and find ways to work closer with private media groups and bloggers.

This is a change from the quote "Blogger adalah Goblok" from you know who. Thanks God he got spanked in the last election!

Update on Thursday, April 16, 2009 at 10:16PM by Haris Abdul Rahman

KUALA LUMPUR: The government is not looking to find fault with bloggers and other internet users but would like them to follow the law to ensure they did not misuse it.

Minister of Information, Communication and Culture Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim said the ministry played an important role in establishing only the right kind of information reached the masses.

Now it makes sense! It is nothing to do with control.

Birthday Do at Victoria Station

Today happens to be my brother-in-law's 47th birthday. We decided to have dinner at Mum-in-law's favourite place, the Victoria Station at Jalan Ampang. My brother being a trained cook, knows the manager there but unfortunately there were a few complains.

The food was good as usual. I had my usual shrimp cocktail, chili spare ribs and starfruit juice. I noticed straight away that the quantity is smaller. Not only that, the garnish for the baked potato is also different and the dressings wasn't that plentiful. I thought I was imagining things, but then my father-in-law started complaining about the size of his steak. The manager argued that it has always been the same size but he got no answer when my dad pointed out that it is now queen's cut rather than king's, whatever that meant. The manager seemed surprised.

Irfan sampling some cake

The two boys had spaghetti and bread. Anita had some fish. The next thing I needed to point out is the service. The waiters used to be a mixture of local and Philipinos. They speak very good English and communication have never been an issue. Now, there are replaced with Bangladeshis, or at least for that shift. They were slow, rude and difficult to communicate with. I given up asking for water after calling twice. They need to improve. Even the Mamak stall workers treat customers better than them.

Idlan cannot be bothered and continue on with his Snoot Blaster!

Next came the biggest shock. I took Irfan to the toilet to clean up his mess. He was covered with spaghetti literally. Oh my God! The toilet was bad. I never knew the restaurant to be this bad. The urinals were dirty and it smells! Victoria Station used to be better than this, or have I missed the toilet all these years I frequented them?

I don't think anybody related to the joint read all this but if they do, something needs to be done. There used to be big businessman and VIP, not to mention Johnny Foreigners from around the Ampang Hilir area coming through this place. Imagine the business they are going to lose if they keep this up? Good luck to them! Please email me if the manager happen to read this blog, and I am expecting free lunch at the very least!

Month 1 Report

A few of my friends did warn me that blogging can be addictive. Since I am heading for my sabbatical and quite keen to start one, I took the plunge on Friday the 13th of March. 183 blogposts later, the novelty has not worn out just yet. In fact the post are keeping on coming.

As it stands today, I have a week's worth of content lined up in advance. The blog structure is also evolving, first I ditched up the Malay posts, then created a different journal stream called 'Themed Post', mainly a weekly timetable of planned content. I realised that too rigid a plan is no fun. I have therefore created a third journal thread 'Impulse Links', basically posting whatever of interest I come across on the day. From the constructive feedback from readers, I have also put a separate picture gallery to supplement the blogs. Should you be following my blog, please subscribe to all three RSS feeds.

As far as statistics goes, the March numbers looks good. I had just under 2500 hits in the months. Since the site is new, I have attracted new viewer, as in new IPs. Looking at the exact numbers per day, the site has been visited by easily 100 surfers. I have also included a small Google ads. It would be nice if you can click on it from time to time if they are relevant to your liking of course. Another new addition is the archive page, although it looked rather disorganised at the moment.

So again, thank you very much. Please feel free to comment, and please also drop me a line if you want me to mention your blog as a fellow.

Haris