Metacognition, and the beginning of the end

Just a week to go before QED522 concludes in all its splendor. Some thoughts, as honestly as I can represent them, before my own subjectivity subjects my consciousness to oblivion.

Copyright: I guess working in the Writing Centre only acquainted me with how not to plagiarize in a written paper, but Prof Tan's comments on possible copyright infringement in our SCLP were really a positive eye-opener. Functioning under the paper-citation logic, I had thought that it would be okay to create a montage of clips as long as the sources are cited somewhere. After all, the way the montage is put together is "original." However, this is only half right. We were alerted by Prof Tan to the fact that putting such a video up online will still make us liable of distributing copyrighted content.

I am sincerely grateful for his helpful firefighting suggestion that we show our painful Windows Movie Maker product in an offline class instead. For a while the thought of possibly having to kill my video horrified me.

Affordances: Yes, it makes sense to edit an image with software like GIMP or Photoshop. I was so thankful that I used many layers in the source file for our original header image, which contains copyrighted images. With the help of exactly two mouse clicks, the potential infringements are now out of sight, and I have added some new design elements adapted from free fonts and royalty-free images, without killing the healthy bits of my header. Cheers!

Polling: Private opinions made public beneath the guise of confidentiality. Democracy, the allusive ideal to attain to, almost always a test of how well publicity and imaging/image sway the vote. As it is with every other election. I always doubt the integrity of polls.

Appraisal: If peer appraisal for teachers is going to be launched at its full, we may just end up playing Survivor every other day. Like Tina from the Second Season, to survive we will have to lie low until one by one the rest are eliminated. Does school have to be Battle Royale?

Threat: There are just a few more months to Practicum and several more months to school posting. I am happy to be perceived as a threat, and just sad that, as two friends and NIE seniors have already told me, that it is better to be less of a perfectionist in my work, in case I am seen as spoiling the market and get peer reviewed negatively. Since when did this culture of preferring imperfection over and above one's best effort become the mainstay in the nation's education training ground? I really do not think metacognition should be applied for the purpose of consciously downgrading one's work just to upgrade one's public standing. It is simply obscene.

Niche: I now (or, for now) think that the best way to protect myself, my sanity, my integrity, my quality, my output, my longevity, my hopes and my dreams in this line would be to find this impenetrable niche unique to me.

Teacher: As much as this statement may disgust, I am first a teacher, then a Chinese teacher. We do not want to be politically incorrect by being racist, Occidentalist or Orientalist. We do not have to be politically incorrect to the extent of finding Chinese teachers who use English like drinking tea, and who cannot let a day go by without playing with some ICT tool, an anomaly and a cyst.

Pleasure: At the risk of sounding like a boot-licker or even more incorrect and incongruous, I really, really, really enjoyed myself in QED522. Easily the best taught and most fun course I've taken in NIE. I blog and I play in my sandbox because I like it, and am motivated. I am at the center of everything, because I am not just a student, but the student at the center of student-centered learning, which respects the individuals we are.

I am who I am, because I am made by I AM and an image of that which is I am.
Yes, the above issues will still haunt me in the school(s) I will be posted to. But Rule#1 says, there are no ghosts. Amen to that.