Baby tech: Will new gadgets result in paranoid parents by ZhiGang

Summary:

In response to the needs of first-time parents, many new gadgets are advancing which benefits both the baby and the parent. With these new gadgets, parents would not be so worried about their baby because they will be able to detect anything wrong immediately with the notification on their smartphone. These have provided ease for parents, usually first-time parent for they do not know when their children will fall sick. These gadgets ensures the safety of the kids which is attractive to parents.

Opinion:

In my opinion, I feel that these gadgets may somewhat be beneficial for parents but have parents ever thought before the consequences of these gadgets. These gadgets are made to earn loads off parents and these somehow provide ‘help’ to parents. These gadgets actually are useless for they made us over-rely on these technologies to do simple things that we in nature are able to do. These gadgets made us dependent on them and probably something we cannot live without.

 

PISA Test By Sherman Teo

Summary:
Singapore’s 15-year-olds excel in thinking flexibly and creatively to solve complex and unfamiliar problems. According to the 2012 PISA findings, our students are innovative, are able to handle uncertainty, and dare to experiment with alternative solutions. The strong performance of our students reflects our curricular emphasis and our schools’ efforts in developing problem solving skills in our students. Our broad and inclusive education system has also allowed us to bring out the best in every child. Singapore students have performed well in problem solving processes which involve: Exploring and understanding the situation around a problem, Representing and formulating hypotheses about the factors involved in the problem and their relationships with each other, Planning and executing the steps in a devised plan, and Monitoring and reflecting on the progress of the plan and the eventual solution of the problem. This suggests that our teachers have been encouraging our students to be curious, innovative and to use their intuition to solve problems. This is the second time that Singapore has participated in PISA. A total of 5,369 students, mainly from Secondary 3 and 4, from all 166 public secondary schools participated in PISA 2012. One hundred and seventy-seven students from six private schools also participated in the study. The sampling methods applied by OECD in PISA ensure that the students selected were representative of the 15-year-old population in Singapore.

Opinion:
In my opinion, I believe that the PISA test is not a good way to be testing on Singapore's education system. This system glorifies Singapore students because they are being described as a group who are creative and innovative. However many of the PISA test criteria is already implemented into Singapore's education system under their Science practical experiments therefore it is not a good gauge as to tell whether Singapore students are creative. This will then make the education system in Singapore more stringent as they will start forcing students to do everything just for the PISA test and not taking note of the student's interest. Therefore I do not think that the PISA test is a very good gauge.

Could your next boss be a robot?

Summary: automation are not only affecting lower level white collar work but also high level too. AS technology have a larger role, management would have face new challenges. When tedious jobs are hold by machine, economy would slow down as it interfere with human's full potential to do the job. Computers are able to do better than humans because they do not have human frailties.

Opinion: Robots have chance of replacing ourselves in work as they are more efficient than humans. Even though robot would also have it's own inefficient and ineffectiveness as they would be made by humans. Humans also do have their own superiority against robot if they were to have lesser frailties.

Is the Singapore soil fertile for creativity?

Summary: Innovation is a key component to boosting organisation performance in which Singapore has focused attention on for the productivity. But the truth is that not many companies had done so as they consciously or in consciously had put up a barrier to it. this barriers are not only is found in Asia but also in the UK. It is hard to foster an innovative spirit due to our Asian culture such as the problem with merit. In Singapore the dear of failure could also be another that lead to a barrier to innovation.

Opinion: In my opinion, if organisation would really want to boost their performance, they should change their way and remove the barrier to innovation. Only through innovation than would organisation performance be boost. Bosses should encourage their workers to be innovative and have resources given to them to be innovative.

PISA Study by JunTian

Summary: According to the 2012 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) computer-based assessment of Problem Solving, organised by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Singapore’s 15-year-olds excel in thinking flexibly and creatively to solve complex and unfamiliar problems. Our students are innovative, are able to handle uncertainty, and dare to experiment with alternative solutions. These highly valued competencies stand them in good stead in a globalised, information-rich economy increasingly dominated by highly skilled, non-routine jobs, and give them the wherewithal to come together to create a brighter future for our society. The strong performance of our students reflects our curricular emphasis and our schools’ efforts in developing problem solving skills in our students.

Opinion: I feel that this result has reflected the effectiveness of Singapore's education system. Our education system is able to groom our students have the ability to take in knowledge and process them systematically and to be able to react adroitly when the situation arises. Even our students who were graded "lower performers" are much lesser as compared to the other countries. Therefore I feel that Singapore's education system is very successful.
Of course there are also others who argue that Singapore's education system is too stressful and too rigid. Students have to go through countless tests and examinations, and are expected to memorise large amount of information. However, I feel that while it is partially true, it is the amount of hardwork that students usually put in that allow them to be able to learn so quickly when presented with new information during the PISA study. The students have also proved that they do not only study blindly, but are also able to think flexibly when they have to.
Therefore, I strongly believe that Singapore's education system has been by far successful in grooming our students and training them to be skilled learners with the ability to react flexibly.

Little India riot: The dog that did not bark by JunTian

Summary: Prior to that fateful Sunday, more than 20,000 foreign workers were bussed into Little India every Sunday, adding significantly to the human and vehicular congestion there. Foreign labour comprises almost 40 per cent of our 3.45 million workforce. Singapore continues to need migrant workers and their numbers will remain substantial with a thriving economy and even as we restructure our economy. Hence, it is imperative that we work resolutely towards enhancing the working and living conditions for migrant workers, including the regulatory environment that governs them. But it is abundantly clear that the days of sustained rapid migration are over. There is a limit to securing economic gains, clearest in the short run at the expense of the fabric of our society social effects are often clearer in the long run. Therefore, it would be a larger tragedy if we only dealt with the riot as a law and order issue, but did not engage the broader questions raised — especially the urgency of right-sizing the benefits and costs of our economic and immigration policies.

Opinion: I agree with the author's opinion that the real problem underlying the "Little Indian Riot" is what we really need to tackle instead of just the superficial issues. Firstly, the issue of overwhelming number of foreign workers is a common worry of Singaporeans. Singaporeans feel threatened in terms of competitiveness, safety, and the over using of public resources. Secondly, is the relationship between locals and foreign workers. Many locals are bias against the locals and this causes a split in the relationships. However, the truth is that Singapore cannot do without these foreign workers as we need them in order to improve our economy.  

Protect genetic Biodiversity by Carlenko Wang

Forest ecosystems, which is identified as the essential refuges for biodiversity ,are now facing challenges from human activities and climate change .Governments of 86 countries are criticized as their inefficient and tangible policies do not fulfill the criteria of protecting the forest genetic resources, according to the United Nation. To address the biodiversity issues which is related to our food, agriculture and forestry and essential sustainability are alerted to deal with .Steps are taken so as to resolve the forest genetic resources issues.

In my opinion, the protection of the ecosystems should be well conducted by both the state and the public. If we leave the issue alone, it will become a system which no longer has various species to maintain the biodiversity. The direct consequence will be the development of the agriculture .The agriculture has long been humans’ headache due to its disabilities of supplying sufficient food to the mankind. If we neglect this issue, our current food problems will no doubt become more serious .In order to build a better future which we expected, we shall take actions to deal with forest protection now.