• A description of your chosen activity, assessment or resource and the technology you have selected to support it.
  • Chosen activity: Teaching Online – Engineering/Mathematics
  • Assessment: Blackboard in-built grading & feedback system
  • Resources: Institutional Technology (Blackboard) & blog or social media posts (eg. twitter, Instagram – with hashtags to allow connections to be made)

• An argument or a rationale from a learning and teaching perspective (not technical) for your selected technology over other technologies supported with evidence.
  • As a University Student, circuit breaker has made me reflect about how the ability to learn and develop skill via online means was so important.
  • Honing different skills and knowledge really helped me to broaden and diversify my perspectives and it felt really empowering to me.
  • The skill of being an online learner and of course having such well-planned learning pedagogical to tap on showed me that I had what it takes to learn not only in a physical context but in any context that I am placed in.
  • After using such learning platforms like LinkedIn learning, Coursera, Edmodo, etc. to aid my learning, I was curious about the capabilities of such learning platforms and how learning to utilize such online teaching means would be beneficial in future.
  • As a part-time tutor, I am able to apply such teach skills in meagre ways and gain some exposure to teaching online.

• Discuss the benefits of your selected technology (including those related to open or institutionally-supported technology depending on your chosen technology)
  • Blackboard:
    • Blackboard is an LMS.
    • Pros: Its longevity and market share, well-developed for data integration with SIS (Student IS) of many variations, many student have used this platform before, hence, it is easier for student to adapt and integrate to this platform for learning.
  • Facebook/Blogs/Twitter/Instagram/forum:
    • Used as a platform to share ideas and views about topics discussed and also to connect with other learners.
    • Depending on the topics discussed, it is important to select the appropriate platform for sharing the intended information with learners.

• Discuss the risks associated with your selected technology (including those related to open or institutionally-supported technology depending on your chosen technology)
  • Blackboard:
    • Cons: Outdated (eg. Cloud Services), its development is also slow because of the burden of their large and diverse base of product versions and variations and the burden of their legacy platform –> lack in quality.
  • Facebook/Blogs/Twitter/Instagram/forum:
    • Hard to track the respective responses from such diverse platforms.
    • As they are open platforms of discussion, it is prone to negative comments and criticism which must be well dealt with by the users.

• References
  • https://elearningindustry.com/digital-education-tools-teachers-students
  • https://www.quora.com/Bb-What-are-the-advantages-and-disadvantages-of-blackboard-learning-system

YOUR LIFE IS YOURS TO CRAFT, EXPLORE & ENJOY!

Hi! I am Vanessa. As a trained Environmental Engineer, I am keen on using my acquired skills in the Environmental field to solve real-world issues and contribute to the circular economy by developing new sustainable green innovations. Discovering new interests and embracing the challenges that come my way! I strongly believe in spending my time on things that spark my interest.  

I love learning and teaching others. With an INFJ personality, I just love leaving an impact on the world and the people around me.

During CB, I saw the importance of using digital technology to teach my tutees for my part-time tutoring work. It has also led me to think of how the skill of online teaching can help hasten the learning process and ultimately benefit both the students and teacher.

With the wealth of information available online, I felt that it is important that we learn to tap on the resources and use it to enhance/maximize our learning process.

Introduction

• Understand money. Make right financial decisions.

Financial Decisions

• Timeless
• indirectly or directly related to money
• revisited as social context changes

Money-related Decisions	Motivated by Goals
– Borrow – Invest – Manage	– Choices depend on your relationship to that money.

What inspired me to take this course was, firstly, my university is offering this course free of charge, secondly, I am taking an Engineering finance module next semester. But ultimately, I strongly believe that being equipped with these financial tools and being able to utilize them in my financial decisions would really bring about a change in who I am and who I would become.

As a trained Environmental Engineer, I am keen on using my acquired skills in the Environmental field to solve real-world issues and contribute to the circular economy by developing new sustainable green innovations. Discovering new interests and embracing the challenges that come my way. I strongly believe in spending my time on things that spark my interest.

I strongly believe that in order to be successful, we must hone the mastery of the use of money and change the way we view it. There are 4 financial skills that I deem useful for any individual, and the skills are as follows, an understanding of financial statements, ratio analysis, cash flow management & forecasting.

From what I have learned from the first course, decisions, of the 4-part specialization, I am made more aware of many social and ethical issues that directly or indirectly impact the financial markets. This course has been a great start to the finance world and I am looking forward to familiarizing myself with the financial jargon and calculations that enable me to make better financial decisions in the future.

So many of us believe in perfection, which ruins everything else, because the perfect is not only the enemy of the good; its also the enemy of the realistic, the possible, and the fun.

– Elizabeth Gilbert

https://quotestats.com/topic/not-everything-is-perfect-quotes/

Doesn’t perfectionism have a good connotation? I mean, who doesn’t want to portray themselves as a near-perfect individual having the best social life and best accolades?

For many who know me, I am a highly critical person who sets high standards and expectations for myself. In other words, I am a PERFECTIONIST.

Over the years, with the help and guidance of others, I grew in awareness of who I am, what are my boundaries, and the areas I need to work on.

I wished that I had known these tips earlier in my life. Hence, through this article, I would like to share three tips on how you can cultivate self-awareness to aid in your both personal and professional domains. 

1. Finding Your Persona

“Tell me more about yourself.” – the most cliché interview question. I have many friends who approached me to ask how they should answer this question. If you are one of them, I hope this tip will do the trick. Take these personality tests: 16 Personalities, DISC Profiling, Enneagram Personality Test to learn more about yourself. Through these personality and psychometric tests, I was able to find my own persona and take note of some personal growth recommendations. 

If you are curious of my Persona, here you go:

• 16 Personalities: INFJ-A
• DISC: Blend of Supportive & Cautious (Critical Thinker, Helpful, Committed to quality, Reserved)
• Enneagram: Type 4 – The Individualist; (Fours want to be unique and to live life authentically, and are highly attuned to their emotional experience.)

2. Find your Unique Personality Traits

Remember your first interview? You walk into the interview location thinking that you are prepared for any of the questions they might throw at you. The next thing throws you off balance. The interviewer asks you,”What value can you bring to our company? What are your strengths and weaknesses?” You are left dumbfounded as although you had prepared the answers, it is not something that reflects you wholly. You find it difficult to say something that does not correctly reflects you. Perhaps that’s your conscience!

I believe that everyone has unique attributes that you bring to a team – be it school or work. This unique capability is your unique selling point in a collaborative setting. It gives you clarity on your contribution to the team and how you can build on your strengths and also your weakenesses.

I would highly recommend finding your Personality traits by doing this activity: 
1. Head over to https://superpowers.sypartners.com/cards
2. Compare 2 cards by reading the description on the back of the cards (click on the card to find out more about its definition) 
3. Shortlist 1 out of the 2 cards which most represents you. 
4. Repeat Step 4 until you go through the whole deck. 
5. You can select your Primary and Secondary Super Powers

Your super power(s) will become your secret weapon if you are able to understand how you can value-add to your team. 

If you are curious of my Super Power(s), here you go:

• Primary – Systems Thinker
• Secondary – Empathy

3. Feedback

I have learnt the value of feedback in gaining self-awareness over these years. One of my weakness used to be handling criticism. Fast forward till today, I see feedback/criticism as a motivation to do better. We might be contented to stay in our comfort zones but growth remains stagnant. Getting feedback from others outside of our comfort zone – be it supervisors/managers, mentors, and friends might be helpful in gaining self-awareness for improvements.

Feedback doesn’t necessarily have to be taken in a “bad” manner. With someone bringing another perspective to your plate, it actually does you more good than bad. I hope this would spur you to have greater acceptance towards getting feedback from others. 

Life is a work in progress indeed. I hope that the above tips will help you to become more self-aware throughout your life. 

Xoxo, Vanessa

#selfawareness #selfdevelopment #personalitytest #feedback #USP #Unique

• 

Today, I learnt that being a highly-sensitive person can be a gift. To me, being a sensitive person had always held a bad connotation, that I was weak and not strong enough (aka strawberry gen?). So much that I numbed myself to those emotions and started to think that having lots of empathy towards others was a curse to me.

Being an HSP is tiring, I felt that noone could understand me and I felt lonely all my life. I got really tired from caring so much for others and did not know how to receive that same love from others (which I have learnt to in the past year, praise God!). This has definitely brought me lots of pain and people using me (but that’s a story for another day).

Some of my experiences that have surfaced from my memory: (1) Not being able to use my earpiece as I was too sensitive to the loud sound, I preferred to listen to the things around me. It felt disoriented and when what I was hearing did not align with what was happening around me (2) rewinding events that happened in the day every single night, editing the things I should’ve done better (and I even beat myself up for those mistakes) (3) disliking crowds and loud noises (4) sensitive to my senses of taste, sight, touch, smell (5) requiring more sleep to function well (6) getting really tired from conversations (7) hiding my needs/wants for the sake of others’ needs/wants (8) craving deep convos and connections with other fellow empaths (9) Recognising others by their vibes & smell instead of their appearance 😅 (10) Getting emotional about lots of things (only realised recently, have been holding back my emotions/have been numbed to my emotions for most of my life) (11) Think about things in a weird, interesting way (12) Playing out my actions a couple of times before the actual execution so that I can foresee if the action is the best possible way for the task to be executed.

Today, I realised that my sensitivity may not necessarily be bad, it is a gift from God that I should embrace! I realised how much God loves me that He gave me such a gifting and how He has used it in my life to bless others and also reveal Himself to me.

Being highly-sensitive CAN be a blessing both to self and others!

1. We can create ART that HEALS. HSPs have great depth of feeling. We notice the extraordinary beauty in the ordinary things of everyday life that others often miss. We smell, hear, taste & feel things that others don’t. Hence, the combination of depth of feeling + spiritual insight + creativity = ART that comes from a deep place of “emotional intellect”.

2. People feel SAFE to share things with you that they haven’t shared (and may never share) with anyone else. HSPs don’t shy away from their shadowed side. We are explorers of our inner world and we have usually become so familiar with the inner pains. And because we have explored so deeply and so honestly, we are often people who can gives space for others to explore themselves in a similar way, while never feeling judged.

3. People feel heard, seen, and UNDERSTOOD in ur presence. As human beings, we long to be truly seen and understood by others. We want to be known, deeply. HSPs can’t help but “see” through people. Like empaths, we are extraordinarily attuned to the needs of others in the moment. They pick up on cues that others don’t and read between the lines. People value spending time with highly sensitive people because they feel seen, heard and understood in a way they often don’t around others.

4. Being a GUIDE for others. Now realising that I am a HSP, it is a great relieve. I have always assumed that everyone sees the world the way I do. It has made me feel out-of-place and alone on multiple occasions. HSPs subconsciously (or consciously) spends more time than others reflecting on the big questions of life, noticing things that others don’t, and making connections between seemingly unrelated areas of life, they are often wise and insightful people. And often, they end up helping others who are in search of answers.

Never have I EVER seen sensitivity and being emphatic as a blessing or a gift. I often felt the need to numb the pain and emotions, felt out-of-place and misunderstood. Looking at sensitivity as a gift has really changed the way I perceive my “sensitivity” and I can finally EMBRACE the gift GOD BLESSED ME WITH instead of trying to lock it up and hide it away.

“Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you.” – 1 Tim 4:14 ESV

“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” – Matt 5:14-16

Just wanted to thank Gemz for her insights and foresight on my life, and just being the amazing woman after God’s heart!💕

Xoxo, vanz.

Realised that I have been updating my blog.

School has been chaotic since the spread of COVID-19. Praying that God reveals His glory and power through such dire times!

Finally found my method of learning! I am excited to try and Ace all my modules next semester and hopefully for the second half of this semester! Jia yous vannies 🙂

God has been so good. Thankful for His providence and guidance!

Today wasn’t any less perfect than any other day. Well, no day is perfect anyways. It always boils down to What do you define to be a perfect day? People may say that a perfect day is a day without problems and mishaps, for some it’s is a day without conflicts and quarrels, or for some, it is simply if they have enough to get through by.

So then, what do you define as a good day?

For me, as a University Student in Singapore, there is a never ending chase for the best grades, best social life, best opportunities, best lifestyles, etc. It is usually implied or demanded that as a student it is your “job” to strive & thrive in all these areas in order to be a better person, and if you fail to have it all together, you may be labeled as weak, useless, a person with bad time management or lacking in social skills. These labels may not even be labeled on you by others but labelled by none other than yourself.

Let me attempt personalise this post, hehe.

Today, I had a test on Hydrology, it is a module whereby we learn about natural processes that occur naturally in the environment that involves water processes such as infiltration, precipitation, evapotranspiration, surface runoff, etc. And as expected of a “good” student, I completed all the revision I needed to do before the test, completed all my tutorials and never skipped any lecture. I loved the content of the lectures, helped bring better perspectives it how God made the world. All these precise calculations made me realise how accurate God is in the creating of this world. Super amazing creator we have.

We were alphabetically assigned to our respective lecture theatres, mine was LT2A (first time I went into that LT btw.. ) Our cheerful Professor handed out the papers and all of us frantically searched our minds for the appropriate answers to fill the blanks of the respective questions. The thing is, the questions were set in a way that there was no one right answer or the English was just really indefinitive. It was really hard to decipher what the teacher really meant and wanted from us. So we all just did it to the best of our abilities and submitted our work. His lectures were really bad, and now even his papers were bad. Spoke to many of my friends regarding the test and they responded in the same way. Can’t help but feel disappointed after all the hard work and effort we have put in and that we don’t see the results.

Next, to my astonishment, my friend who watches the online lecture told me that the posted online lectures had the exact same paper that was tested, it was such a pity that only 1 out of 7 of us had watched that online lecture.

I personally preferred going for lecture as the teacher makes the time to go to class to teach us and out of due respect I would want to attend his/her lecture, it also gives me greater opportunities to interact with others. However, this incident did make me question if I should just be a virtual student, which mind you, it is a life of isolation and phantom-hood. I knew that it would bad if I tried to isolate myself from the world again. I was reminded that it was about my partnership with God to be a light and make a change in school, and isolating myself would just show how self-centred I can be. It is in such moments that I grow the most, I am challenged with these things that used to hold so much value in my purpose of living.

I won’t deny it, but I do feel a bit discouraged. However, changing my methods of studying may not even guarantee future improvement or success, we can’t have full-control over our circumstances or future. However, we have a God that is constantly in control of any and every situation.

Well, I know that He is in control, but why do I still feel anxious?

Results definitely still affects my mood, and yes, I am aware that it still holds a pedestal place in my heart. Right now, I will just be waiting it out to see how such situations would continue to strengthen my trust in Him.. to a greater measure. It is very much experimental and experiential. And of course it is important to stay focused on first building that r/s with Him, putting Him first, before any other relationship or thing.

Excited to see what and where God is guiding me to! A place of greater freedom and love perhaps! 🙂 I am enthralled! Thankful for the people that are walking with me, without them, I would have derailed many times when I fail to remind myself of the value and destiny that God has for me. ❤ xoxo.

God bless!

Walking out of an examination hall or classroom after a test… how do you feel after the paper? Disappointed? Stupid? Done for?

I wouldn’t ever deny that I have felt that shitty feeling all my years striving to do my best in the education system that seemingly fails to bring joy to learning.

I find it so important that we start to question the reason that we feel that way. To meet the expectations of others? Peer pressure? Self-expectations?

Whatever the reason, I am certain that it stems from a place of fear. Be it fear of the future, fear of others, fear of self, fear of people, etc.

Being in the Singapore Education System for the longest time (18 years) I am convinced that there is room for improvement.

Walking out of the examination hall disappointed of what all the effort throughout the year had amounted to, thinking “maybe I wasn’t putting enough effort”, and the vicious anxiety cycle started. The never ending pursuit of being “good enough”. This didn’t apply solely to academics but also on all the other aspects of life, spiritually, mental-wellness, fitness, diet, hobbies, etc. The never ending pursuit of perfection. Alas, a good friend of mine pointed out that I always seemed like I worked so damn hard and could never stop to rest. I always told myself that I had to work extremely hard as I wasn’t blessed with a genius mind. My education journey felt like a bad dream that I didn’t want to remember. Went into a Normal Academic stream, then Republic Polytechnic and at last, my hardwork and endless strive somehow… paid off? Well, what did I lose? I lost my emotions, ability to love myself, to love others. Was it worth it?

I hope that the next batch of teaching professionals will step up to make changes to the system to cultivate greater creativity and joy for learning.

I know it is possible. I am looking forward to see how the education system is evolving in the next few years!

What do I mean by “City Shadows”?

To me, the term “shadow” gives me a lurky eerie feeling, something that dwells amongst us and even follows us yet may go unnoticed.

I think many would agree with me that living in the city does not come without all the stresses and pressures that we probably grew up and has been etch in our normalcy.

Our human nature yearns for adventure but yet here we are tied to sullen looking lampposts of the city as if trapped whilst looking for a better future.

Yes, I am thankful for the comfortable and mostly peaceful lives we have here on this sunny little red dot. However, I wanted to write out my thoughts regarding the issue to sympathise with all you city-dwellers who may feel like giving up in this complex and highly-stressful way of living.

And I am definitely not in a position to vouch for the happenings in the other cities, but in this article, I would just be throwing out my thoughts regarding living in a city, my city, Singapore.

Introduction

Lured by the prospect of work and opportunity, many have shifted to cities for a better life.

However, as cities become more urbanised, we see that mental illnesses are starting to comprise the world’s biggest disease burden after infectious diseases.

To complicate matters, many growing cities include immigrant populations, which already have an increased risk of psychiatric disease associated with social isolation.

How does a city environment affect an individual?

It is difficult to study whether something as complex as a ‘city environment’ has an impact on the brain. 

Relentless stress

Considered from an evolutionary standpoint, the physiological stress response is definitely a good thing: it helps mammals to survive. Any threat, whether from a predator, dwindling food supplies or an aggressive enemy, triggers release of hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline. These hormones raise levels of sugar in the blood and redistribute blood flow to muscles and lungs, so that animals can respond to the threat by running, hunting or fighting.

Problems arise when the stress response doesn’t switch off. Stress-hormone levels that stay too high for too long cause high blood pressure and suppress the immune system. And, although the mechanisms are unknown, scientists agree that severe or prolonged stress also raise the risk of psychiatric disease — most brutally in those who have a genetic predisposition, and when the stress occurs while the brain is still developing. In theory, then, the ceaseless challenges of the city could produce this kind of damaging stress.

I just wanted to blog about the issue as my heart goes out to anyone that feels so alone in the bustle of the city. No, you aren’t alone. You aren’t hopeless or unsuccessful, you have just found yourself being thrown into a highly complex environment and we find ourselves greatly confused of our identity. Who are we? Why are we here? What are we supposed to do? #identitycrisis

Three reasons why people in cities may have increased mental health problems

(To be cont. – see la, van got too tired)