Individual assignment

E-mail

The innovation which has transformed my professional life in recent years is the e-mail. At ADMC we faculty live and die by electronic mail. We send, every day, e-mails to people who are only a few desks away. In the past we would have gone to see these people in person or written hard copy notes to leave on their desks.

Electronic mail predates the inception of the Internet and was in fact a crucial tool in creating the Internet. MIT first demonstrated the Compatible Time-sharing System (CTSS) in 1961. It allowed multiple users to log into the IBM 7094 from remote dial-up terminals, and to store files online on disk. This new ability encouraged users to share information in new ways. E-mail started in 1965 as a way for multiple users of a time-sharing mainframe computer to communicate. Although the exact history is murky, among the first systems to have such a facility were SDC's 32 and MIT's CTSS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-mail).

So e-mail has been around a long time but it is only in the last 10-15 years that it has played a part in my professional development.In fact, all aspects of life have been changed by e-mail. When I first went to Brunei (we landed in Bandar Seri Begawan, or BSB, the capital, on 1st January, 1980) there was no widely available worldwide web. No-one had a computer. E-mails were unheard of. There were no projectors in classrooms. There weren't even whiteboards or airconditioning units in classrooms. I used chalk on a blackboard. And this was in the Pusat Tingkatan Enam (Sixth Form Centre), at that time the leading academic institution in the whole country. We didn't even have air-conditioning in our staff room, and papers had to be weighted down on desks to prevent them being blown away by the fans.

The contrast with the situation here today in ADMC is striking. Every classroom has a/c, projectors, smartboards, whiteboards (http://www.admc.hct.ac.ae/internet/). I can communicate with all my students by e-mail; getting them to check and read their e-mails is a different matter.

E-mails have transformed not just my professional life but all aspects of life in general. Increasingly people in their everyday lives, as well as their professional ones, are switching from old-fashioned letter writing to e-mail. It would appear to be an inexorable progression from hard to soft copy. When, in 1986, I was studying for my Licentiate Diploma in TESOL with Trinity College, London, (http://www.trinitycollege.co.uk), I received work modules by airmail, and returned the completed work likewise. It would take weeks for work to arrive, be completed, returned to London, get marked and sent back. The same tasks could be completed today by e-mail in a fraction of the time. The world has been transformed by electronic mail.

 

As to future devgelopments, prediction is a notoriously difficult business. E-mail, I think it is fairly safe to assume, will continue to be of paramount importance in all aspects of our lives. The future seems likely, however, to become increasingly mobile. ADMC has already begun a potentially transformative operation with the introduction of i-pads. This and the recent advent of 4G mobile phones seem set to inaugurate a new mobile revolution in both teaching and learning.

580 words


Bibliography:

"E-mail." En.wikipedia.org. http://www.google.com/. Web. 15 Nov. 2009.

"E-learning." www.admc.hct.ac.ae/internet. Web. 15 Nov. 2009.

http://www.trinitycollege.co.uk/

Reflection1

Some of the students started late and we had a somewhat stuttering start to the semester.
 
We started with two practice summaries, one about North African bustards and the other about Emirati police night patrols. Both passages provided information which was new to me and, so the students tell me, them too. This made both tasks interesting.
 
I emphasised that when summarising one should eliminate all examples and most facts and figures, unless of critical importance. The important thing is to convey the general message of a passage. Read the passage and then ask yourself what it was about and what its main purpose/message is. Then write this down in simple terms.
 
Our two assessed summaries were about desert milk and desert survival. Again we were lucky that both passages provided new and interesting information. The students showed in their summaries that they had taken on board my advice and the standard of summarisation was surprisingly high.
 
We ended the session before Eid Al Adha by looking at BibMe which I ran through with the students to explain the importance of accurate referencing prior to their upcoming personal assignments.

 The general opinion of the students was that they have made progress in learning summary skills and in using BibMe.

 
209 words.

Summary task 2

Desert milk

 

The UAE is mostly arid desert and yet we enjoy, every day, not only fresh milk but all types of dairy products. It all comes from Almarai, founded in 1977 with 300 cows. It now has 135,000 Holstein cows in 6 superfarms near Riyasdh.The milk is delivered from the superfarms to processing plants where it is homogenized and then pasteurized. About two thirds of the milk is used for yoghurt and other dairy products; the rest is bottled. Almarai has almost 3,000 vehicles that deliver its products across the region. The company is very profitable. 50 years ago fresh milk came from goats or camels and cow’s milk came canned, either evaporated, condensed or powdered, but fresh milk is now king.

120 words.

Summary task 1

Desert survival

In the past, finding food, shelter and, especially, water in the desert summers was difficult for Bedouins. They followed the flight of birds or looked for signs of vegetation to find places where they could dig wells, often with their bare hands. Wells were named after the men who found them. Sometimes Bedouins would even kill and drain a camel’s body for water. Goat and camel milk could also serve as a water substitute. Water was stored in sheep or goatskin satchels for long journeys. The Bedouin were also well-acclimatised to desert heat and able to withstand greater dehydration than most. Through necessity, they were well-prepared for survival in the desert heat.

112 words

Houbara bustards

North African houbara bustards are an endangered species. Their numbers have dwindled in the past few decades due to poaching, over-hunting and the destruction of their grassland habitat. The Emirates Centre for Wildlife Propagation,  in the remote Moroccan town of Missour, opened in 1995 and financed by the Abu Dhabi Government, has so far produced 60,000 of the birds. Similar centres have been established in the UAE, Kazakhstan, China and Turkmenistan. A small percentage of bids, kept for breeding, are allowed human contact but the majority, released into the wild, are not. Radio and satellite transmitters track the birds after they are released. The success of the programme can be measured through the density of the bustard population, which has increased ten-fold in the past decade.

126 words

Summary practice 1

Each of the UAE’s seven emirates employs night patrols of horsemen to look for signs of trouble in areas inaccessible by car. Each patrol consists of 6-8 horsemen who pair off to cover as wide an area as possible. Most of the horsemen are Indian, as attempts to recruit Emiratis have failed. They carry only kanduras, mobile phones and walkie-talkies. They patrol year-round, except for the very hottest months. They are busiest during the winter and school breaks. Their Arabian horses possess stamina but have to be well-trained to ignore the sounds of engines and human taunts. They monitor mainly minor offences but occasionally more serious crimes like drug smuggling.

110 words