Puzzled

Praise be to Allah... at last I have completed the mega puzzle after two whole weeks of tweaking, chopping and pasting. This is the task which nobody wants because it involves so many people and possibly changes so many lives. However, it is important that somebody has to do it, and that unlucky somebody is me.

There were so many things to be considered, so giving everybody equal portion of the schedule is a major headache. Everybody wants to return home early; everybody wants as minimal teaching hours as they can; everybody wants to teach their favourite subjects; and the list goes on and on. 

I was told to make as few contact as possible so that nobody influence me in making my decision. I was lucky that in this school nobody tried to bribe me, so I could go about doing my task without any worry. I have done this task twice already this year, but none would be like this particular time. I was very emotional this time because a piece of the puzzle had died during its completion.

The late Mr. Mahmud Omar was a very dedicated teacher as far as I know. I knew him when the school decided to become a one-session school. He was teaching in the evening session then, and I did not see much of him until we shared the same staff room. He was already quite unwell, and he was frequenting the hospital for hemodialysis treatments. 

He never causes trouble, and I am really troubled by students who were really rude in labeling him as 'a walking zombie'. If I can, I want to get a hold of these students and ask them to apologize, which they could not possibly do because the person they are apologizing to is already gone. 

May Allah bless him.  

New Year Resolution. Cliche, Isn't It?

New Year always makes me anxious. Unresolved past year resolution always haunts me at this time of year. I don't have to keep telling you about it; you can clearly read it at the upper left hand side of this blog. 

Apart from that, there are several things that I want to do this year.

1. Reorganising my finance. 

Currently, I am very dissatisfied with my cash flow. I have to sort out the things that are really important to

me from the things that can really be dismissed. This includes stopping the usage of my second credit card and cutting any unnecessary expenses. If I can gain some side income through chess coaching or tuition, it would be awesome.

2. Documenting my tasks.

At school, I am given the tasks to organise teachers' class schedule, keeping students data, coaching school chess team and supervising school chess club. I teach 4 English Language classes. Outside the school, I am the Technical Chairman of Tumpat district chess and the secretary of Kelantan State Chess Association (Persatuan Catur Negeri Kelantan or PCNK). All these tasks need to be properly documented in systematic filing so that I get clear indication of the things I should do throughout this year.

3. Strengthening chess skills.

I play at chess.com almost everyday, but that is not enough to keep me updated on the new development in chess. I am thinking of reading some new materials and involving in strong tournaments which can really flex my chess muscle. With the proposal of a chess centre in Kota Bharu, I will surely get to play some strong PCNK members from time to time to keep me updated on the current chess theories. 

4. Upgrading knowledge.

My reading time lessens year by year. It is hard for me to really find time to have a good read. Luckily I subscribe to Reader's Digest which brings a lot of good information each month. However, I must read more to become more learned, and this can only be done by scheduling fixed time for reading. I think reading just before going to bed would be great.

5. Spending quality family time.

For your information, I am staying with my son while my wife is stationed far away and my daughter is living with my in-laws. Thus, finding time to be together is quite hard, and if there is so, it should be enjoyed thoroughly. So far, my wife always returns during weekends where there is no school task, and we would be doing something useful to make up for lost time. I really envy those who can stay together as family and hope that my time will come, sooner rather than later. 

     

Another Teacher MUST DO Which Starts With the Word 'System'

Today I've finished another obligation for millennial teachers - an interactive examination on ICT terms and knowledge. It is called 'Sistem Analisa Kompetensi' (SAK?). It is a collection of 30 questions on ICT terms and knowledge which must be answered in 40 minutes. After 4 unwanted log-outs throughout the ordeal, I finally managed to finish it in only 20 minutes of the allocated time.

Teachers must log into the website using their IC numbers. They will then be taken into the regulation page. After reading all the rules and regulation carefully, they may start by clicking the button 'MULA'. 

Teachers must answer each question before proceeding to the next. In case of involuntary log-out happening, they should only close the browser and restart it again. After the second log in, they will continue at the time of when they are accidentally logged out. So, there are no worries about time running out before they finish answering. 

After finishing all the questions, a page appear with the word 'TAHNIAH' written on it. This means that you have completed the task successfully and may continue to real teaching work after that.

Do enjoy trying it out. Me and my friends sure did. We actually copied the answers for others' convenience. This is a list of MY answers, according to the name of the characters used in the situational based questions:

Abbas – D

Adam – A

Amy – D

Ann – A

Anna – C

Azealia – B

Basri – A

Chong – A

Daniala – A

Daud – C

Devan – C

Elisabeth –C

Gopal – B

Ibrahim – A

Ishak – D

Jasvir – C

Jenny – A

Jerry – C

Kate – C

Katrina – B

Kavitha – A

Kenjna – D

Kumar – A

Lily – D

Lim – A

Marco - B

Mazitah – C

Micheal – C

Ming Lee – B

Nathan – D

Nesya – D

Ng – A

Patricia – A

Raman – C

Saffiya – C

Sahzil – B

Sara – C

Selva – B

Sharifuddin – A

Shukri – D

Soraya – C

Sulaiman – B

Susan – A

Thomas – C

Tom – B

Vijayen – A

Wahid – A

Zahid – B

 

Teachers Must Be IT Savvy

Nowadays, teachers have to be very knowledgeable in using the Internet. The reason for this is that they have to engage with this technology at least once a month. They have to key-in students' data, students' examination marks, their own personal data and also the courses or seminars they went to. Among the websites that they have to frequent are:

1. Aplikasi Pangkalan Data Murid

2. Sistem Analisis Peperiksaan Sekolah

3. Sistem Pengurusan Latihan Guru

Now they have to stare at the screen for long hours. Hopefully, nobody takes advantage by opening lots of eye glasses shops. Nevertheless, these articles might help in reducing the probability of making your glasses thicker: 

How to Save Your Eye Sight from Prolonged Computer Usage

Tips for Beating Screen Addiction

e-Filing

Don't forget to update your particulars in e-filing!

M.A.L.A.S. is Not the Word...

I was trying my best to update my blog as frequent as I can, and I always had something in my mind to share with you readers (if any), but time was not by my side. Every time I tried to sit in front of my laptop and type something, there would always be work to do. With everything going online, teachers like me could not even properly sit at a table marking pupils work or planning tomorrow's lesson. I laughed at the time when I was still planning two pages of lesson for a class when it is clear that today I don't even have time to write a quarter of a page.

Do not mistakenly take my comments as a sigh, I do love my job as a teacher, but doing clerical work is not actually included in my definition of 'teaching'. Yet, it is this task which prevails in any teachers scheme of work nowadays, and some of them have even mistakenly take it as the main task by putting the classroom lesson behind. Admittedly, the task is important, but is this the way forward for our education system?

Zinga Island or Manzu Highlands?

If I have the opportunity to go for a holiday, I will like to visit the Manzu Highlands which is just situated at the heart of Pahang.

After a constant mad rush (of) life in the city, I would definitely like to release my stress and frustration. Manzu Highlands is suitable for relaxation and a good holiday destination for those who want to stay away from the hustle and bustle of the city. Situated in the hills, Manzu Highlands is a spot full of fresh air and the temperature is just fine instead of the weather in the city where the sun is scorching and blaring (blistering) with intense heat. Although it is quite chilly, the weather allows us to sleep with peace without having the necessity to turn on the air-conditioner.

Other than that, Manzu Highlands is well-known for its quiet and peaceful environment. Its tranquility makes it a hot spot for tourists from all walks of life. It is free of any sound pollution and ear-deafening noise such as the honking of the vehicles unlike the life in the urbanisation. It is indisputable that Manzu Highlands is a perfect location when it involves the scene of serenity as the vivid and blue sky soothes and calms the heart of pressured city workers.

Moreover, there are countless of beautiful sceneries (scenery) that can be witnessed. The majestic-looking mountains and the greeneries (greenery) around Manzu Highlands are the main attraction there. The mist that is surrounding the mountains all the time stirred the curiosity of everyone who visits there. The scenery during the dawn and dusk are proclaimed to be the most beautiful scenery that you can see in the ( ) Malaysia and it just gets better when the glimmering of stars during night time can be clearly seen up above the sky!

Not only that, despite of the chilly weather in Manzu Highlands, there are tremendous amount of activities that can be done. Fishing can be done at various locations as Manzu Highlands has many rivers with suitable temperature that can promote the growth of aquatic organisms. As I am an enthusiast in fishing, it will be definitely (definitely be) a golden opportunity for me! Furthermore, rock-climbing and mountaineering is a divine intervention for those who is eager and enthusiastic to try out the extreme activities offered there. For those who prefer less strenuous activities, they can visit the popular landmarks such as strawberry farm and the bee apiary. They can purchase souvenirs as much as they like to!

On the contrary (Hence), Manzu Highlands is an ideal destination for holidays as it offers an (a) once -in-a-lifetime experience for those who visit there. I will definitely go to Manzu Highlands for a holiday as it fulfilled all my requirements and it is a better selection if compared to Zinga Island.


Vocabulary
--------------

mad rush - done without thought or control
hustle and bustle - busy and noisy activity of a lot of people in one place
scorching - very hot
blaring - make a loud unpleasant noise
blistering - extremely hot in a way that is uncomfortable
tranquility - quiet and peaceful
indisputable - that is true and cannot be denied
serenity - calm and peaceful
soothes - to make somebody feel calmer
majestic - impressive because of size or beauty
greenery - attractive green leaves and plants
stirred - awakened
proclaimed - to publicly and officially tell people about something important
glimmering - to shine with a faint unsteady light
tremendous - very great
aquatic - growing or living in, on or near water
enthusiast - a person who is very interested in something
divine intervention - help from God to change a situation
strenuous - needing great effort and energy
apiary - a place where bees are kept
on the contrary - used to introduce a statement that says the opposite of the last one
hence - for this reason

Stressful Weeks Ahead

These two weeks will be very stressful, at least to me. There will be a sports week, a farewell dinner, a retirement programme, and also a futsal final, where I will play an important role in each of them. There is also the SMM data collection, apart from completing the school's blog, to add to the task of teaching my pupils. No wonder I got involved in a small disagreement with one of my co-workers yesterday.

Hopefully I will find the solutions to all of them, even though I think I should neglect one or two of the tasks for now.

May ALLAH give me strength!

SMM Version 4.0

Sistem Maklumat Murid now enters its 4th version. There are so many additional information which has to be filled in by the class teachers. Among other things; the students' blood type, their ambition, names and information of their siblings, extended information of their father/mother, their examination call number, and also how they go to school. Therefore, it is advisable for the SMM teachers of each school to really befriend the class teachers, so that they will complete all the required fields needed for this version.

As the district JU, I have to actually teach all 44 SMM teachers to convert their SMM version 3.0 to this newer version. Hopefully I can do this job successfully.

MAKSAK Games

I was out of school for about a week to prepare and play in the MAKSAK games held from 17-19th of July 2009. For a teacher, a week's absence is quite a while in terms of teaching sessions and classes. However, representing your state (or country) is also considered part of the job, and surely there has to be some leave that can be taken by teachers in this situation. Fortunately for me, there is a circular on this. It stated that the person involved can take up to 30 days of Unrecorded Leave. Thus, I can calmly train and play and as a result, we did well in the MAKSAK games held recently in Kota Bharu. Kelantan managed to get 4th placing in the chess event (the team consisted of 6 teachers from all over Kelantan). You can read all about it in my other blog.

sisMAKAN

I just finished a course on sisMAKAN, a system for recording information of the school canteen. I am now an official JU (head coach) for Gua Musang SMM, and now also the JU for sisMAKAN. As in previous post, I was down with food poisoning, so I am particularly keen to uphold this system and make it work. This system is made compulsory for nationwide schools, so all the reported food poisoning will be recorded in the system, as well as the schools' actions when hit with the problem. The course was presented by Mr. Haris Fadzli bin Awang, from SMK Convent, Klang. The course was conducted at the Kota Bharu PPD near SMK Zainab at Telipot.

EduwebTV Course Successful?

The internal course was conducted from 28 - 29th April at the school Access Centre. It was a follow up course after the course I attended early last month. Fifteen fellow colleagues, teaching various subjects, attended the course. I tried my best to share my knowledge of how to benefit from the educational portal. However, I would be lying if I said that it was a completely satisfying course. There were many glitches, mainly concerning technicality of playing the videos, which are the most important part of this course. I did not have ample time to check every computer used for this course, thus rendering these technical slip-ups to happen. Sorry to all the participants, but luckily they did not return home empty handed. They knew how make a playlist, download a video, and how to use it beneficially in their PNPs.

Some pictures from the course:

Virus, Virus, Oh Go Away!

Part of my job as a person in-charge of ICT in the school is to ensure that all computer is virus-free There are many types of viruses found in our computers; some of them were malicious and some not that dangerous. However, I took no chances and tried to remove them all. Some of the viruses (and the method I used to remove them) are mentioned below:

1. Trojan.BAT.Shutdown.bi found in C:\WINDOWS\pc-off.bat
This is a very malicious trojan where I found it repeatedly shut down a computer in the computer lab, making it difficult for me to do anything about it. So, I hooked the hard drive to another pc and scanned it with Kaspersky, which deleted it from the hard drive.


2. IM-Worm.Win32.Sohanad.bm
This is a common virus found in our computers. It copied itself and made dubious new folders all around the system. Actually, according to the definition, it is a worm generation programme which can create different types of worms when residing in the system. Luckily, however, Kaspersky picked it out easily and did the job for me.

Virus Prevention Tip:

It is quite perplexing how users always neglected to scan their removable drive (eg. pen drives and diskettes) before using it. No amount of anti viruses are to be responsible for the insertion of the virus if they are not used. This is what they should do:

1. Insert the pen drive.
2. Do not open the pen drive (or diskette) when prompted by this dialogue box.


3. Scan with anti virus (Kaspersky is provided by the Ministry of Education, thankfully)
4. Use the pen drive safely.


There is also a technical way (using CMD.exe or Command Window) of removing pen drive virus I found here.

Chess Club is No More

This new year brings sadness to SMKTIP(2) Chess Club. Apart from being a club, it is now regarded as only a sport, thus no chairman or committee members are required. On the bright side, it is good for us that no annual meeting is needed. But, the downside is that it is hard to organise programmes, internally or externally, when there is no board members to do the work. However, for me as the advisor, or now called as a coach, I welcome this change as I have so many things to do. Handling a club requires more of my time than coaching a sport, which merely requires finding the talents and grooming them to participate in tournaments.

Gender Imbalance

This week, two more teachers got their transfer requests fulfilled. It so happen that both of them already served more than five years in Gua Musang. This leads to gender imbalance of the remaining teachers in my school as all those who are transferred here are females (10 of them), except for one from Cameron Highlands, while those who got away from this school are more balanced (6 females, 7 males). It is hard to put the male teachers to all the important tasks, therefore female teachers have to be more independent when given the task to head some departments. Again, I am given the job as the ICT teacher, as well as the manager of the students' data system (SMM).

School Access Centre

School Access Centre (SAC) is a cyber cafe in a school compound, designed to enable students to access the Internet without having to spend valuable money at cyber cafes outside the school. It is sponsored by the Ministry of Education, and for now, only a handful of schools received this generous investment by the ministry. My school is among the fortunate ones, and it is functioning well for the students' benefit. Moreover, I assigned students as committees to take care of the SAC, and it is a good opportunity for them to learn about responsibilities. I am not worried about the contents of the Internet available to the students though, as it is filtered by the Schoolnet system. Apart from that, students are given the chance to relax themselves after a hard day of study by listening to the music while they are surfing, or sending e-mails, or whatever they do.

The SAC committee members, Nabilah and Ain

Teachers and Extra Tasks

I've been an inactive blogger for 2 years now, during which there have been so many things happened since the last time I logged in. 2 and a half years at SMKTIP(2) happen so fast, with so many interesting memories now residing in the 'memory section' of my brain. Throughout the colourful years, I taught mainly English Language for lower secondary students. Nowadays, I am given the task to introduce these students to the Information and Computer Technology, or ICT. It is a challenging subject, so to speak, because I am not an IT graduate. But, I try to do it as best as I can, for it is my duty to adhere to the task given. On the contrary, what have been happening all these years are teachers withholding their abilities and skills just not to burden themselves with extra works, be it academically or in extra curricular activities. Although they have the knowledge in accounting, for example, they prefer to keep quiet and go on teaching lower secondary mathematics. Some of them have the expertise in English debating, to cite an extra curricular activity, but they have the heart to let an inexperience Geography teacher to guide the debate students who are going to represent the school. As in my case, I pay the price for revealing most of my abilities, as I am given many tasks by the school authorities. Even though I do not regard it as a burden, but time constraints restrict the percentage of what I can accomplish compared to distributing these tasks among the others. The principal and his administrative staffs do not know what you can do unless you offer yourself to do the task. And even though you do not have the skills to do that particular job, you can always learn from those who know, in order to upgrade yourself to another level.

Teachers and Holidays

It's been a while since I last jot down my thoughts. Well, these two weeks I get tired easily as the final exam is around the corner and there are books to be read. That's why when I have the time to sit in front of my computer to share something, I got drowsy. However, I want to share with you something about holiday. There always have been unsatisfactory comments on us teachers about how much time we are free. Regardless of what they say, I personally think that teachers don't really have a nice time for themselves. Teachers even bring their works to home and had many sleepless night fighting the deadline to submit the examination marks. Not to mention the everyday work of preparing the lesson plans. Even in school holidays teachers have to attend courses to enhance their command in their respective fields. Don't even think about giving teachers extra works not related to teaching, as what happened before when they asked teachers to catch PATI (Pendatang Asing Tanpa Izin) or illegal immigrants.