"ARRRGGHH!WTH is wrong with the projector?!" grumbled Mr Chee as he tried to set up the equipment for the tutorial session.
"Why not call Anwar?" Suggested Clarissa.
"Yea..he's always very good at fixing all those jiapalang stuff!" chirped Pak Hong, the smartest and most arrogant person in class.
For those of you who don't know him, Anwar is the AV genuis in school. Though he's a staff, he does'nt teach so most of us call him Anwar, though some teachers prefer us to call him Anwar. But today, luck was not working in his favour. Anwar was on medical leave.
Almost 15 minutes have passed since the period started. To all of us who loved to slack this was a perfect opportunity to sleep or catch up on the latest gossip. Gradually, the noise level in the room started to build up as students start to get into their own conversations, leaving Mr Chee stranded at his laptop.
Finally, he blurted,"Ok class! Since the projector is spoilt..."
"YAY!!!!" came the resounding cheer.
"Quiet!.. I wanted to show you a video on Chinese history today but since this projector is not happy with me today, we shall do something else more interesting" , he continued," Please take out your history textbooks and turn to page 56....yes...the O level one...you are no longer in Sec2.."
'No! no! the bottom should be bigger" blurted all of us.
Mr Chee simply stood at the corner and laughed. Acording to my observations, Mr Chee had hardly laughed for some time. Being one of the more expressionless teachers in school, we never expected him to have so much emotions. the last time we saw him laugh like that was when his hydraulic rocket blew up at our "Da Vinci Challenge" Science festival. So what was so funny? Basically, as part of our intorduction chapter on Chinese History, some students in our class were being saboe-ed(picked) to draw out a map of china on the board. According to what we saw a few seconds ago in our textbook, the map of China is like a rooster with a huge belly, and with some wierd curvy wurvy lines. This is a challenge for even the best artist, not to mention, average Secondary School students like us. Today, the unlucky souls that were picked were Bing Wen and Azah. Both of them have absolutely no talent in art.
"Who can draw me a better one?" Asked Mr Chee
Ask Xiao Wei!" Blurted Bing Wen, as he returned to his seat.
Xiao Wei adjusted her glasses and looked away from Mr Chee. Being the quietest girl in class, she was seldom noticed by teachers and she liked to keep it that way as she did not want to embarass herself in front of everyone.
"Xiao Wei, you wana try?" Mr Chee walked up to her seat and handed her the marker.
"Jiayou shorty!" shouted Pak Hong.
"Poke him!Bing Wen!" Shouted Clarissa.
Xiao Wei climbed onto the spare chair and started drawing. In no time, she finished her piece of "art" which looked almost like the one we see on our atlas.
'Very good!" Exclaimed Mr Chee
"Now can some one tell me where is Shaanxi? You may refer to the part on the long march, though I doubt it'll be of any help.."
All of us flipped through our textbooks but to no avail.
"There!" Rosanne shouted as she pointed at some space somewhere on the whiteboard.
'Don't be an idiot! It's there!" Blurted Pak Hong, as he pointed at the other side of the whiteboard.
"Pak Hong, would you like to share with the class?" Mr Chee said as he walked up to Pak Hong.
He walked up to the board and stoned. "It's err...err...there!" and he plunged the marker onto the whiteboard, making a dot outside map. Everyone laughed and cheered. It was very obvious that he was wrong.
"Close. But not quite. Can someone else try?"
Pak Hong had no choice but to return to his seat. We could all see how confused he was and the urge in his face to just dig and hole and dive straight into it. he had to save his face.
"If only they had a map, I would have gotten it correct." He announced.
"How about you Xian Heng?"
Xian Heng was one of the least academically inclined students on our class who prefers more basketball to mugging. He walked up to the board and labelled clearly the precise location of Shaanxi.
"Very good!Can you tell us where you found the answer?"
'In the map attatched to the appendix."
"Excellent!"
The bell for lunch rang and it signals the time for the teachers to wrap up what they have to teach for the period before the lessons ends.
"Mr Chee, can we continue to have lessons like this?" Asked Clarissa as students start streaming out of the classroom.
'Why so?"
Honestly speaking, this session has helped us excercise our imagination and ingenuity when it comes to learning a new topic. If Mr Chee has simply projected the map of China and the precise locations of the important events, we probably would not have commited to memory all the facts we learned as it would have just flashed across our minds and dissappear in a flash as well.
The reason why people created powerpoint presentations was because it could bring students closer to the information/facts they are studying with the rich veriety of pictures available. However, this also means that teachers can alos sit infront of their laptops and start talking to it instead of their students. The interactivity becomes not between the students and the information, but between the teacher and the computer.
So what is interactivity? A balance bewteen the use of IT as well as interaction bewteen students and teachers. Lessons are not just about flashing answers and flashing facts on the screen. It's about letting facts sink deep into the minds of us students.
Notes:
This story is entirely fictional and any relation to anyone living or dead is purely coincidental.
Photos added for easier and more interesting reading. they're taken during some Biz Club meeting. The last picture was provided by a friend from SRJC.
This story is set in a secondary school so some of the points stated may not be relevent to JC life.
This story was originally written in Chinese. I've translated and re-written it to suit the Singapore context. Please mind me for my poor expression and Grammer in English. thanks!
Original Story from (Stories about Communications in Campus)
Author:Yau Sum
Published: April 2003, Breakthrough Ltd.
ISBN 962-264-388-4
Day3 of CNY
I shall not elaborate too much about what happened at Siyi's house today. XD It's just too funny! Go read her blog:http://slowslowgal.blogspot.com/ which can be fopund under my links. 
