Singapore Colloquial English and Standard English

Singapore English can be described as diglossic, that is, most of the proficient adult users of English in Singapore use two grammatically distinct varieties of English: (1) Singapore Colloquial English, which is used with close friends, to children, and informally in general and (2) Standard English, which is used in writing, in formal situations, and is associated with education. Singapore Colloquial English is informally learnt, while the teaching of Standard English is a primary responsibility of the school.

Students at the National University of Singapore, and especially those taking courses in the Department of English Language and Literature, can be expected to show the highest attainment levels in Standard English of those coming from the education system. The oral skills of these students are generally very good, both in comprehension and production. Their control of vocabulary is outstanding. While some students still have problems producing Standard English (especially in the area of tenses) most students make few grammatical errors. However, they do have problems with the organisation of material, report writing, and techniques of argumentation. Students also tend to write in a uniformly journalistic style, having little control over the use of different styles for different types of writing. Awareness of the functions of English in Singapore may help teachers to understand the importance of stylistic appropriacy.     

Using Learning Style Instruments to Enhance Student Learning

The emergence of numerous learning style models over the past 25 years has brought increasing attention to the idea that students learn in diverse ways and that one approach to teaching does not work for every student or even most students. We have reviewed five learning style instruments (the Kolb Learning Style Indicator, the Gregorc Style Delineator, the Felder–Silverman Index of Learning Styles, the VARK Questionnaire, and the Dunn and Dunn Productivity Environmental Preference Survey) in this article in order to describe the learning style modes or dimensions measured in the instruments; find the common measures and the differences; report on research on instrument validity, reliability, and possible improvement in student performance; suggest classroom activities that work with the different student learning styles; and recommend selection of models under several conditions. We also review one additional learning style instrument, the Revised Approaches to Studying Inventory, as a complementary approach to using one or more of the first five learning style instruments.     

The Case for Dynamic Models of Learners' Ontologies in Physics

We cannot really understand how to create computer support for collaborative learning without first becoming clearer about what we mean by communication, collaboration, and learning. After distinguishing several conceptions of communication, and highlighting transformative communications for learning, I consider how, via broadband telepresence, distributed multimedia learning environments may establish such communications by adequately acknowledging the social and material embeddedness of everyday communication. I then describe high-priority areas for advancing this agenda: in sociocultural theory, in examining conceptual change by means of conversational analysis, and in technically establishing affordances of tools to sustain and potentially enhance joint activity beyond the here-and-now and the face-to-face.     

Validating a teaching survey which drives increased response rates in a unit survey

At Curtin University, student perceptions of teaching and learning are gathered and reported online through eVALUate, a system that includes separate unit and teaching surveys. This article reports the development and validation of one of those surveys, the eVALUate teaching survey, which was developed based on the research literature on excellent teaching and evaluation. Since its development in 2006, repeated statistical testing using progressively larger samples has shown that the survey is valid and reliable. Moreover, the way in which the teaching survey is deployed within eVALUate, appended to the unit survey, which provides crucial institutional data, has significantly increased university response rates. This validated instrument is used for self-reflection, professional development, and rewarding staff.     

The Poor Man's Lamb Revisited? Assessing the State of LPFM at its 10th Anniversary

In this article the authors report the results of a year-long investigation into the state of the low-power FM (LPFM) industry on its 10th anniversary. They question whether LPFM stations give voice to the previously voiceless as envisioned or, as some research has indicated, benefit religious communities' efforts to expand their cultural reach. Using a 2-phase study, the authors first mapped the LPFM industry using Federal Communications Commission data and public information provided by LPFM stations and their owners and operators over the Internet. The authors then conducted interviews with dozens of LPFM operators across the United States. Results indicate that large interests, in particular religious organizations, have created de facto networks that rely on outside entities for the majority of programming, thus circumventing the spirit of the original policy.     

Inclusion or Illusion? An Analysis of the FCC's Public Hearings on Media Ownership 2006–2007

An assessment of the extent of public involvement in the FCC's media ownership hearings in 2006–07 was conducted through an analysis of the hearings' structure, the 732 public comments made in them, and the FCC's ensuing Report & Order (R&O). In light of the rising call for pluralism, direct democracy and public involvement in policy deliberations, the results reveal that the FCC consistently hindered public participation in the hearing process it initiated and managed through limited advance notice, inconvenient timing, a hearing structure that subordinated the public to experts and stakeholders, and scarce mention of public comment in the final report.     

The usage and adoption of cloud computing by small and medium businesses

Cloud computing has become the buzzword in the industry today. Though, it is not an entirely new concept but in today's digital age, it has become ubiquitous due to the proliferation of Internet, broadband, mobile devices, better bandwidth and mobility requirements for end-users (be it consumers, SMEs or enterprises). In this paper, the focus is on the perceived inclination of micro and small businesses (SMEs or SMBs) toward cloud computing and the benefits reaped by them. This paper presents five factors influencing the cloud usage by this business community, whose needs and business requirements are very different from large enterprises. Firstly, ease of use and convenience is the biggest favorable factor followed by security and privacy and then comes the cost reduction. The fourth factor reliability is ignored as SMEs do not consider cloud as reliable. Lastly but not the least, SMEs do not want to use cloud for sharing and collaboration and prefer their old conventional methods for sharing and collaborating with their stakeholders.