Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Monday, June 25, 2012

wildlife need to be protected and can be a good bio-indicator for the equilibrium of the forest and forest health. Wildlife can ensure the sustainability of the forests



Future of our forests: who will determine them? business man, politition, gangsters, young generation?......or need advice from scientists.


Research culture among postgraduates students in the local universities: Do we need to import postdoctoral candidates from well established research laboratories? We need grants, monitoring them or..... Local graduates need to be supervised by good professors!

Identify GOOD professors!!!!
Hunt for them, give grants and ask them to develop culture, future scientists and create scientific communities in their areas.
Get good head to lead not a dreamer or NATO

What Malaysian Scientists can do to promote consistent supply of banana in the country instead of Malaysian eating chemical treated imported banana and insect infected banana from local.

Whar are popular banana in Malaysia.
How and where to grow them
What are the diseases problems
marketing problems?
harvesting, storing and transporting them? .......

Understanding Malaysian culture: respect, ceremonial and harmony.

Enviromental or Nature Education is a continuous activities and should be run across the country. Big government agencies companies should support this programme as their corporate social responsibility (CSR)

Friday, June 22, 2012

How to Email a Professor

NEVER begin with "Hey" or similar. Spell your professor's name correctly. Generally speaking you should use "Dear Professor Last-name." Do not use "Mr. Last-name", especially when the professor has a PhD, where the only alternative honorific is "Dr.". If he or she signs the reply with a first name it is still best to address her/him as "Professor" in an email. Do not use the professor's first name unless you have been explicitly invited to do so.

Thursday, June 21, 2012

Functional Graduates, Intelect and employablity

All universities want their graduates employed by the employer, become entrepreneurs or creating their own jobs. But looking at the quality and attitude of students when they enter the university, the way they behave during study, their attitude as a university's students and the outcomes they show in the examination, in general the quality of students are questionable.
We have to look seriously on the students qualification, attitude, culture, lectures quality, teaching attitude, system in the university, environment and demanding from the employer for status and compete for glamour.
Who should thing about this and take action?

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Education Policy: Dialog, debate, ..... no action??

To day I have the opportunity to discuss with many politicians to advice the government on the education policy. Whats wrong with the current policy and the implementation of the policy. Unfortunately many are talking about simple things and very superficial such as "menghasilkan insan yang kamil, etc..." but how to do it and what kind of expectation, no body touch. I suggested to them just do it the old policy, make the teacher efficient, know what to teach, how to teach, to whom they suppose to teach and what are their expectation, the outcomes.
Teachers need to be trained. The government was wrong when the teachers were given allowance instead of training then to be a good teachers teaching mathematics and science in English.
Many more need to be done in order to translate the curriculum effectively.

I think public concern on environment still low in Malaysia. Look at haze issues, how we responded, still traffic jam in Kuala Lumpur, still not efficient services in public transport, open burning, etc. Similar thing to rubbish, domestic waste, recycle campaign, etc. Need Agressive education, planning, laws and enforcement.

May be we need effective modules for environmental education programmes. OR more research to convince the public and politician

RIO+20, Kyoto protocol, many more agreement: Forest fire and haze continues!

Sunday, June 17, 2012

Coastal mangrove ecosystems belong to public, country and probably to the world. Therefore damages made by individual or companies must be given serious attention by the authorities and always refer to the scientist or all experts related to mangrove ecosystems.

Survey and identify specific area for protection, conservation, replanting, tourism attraction places, recreation, fisheries inportance, integrated use of mangrove ecosystems for fisheries, ecotourism, recreation, wildlife conservation, sustainability, security and other benefit in economy, tourism, fisheries and conservation.

although when they growing older they may not like science, nature and environment, early exposure is very important and neccessary.

 mangrove ecosystem need to be monitored by the experts regularly and provide data and advice for the authority and local fisherman, tourist operators and others.

 Not all places are suitable for replanting. need detail studies on the ecological changes and natural transformation of sediment, water flow, human activities.
 
Imagine how many school children involved in this mangrove seedling planting activities including international participants, a lot of money involve in transportation, food, accommodations and seed supply, etc.. The programme was well covered by media, etc. But now they looked like this. Why? definitely need experts supervision, not just ceremonial and popularity and perhaps business opportunity.

Forest fire, haze, water, air soil pollution, excess of CO2 and big scale algae culture for biofuel and food will help in reducing forest fire and biodiversity problems

Air Hitam Forest Reserve: A sanctuary for research and education. Public must understand AHFR not just for the forest protection and conservation for future generation, green lungs for Klang Valley, and green areas BUT more than that where we can make it as a centre of international research and education, out door laboratories for school children and research for forestry, biology, ecology and nature based interest among students and public.

Blood cockles: important fisheries products in Malaysia and exported a lot to our neighbours. But how far we protected this fisheries products? Research and development of cockles culture, how many experts on cockles we have in Malaysia? How about sedimentation rate, surface sediments texture, water quality, pollution, harvesting techniques, and many more biology and ecological factors need to be studied.

May be we need more than 10 PhDs in blood cockles and continuous research in order to sustain our blood cockles production and leading in exporting to the worlds consumption.

mangrove planting for conservation, coastal protection, fisheries, education, business or just ceremonial?

Scientists, Biologist, ecologist need to help them so that the mangrove planting activities will be the success one. Otherwise just a ceremonial or publicity. Type of mangrove, zonation, niche, salinity, sedimentation, ecological changes and many more can be a reasons why mangrove replanting failed.

Monday, June 11, 2012

Why we do not listen to our boss? May be because he do not pay our salary?


Checklist For Effective Jobs: Everyone must have daily checklist then we know what we are doing for the day and we do not miss anything.


Delivering Effective Lectures: Lecture Skills Checklist


Lecture Skills Checklist
Presentation Skills
Preparation Skills
1.      Selected lecture methods in advance.  
2.      Prepared lecture notes in advance. 
3.      Prepared audiovisuals in advance.
4.       Planned effective techniques to introduce the lecture.
5.       Arranged room appropriately.
Verbal Presentation Skills
1.       Projected voice (changed pitch, tone and volume).
2.        Avoided fillers (e.g., “um,” “er,” “you know,” etc.).
3.        Used many examples.
4.        Provided praise and reinforcement.
5.       Accepted student ideas and suggestions.
6.       Used appropriate humor.
 Nonverbal Presentation Skills 
1.       Maintained eye contact. 
2.       Maintained positive facial expressions.
3.       Gestured with hands and arms.
4.       Maintained good posture.
5.       Moved around the room with energy.
6.       Followed lecture notes.
  Questioning Skills
1.       Asked questions at varying levels of difficulty
2.       Asked questions to group.
3.       Asked questions to individual students.
4.       Involved all students (if possible).
5.       Repeated student responses and questions.
6.       Provided positive reinforcement.
  Audiovisual Skills
Used presentation media correctly.
 Summarizing Skills 
1.       Asked for questions.
2.       Asked questions.
3.        Used media to review main points.

Sunday, June 10, 2012

Society, Religion, Harmony and Politic

Social issues: is there any correlation between number of temples or mosques and number of population? for example look at Selangor state in Malaysia where high number of Muslim population have less number of mosque compared to Hindus and Buddhist and their temples.  This definitely involve a lot of issues such as territorial, racial, space, education, politic, understanding, environment, nature and future societies. Need some studies and analysis immediately.

World Class University (WCU): 1. University's leaders know what is world class university? 2. Is it enough by visiting top university in the world and come back telling people and condemn their own staff? 3. or they should come back and plan towards WCU? 4. What conflict do we have? Conflicts between professors who have WCU ideas and administrators, low quality students, inefficient and low skills supporting staff, lacking in basic facilities, leadership, public and politics?

Alumni contribution to the university is very imporant. At least develop confidence among good students to come to the university beside donation or fund raising.