This evening I am giving a short presentation at NTU’s eFest2008 seminar. This seminar will launch a suite of new Web 2.0 learning tools – Bb Scholar, Bb Sync and aNTUna Connect. The tools are an integral component of NTU’s commitment to Web 2.0 technologies within its edveNTUre eLearning portal.

The presentation is just over one hour away and I am about take my dinner.

Arrived in Singapore last night. Woke up this morning. Did some work. Then caught a bus and train into Chinatown. When I took the escalators from the Outram Park MRT Station up to street level I was struck by a wonderful aroma ~ rain. It was raining so heavily. It was wonderful. The rain smelt so good.

Grabbed some lunch. I took a few photographs around Chinatown. I love to see the old and the new mixed up. The tropical lush attempting, yet struggling, to reclaim its territory. Note the building below which is being retrofitted with elevators that stop at each floor. Previously, I think, they stopped at every fourth floor judging by the landings. One would alight and than take stairs up or down to your specific floor.

I went across to Bugis and Sim lim Square looking for a QuikPod but  I had no luck.

Grabbed a drink and took a few snaps of people. In particular, the Singapore Malay couple below who were dressed for post Hari Raya celebrations. They both looked so resplendent.

Took the train back to Boon Lay MRT. Like to see the bike racks outside the station. Should be more of that back home.

Singaporean bloggers have been very hard at work in recent weeks and in particular this weekend.

First of all a group of Singaporean bloggers, known collectively as the ‘media socialists‘ have been quite busy. They are not ‘socialists’ per se. They are a group of academics, civil servants, consultants and designers who are passionate and actively involved in social media, or what many people call “new media”. A group of the media socialists devoted a rather busy week creating a response, via a collaborative wiki, to the recent AIMS Consultation Paper advising the Singaporean government on engaging citizens through new media.

This form of collaboration and selfless sharing demonstrates how blogging and social media can be utilised to connect with governments and organisations. Individuals can come together collectively to achieve outcomes that would have been so difficult for an individual. Another group of Singaporean bloggers have also contributed to the debate. You can read all about the work of the media socialists here. I am heartened by the knowledge that the media socialists have included myself in their ranks due to my connections with the island state and personal friendships with a number of the actual bloggers.

I have been keeping tabs on their work via blogger extraordinaire, Kevin Lim. Now, who is Kevin Lim? He is a visionary, a researcher, a student and as he points out on his blog Kevin  “…is currently pursuing his doctoral degree in Communication at the University at Buffalo (SUNY). Dabbling for both pragmatic and play, he seeks an ideal interplay between online and offline life, through social networking, blogging and lifecasting. He openly wishes to become a “social cyborg”, where the meshing of human and networking technology would allow one’s presence to be augmented by the minds of many.”

On a separate front my friend Siva has been co-ordinating the International Coastal Cleanup Singapore. This involves 3000 volunteers. Blogging and connectedness play a crucial role in harnessing the volunteers, gathering data and publishing results. I remember back in 2001 and 2002 results were being published within minutes of the cleanup conclusion. Tonnes of rubbish are cleared away from beaches and mangroves during the cleanup.

Siva provides updates via his blog and the ICCS blog. The cleanup is happening today, as I type, and already several updates have been posted to the blog.

Siva uses blogging and the net to bring together students, teachers, and members of the community to work on environmental and other projects that benefit the people of Singapore. Siva has been using blogs as a tool to augment his research and teaching for at least five years now. Here are some of his blogs, those of his students and blogs that he contributes towards.

The Otterman ~ original blog
The Otterman ~ current blog
Habitat News
The Biology Refugia
LSM2351 Ecology and Environmental Processes
LSM1103 Biodiversity
LSM3261 Life Form and Function
LSM1301 Animal Behaviour
The Biodiversity Crew at NUS
The Pursuit of Anurans
Biodiversity of Insects at Kent Ridge
Fauna of Kent Ridge
Johora singaporensis
Frogs in Singapore
Horseshoe Crabs of Kranji
ToddyCats
Mangrove Shrimps of Kranji
Pasir Panjang Heritage
Singapore Heritage Blog

I would not be surprised that if one looked up the term blog in an illustrated dictionary there would be photographs of Siva and Kevin within the text of the definition. They are the definitive bloggers.

Most of all they achieve measurable outputs. They are productive. They assist the community. I wish I was in Singapore right now.

These photographs were taken at Boat Quay, Singapore. Years back it was a busy port with small boats and sampans lining the shores, busy with crews loading and unloading their cargoes. These days it is a tourist mecca with restaurants, bars and pubs. One can eat and drink outside, under the stars, by the Singapore River. It is busy of an evening and relatively quiet by day.

During my first job in Singapore the programmers, designers and I would occasionally set up camp in a quiet coffee shop by the river and work there, swapping files via a local wireless network set up by our Macs. Our office was a kilometre or so away in Chinatown.

Shao Ping and I did not go to Boat Quay all that often. We would take our visitors there for dinner or a drink. There are a few bars that are the haunts of expatriates that work in the CBD. I never felt that comfortable in those venues. I felt that there was an air or pretension in those places.

I took these two photographs with a Sony DSC-70 digital camera. I sat the camera on a stone fence and left the shutter open for a few seconds.

Tiong Bahru is an area of Singapore that I had not explored before. I had been to the shopping plaza adjacent to the MRT station but I had not explored some of the older areas of the town. I had often traveled past streets that I wished to wander around and during my last trip to Singapore I took the chance to pay a visit to Tiong Bahru.

I took a number of photographs as I walked around the estate. I walked along the following roads: Tiong Poh Road, Kim Cheng Street, Lim Liak Street and Tiong Bahru Road. It is one of the oldest housing estates in Singapore. Some of the buildings date back to the 1930s and feature a mix of art deco and Straits Settlements design. I quite like the estate. There are a few estates, like Tiong Bahru, that are like little ‘islands’ that are cut off from the hustle and bustle of Singapore. They include Bukit Purmei and the Eng Kong estate.

Go to Google Maps