Before we hit Skype for Pinoy Tech Podcast Episode 4, I'd just like to post the link (pahabol lang) to Pinoy Tech Podcast Episode 03: The 40 day social network abstinence, which I wasn't able to join since I was at the hotel in Cebu chilling with the great people from Microsoft after the very successful Web Ramp Up event there. To all our friends and attendees in Cebu, daghang salamat!
We're going to discuss a little about the history of the internet in the Philippines (something we've been doing in tidbits the past 3 episodes anyway) and then go on to discuss about the state of computer science education in the country, so do watch out for the next episode, which would most likely come out this Saturday.
Do you remember Barron's Book Notes? Back in high school and even in college, these little booklets were indispensable resources when a student needed to study and review whatever classic English literature was assigned for reading. It was so effective, however, that many times you never read, say, "Don Quixote" in its entirety -- you just read Barron's Booknotes and you're all set for your exam. While I didn't use Barron's Booknotes for English lit, I did use a local equivalent for "reading" Rizal's Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo.
The result -- I can't really say that I've read Noli and Fili. Not only that, I can't remember anything about those books -- fiction that are integral to the history of the Philippines -- because all of whatever faux knowledge I held in my head was quickly disposed of after their required shelf life: the final exams. Even worse, I don't have any genuine and original opinion about two books that started a revolution in my country.
Edu Lorenzo's rant on his blog "Dangerous Passivity" reminds me of this predicament:
There are a lot of questions there that are asked, but have been asked before, and have already been answered completely in the same forums. It’s not that I don’t like helping out but the thing is, the forum has this searchbox where you can search for the answers you need.
Then there are times when someone asks a questions, then another guy answers with a link. As a moderator, I feel I need to check the link too and see if the correct answer is there. Lo and behold.. the answer really is there; of course. But then, the thread starter, asks yet another question, whose answer is also in the link given! It’s really disconcerting.
Then there are companies with IT departments populated by what they call their brightest minds. I give them a demo on how to use a certain technology.. then.. a few days later, they email me with a question that was included in the demo.
This attitude of passivity.. what can I account it to? School? Training? Culture? tell me.. please..[eduardo's blog]
One of the really dangerous attitudes a person could acquire in school is forgetting about education -- and choosing academics over it. Instead of trying to really learn and understand the subject matter, students tend to prioritize subject matter which are the coverage of the exam, or finding out what the answers are to the most common possible questions.
This is what happened to me when I studied Noli and Fili because I took the shortcut and studied the books through a reviewer instead of reading the whole book and grokking its substance, I never really understood what it was all about. What was more important was that possible questions in the exams are covered, and my score was high enough to pass the course.
Unfortunately, some people bring this attitude outside of school, and into their professions. They seek answers, but either don't want to or don't know how to do it the long way: they don't know how to research, they don't know how to ask intelligent questions, hell, some of them even don't know how to go use Google. And many software developers are guilty of this: many of them seek answers on the net, asking for "teh codez", and end up copy-pasting badly written samples. Some of them refuse to read through articles, and will ask people who gave them that link to point out the answers explicitly.
It's not so much in that they aren't intelligent, or they're lazy -- it's the attitudes instilled in school that prevail. "Getting the wrong answer" is a bad thing. "Failing" is a bad thing. Such attitudes impede individuals of the ability to proactively seek knowledge and wisdom; they would rather get the "correct" answer from another individual (which sounds so much like cheating with seatmates), than accept the responsibility of coming up with an answer themselves.
In a knowledge-intensive profession such as software development, this attitude becomes a liability. Actively learning new technologies is so crucial in a developer's professional standing that they can't afford to wait for someone else to tell them the right answers for each and every question. It is imperative that software developers accept the fact that there are no right answers; that it's okay to get it wrong, and that it's fine to let go of the need for getting things right the first time.
Once a software developer masters this, that is -- accepting the possibility that they can get wrong, and make mistakes -- that is the only time they can start being creative, and create wonderful things out of the lessons learned from those mistakes.
With the Web Ramp Up held last February 26 coming up fast, and with work piling up the pressure, not to mention a job performance appraisal I'm not happy about (totally my fault, but busted my morale nonetheless),I totally missed out on my podcasts the whole month of February. So on the morning of the 27th I fired up iTunes, synced my iPod, and totally found the one Twitter WPF client that I should have talked about during Web Ramp Up!
Scott Hanselman of Hanselminutes talked with the creators of blu, a WPF Twitter client made by a design company called thirteen23. And boy was I blown away.
It was one of those Homer Simpson "doh!" moments where I reminded myself that even if I'm uber-busy, I should stop and look at my RSS feeds and updates, which might yield something both new and relevant to whatever I am doing at the moment.
Oh, and the feature that I was trying to add to Witty, wherein I was retrieving the "source" tweet of a certain reply tweet? Blu actually has that feature. I'm totally impressed!
You can download blu here.
Of course, those attending the Cebu edition of Web Ramp Up will get to see blu integrated in my presentation. See you guys in Cebu on Friday!
The guys of Pinoy Tech Podcast (including me) came out with our second episode of our podcast. In this episode we discussed Google Maps, Google Latitude, and the ubiquity of the internet in the Philippines, with side stories of my trip to Coron, Busuanga Island, Palawan, the other weekend.
Hope you enjoy this episode! :)
One of the peculiar circumstances of the recently concluded Web Ramp Up 2009 for me is that I will be doing this presentation twice: after last week's event as SMX, we're going to do it all over again this time in Cebu, on Friday, March 13.
Now, having conducted the presentation last February 26, I was able to browse through the evaluation forms, and immediately got feedback and criticism regarding my talk. This gives me a unique opportunity to refine my talk based on that feedback -- retain the good stuff, take out the bad, and do it all over again on the second Friday the 13th of the year.
What had happened underscores the importance of those evaluation forms they give out during MSDN Sessions and Microsoft seminars: it gives us speakers the chance to find out how we did, and give insight on how to improve our material. So for those who gave substantial, concrete feedback during my talk, whether it was positive or negative, thank you very much.
Of course, for the benefit of those in Manila, I'll be posting the revised slides a week or so from now, so do watch out for it.
For those in Cebu, see you next week!