Barcamp Singapore; Redefining Learning

Barcamp Singapore was held at Suntec City Tower 3 just today. The location was generously sponsored by the IDA. Registrations began at 9 in the morning and the crowd comprised of the tech savvy, year 2 and year 3 students from SP’s Media and Communication and people well-versed in other areas of study. We all had something in common though, we all wanted to learn something from Barcamp.

What on EARTH is this Barcamp?

“BarCamp is an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos and interaction from participants who are the main actors of the event.”
-Ripped off the official Barcamp website barcamp.org (they explain it best)

From America to Tokyo, Barcamp is held in countries all over the world where learning is made open and interactive. Different rooms are allocated different topics at different times and people are allowed to propose topics to discuss and vote for the topics they want to know more about.

I attended four discussions today:

1. “Learn how to draw by using both sides of the brain” – JF Koh

JF explained that our society is one that values left brainers, the logic-centered, rational individual rather than the gifted right brainer, which is why most of us exercise our left brains before the right.

He taught us how to isolate the left brain and with drawing activities, showed us how our right and left brains come into play when we draw. Use of the left brain connects drawings to words and meanings. So when you draw with the left brain, you usually only draw the main details and what is most obvious. For example, drawing just a silhouette of a normal hand.

However, when drawing with the right brain, you pay attention to the visuals, so using the hand example, you would draw not only the BIG picture of a hand, you would draw the details that you observe visually, like the knuckles and nails too.

Also, music exercises both the left and the right brain because of the combination of words and abstract sounds made by instruments.

2. Spiciest , Hottest most evil food – Nitin Pai

According to the Scoville scale, the bhut jolokia and the habanero are currently the spiciest chillies found. The speaker also shared with us some of his favourite recipes. A really good talk to have, especially with some of the Barcamp guests traveling the Asia region.

3. For smart geeks: how to explain difficult concepts to lesser beings – coleman

This was one of my favourite sessions because I AM a lesser being. Coleman used a very nice example of the MRT’s no eating AND drinking rule to explain the AND and OR operator theories.

His golden rules to simplification are just to use analogies and to oversimplify. If you want to take a look at his slides, you can visit his website at www.metacole.com.

4. (Tech) Tools to Personal Effectiveness (aka how to be more BAD ASS) – James Norris

James gave us tips on how to be effective at reaching our personal goals and get things done. From his to-do list to his happiness ratings, he has graphs and charts for everything. You can access his personal development kit on his website at www.jnorris.org

I love how Barcamp provides a channel for people to broaden their knowledge. The people there were truly eager to learn, exchanging ideas with each other all the time. They were always encouraging toward the speakers and open to new concepts.

Always remember, no question is a dumb question.