Greetings and salutations!

Dear denizens of 12S03V and 12S06L,

First and foremost, welcome to this blog.

Week 8 is upon us and with the Common Test 1 looming in the near future, I think you realise that the fun and games that you have been accustomed to in Year 5 are slowly coming to a standstill and you are back to the daily grind of lectures and tutorials – but that doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing : )

Although this blog was set up primarily to provide you a platform to continue your in-class discussions (or even start new ones), you are also free to air your views or concerns with regard to college-based events and activities.

Several guidelines when posting to this blog:

1. Please try as far as possible to use grammatically-correct English. This means no computer jargon (msn or sms – type language or short forms though smiley faces are fine). After all, this is one way in which we can all try to improve our written English. I realise it may not come naturally at first, but give it time and I think you can all rise to the challenge.
2. Please have ownership over what you blog about (i.e. you need to take accountability for your words by signing off with your class and name after each post). This ensures that nobody hides behind the curtain of anonymity and gets away with controversial or salacious entries. This is not to say we must avoid controversy at all costs – on the contrary! Debate or dissent is crucial to a lively discussion.
3. There are 2 GP classes included as authors of this blog and I chose not to have a separate class blog for each of you as I think although we may be discussing the same issues in class, the points raised may be different. It is therefore important that we leverage on one another’s strengths and weaknesses. Therefore, all parties involved in any online discussion here need to do it in an academic fashion – do not put down your peers unnecessarily (no spamming, flaming, disagreeing for the sake of disagreeing) and when there is an issue you can’t seem to agree on or resolve, I certainly hope it wouldn’t translate to you being uncivil to each other in real life as well.
4. When replying to a thread, please do it in the comments section so that the rest of us can follow the discussion proper. Only start a new post when you are trying to introduce a new idea or pose a new query. I personally feel that this cuts down on the confusion.
5. Please do not ask me to change the blogskin (I love simplicity hence the bare, white, zen-like choice of theme. I also think words/thoughts/opinions should be the focus of this blog, so that’s what we should colour or decorate the blog with). Please also do not ask me to include a tagboard. Those who have come before you have tried and failed – but perhaps you could be more persuasive than them and are feeling lucky : )
   

Ok, I think I have rambled on long enough about the do’s and don’ts. I apologise in advance if you think they are too restrictive. The ball’s in your court now.

Here’s to intelligent, healthy, collegial discussions!

Best regards.