“Mummy, can you teach me how to prepare powerpoint slides for my presentation?”  Brendan asked.

Surprised that he has to know how to prepare presentation slides at the age of 8, I asked him for what subject he has to do a presentation.  Apparently, he had to conduct a group study on a significant place in Singapore through site visit and independent internet search at home and then prepare slides to present on that topic. Fortunately, we have PC at home and  I am familiar with MS Powerpoint.  Although I did not teach him how to organize his slides for the presentation, he completed the assignment with my guidance.

I was wondering how students manage if they do not own a PC at home or have nobody to guide them on the usage of MS Powerpoint at home. If they are slow in school, they might not be able to follow too.  I was even more surprised that the standard in school is so high nowadays.  During my school days, I was not required to access internet until my university days and had no PC till I set up my own family.  I made use of PCs in campus and was not expected to be well-versed in MS Powerpoint till my working life. I remembered my first job when I had to regularly stand before many people in a theatrette to conduct presentation. Those first moments really freaked me out!  It was not until several sessions of presentations that I became more confident.

For his school’s presentation, my boy was assessed on the content of the presentation, his verbal and facial expression, articulation and others. I could not imagine how a Primary 3 boy understand how to perform for all these assessment factors. However, the advantage is that it prepares him to be more confident when speaking before a crowd.

Just a week ago, he said :”Mummy, now teacher asks us to learn how to use MS Excel to plot charts. He will show us how to do it in class. But can you also teach me and let me practise at home?” 

I was surprised again by the pace of his school curriculum but welcomed the idea that they start learning all these basic applications since young. I exclaimed: “Wow! MS Excel at this stage? You are so advanced Brendan!” Fortunately, I am proficient in MS applications and so again I had no problem guiding him. Last year, when he came to me on another occasion and asked me to show him how to type out an article in Chinese using the PC, I was stuck! English has always been my medium of communications at work and it was taken as a first language in school. I was never expected to prepare any document in Chinese. So, Mummy and son took a while but we found out how and we finished his assignment and I learned a new lesson too *phew*.

Children nowadays are really so advanced in information technology and we parents have to really catch up *oops*.

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